EPIK Orientation
So I’m actually deciding not to write a full blown discussion on what will be going in orientation. Instead, I want to write a quick update on what I experienced.
So I was in the Busan orientation which started before all the others. Unlike the other two that start in Incheon Airport, this one starts at Busan’s Gimhae which meant I had to do a transfer over. I however, did spent a couple days in Seoul just to explore a bit.
For me, orientation was a good opportunity to network with other people. There were those who had already lived in Korea, some were ethnic Koreans from other places, but most, like me, were totally new to Korea and without any friends. Luckily, getting a kakao account in America and putting myself in EPIK chat groups did pay off a little. I