Blog Archives

Networking Thursdays - Volume 31

8/31/2017

Charles Fullerton has taught English abroad for more than 15 years, teaching in Costa Rica, Korea and now Qatar. He has an MA TESOL from Framingham State University and a CELTA certificate.

I think most people do some sort of extra work during their time in Korea. We teach a friend’s kid or get corporate gigs chatting with VP’s in English. At times, this extra work seems to be everywhere and there aren’t enough hours in the day to teach all the classes being offered to you. At other times, this all seems to dry up. It was during one of these dry spells that fate intervened to offer me a steadier part-time job. I was complaining about the lack of opportunity online when a coworker brought up the British Council and the IELTS exam. These jobs are normally pretty hush-hush, but he and his wife had been working there for a long time and they had worked with me for years so one of them mentioned there was IELTS examiner training that weekend and that I should apply. I had the interview with him and another British Council employee, did the training and have now worked testing 2-3 weekends per month in both Korea and Qatar for the past three years. I never really knew about the test, and I certainly wouldn’t have known about the training, without those friends bringing it up that fateful day.

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Networking Thursdays - Volume 30

8/24/2017

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A. Jake Preston MA (TESOL-MALL) is an Australian born professor of English who has been teaching in Korean and Chinese universities since 1999. His educational passions include critical theory application to literature and refocusing English education as an extension of identity development.

“I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be

very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great

energies and talents of its people.”

Thomas J. Watson, Jr.

A Business and its Beliefs (1963)

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you

become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welch.

So, how do you ‘grow others’? How do you turn a “dog-eat-dog” battle to climb the corporate ladder into helping others. Well, one way to go up is to climb ladders, knocking of rivals and competitors along the way. That’s the standard way. That’s the dumb way. The other way, is to open the elevator doors – and as I found out, to open them not just for yourself, but for others. Years ago I was working as an English Professor at Woosong University in Daejeon, South Korea. Woosong was a behemoth. It hired well over 100 English professors, and we all were assigned classes and duties hither and thither. Working there was like being a small cog in an impossibly large and unfathomable machine. There was no sense of personal connectedness, no concrete view of impact we were having. We were never with any group of students long enough to form those crucial, longed for bonds of care and trust.

In the midst of this rather grim atmosphere an unexpected opportunity appeared. A door was opened. A colleague, Tim Thompson, contacted me with a horizontal promotion. It was to work 50% of my time with the Tourism Department, in a teaching program that Tim was pioneering. It was aimed at making English education both meaningful and rewarding. On face value, the promotion wasn’t a huge thing; no boost in salary, no secretary, no private jet; but it became a huge thing. What began as a schedule of working half my time with just one department, soon became the realization of my teaching desires, to have my own sense of place, to be enabled to make deep connections and to see my impact on the lives of my colleagues and students. It was the opening of a door to job satisfaction, to a sense of purpose and to leadership. I don’t know how Tim was able to see in me; out of 100 plus teachers; the potential for successful leaders know that the career ladder is not a zero-sum game. One of the key points that my own story has taught me, is the value of managers who are perspicacious, canny, utlizers of the human resources they have at their disposal. These rare individuals - and in any rigidly hierarchical organization such people really are rare – see the big picture, and view talented colleagues not as a threat or competitor but as a resource and a boon. Tim was that kind of guy, as was his boss Professor Mikyoung Shin. They gave me a chance to develop myself, even when it conflicted with their own apparent interests.

The next major nudge in my career was being poached by the Culinary Arts Department. This was widely regarded as one of Woosong’s ‘flagship’ departments, the crème de la crème if you will. It was again I think, an example of leadership in action. Head-hunting has something of a noxious odor to it. Both the poacher and the poached are all too often viewed as lacking in loyalty, as being selfish even. Yet, loyalty is not a one way street and should not be seen as a lifelong debt from employee to employer. Tim and Professor Shin, rather than begrudging my departure actually recommended me for the position and encouraged me to accept the new role. They had invested in me, and yet they were happy to see me take that investment further afield. Like a grown fledgling’s parents they bade me well and hoped I’d fly. Tim gave me a parting gift of advice and encouragement, “go do post-grad studies, you’ll be stuck without it”.

Years have passed since Tim first shocked me with his trust and belief in my own worth. I like to imagine that I have not disappointed his gamble too badly. As Nietzsche once said “One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.” Well, after Tim opened the door I did win the “Teacher of the Year Award” three times in six years. Some might say this was at Tim’s expense, but I assert it was through Tim’s expense. I also earned the “summa cum laude” at Woosong’s TESOL
Masters program – honoring his parting advice from years earlier. Yet, had Tim not given me a reason to continue in the teaching profession and the impetus to further my own study through this program, it would never have happened. Without these benchmarks, I cannot believe I would be where I am today, hoping my own students will out-do me. The door he opened was not just to a better job, but to a better opinion of myself and my reciprocal duties to others. The door he opened was, in short, the door to being a leader, a leader who develops other leaders fearlessly. My ‘pupils’ are not my competitors, not even if they replace me in my job. They are a reflection of my success and a validation of it.

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Networking Thursdays - Volume 29

8/17/2017

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Matthew Fennell arrived in Korea in 2007 to further his career as an educator having taught at the secondary school level in the United Kingdom since 2005. Matthew graduated with a Post Graduate in Education (PGCE) from Liverpool Hope University where he achieved a distinction in the theory of education. He lived in the southern part of Korea teaching in the public school system before moving to Seoul in 2011 to work in the undergraduate department at Hanyang University. During this time, Matthew furthered his education by completing his second graduate degree, an M.Ed. in TESOL. He currently works in the Hanyang TESOL department where he trains both native and non-native English teachers. Alongside this role, Matthew works in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education and is also a contributing writer for the Asia Society Korea Center. On a professional level, he is actively interested in second language teaching methodology and motivation in the classroom.

I am often asked about the best way to carve out a successful career here in Korea and if I have any advice for people hoping to do just that. Obviously, hard work and dedication are fundamental characteristics of success, but having a sound network of people to offer support is equally as important. Personally, my progression from a public school teacher to teaching graduate courses at the university level owes a lot to being surrounded by good people who helped guide me along my career path.

Having left my job as a geography high school teacher in England, I came to Korea to experience teaching abroad. I settled into Korean life pretty quickly and within two years I was lecturing for the National Institute for International Education. It was here that I met many good educators and my career really started to take shape. One such person was Nick Mitchelmore, a prominent teacher trainer who was working at Hanyang University at the time. In the spring of 2011, Nick encouraged me to apply for a vacancy at Hanyang and after getting interview tips from Joshua Davies and Peter DeMarco, two other teacher trainers I met while lecturing for NIEED, I was offered the job.

The people I met through lecturing for EPIK not only helped me get a position at a university, but have also provided me with a range of employment opportunities over the years. These include training Korean teachers across the country, editing public school textbooks, and writing articles for the Asia Society. This network that I developed through being part of the NIIED team has provided me with the foundation to which I have been able to grow my career. I would like to think that I would still be where I am now without that support, but it is highly unlikely that would be the case.

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Networking Thursdays - Volume 28

8/3/2017

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Mujin Cheon studies biomolecular & chemical engineering at KAIST and is starting a renewable energy company.

Three years ago, I was attending at the English lecture during my freshman year at KAIST. From the first day of the lecture, the professor taught students “being the smartest guy in your closet is useless." It was very interesting statement for me because throughout my whole life I was educated to study more, but no one told me about the importance of promoting myself to others. The professor also told us an easy way to expand our social boundaries was to “meet new people from many different areas such as different majors and other nationalities." After listening to the professor, I realized that there was a student from the UAE in the same lecture. He was older than me and was taking the class so he could graduate. Even though he was older than me and the only foreign student in the class, I decided to talk to him and try to make a new friend. It was my first experience to make a foreign friend. I was a nervous but I thought it would be a good experience for me to make a new friend and hopefully he would feel the same way. After having a few dinners together, we were friendly enough to sit together in the classroom and we worked on some groups projects together. I even traveled to the UAE during the semester break and he showed me around.

After making a friend from the UAE, I realized that making international friends was not a difficult or scary thing, so I started to make more and more international friends. I currently have more than 100 international friends and it is so interesting to understand their culture and mindset. I learned many things while talking with them and they also learned many things about Korea while talking with me. I got more confidence and started to apply to international competitions in Europe. This summer I got to travel to Denmark to compete in an environmental technology competition. Every experience was possible because I took a chance and introduced myself to my friend Helal.

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Networking Thursdays - Volume 31

Networking Thursdays - Volume 30

Networking Thursdays - Volume 29

Networking Thursdays - Volume 28

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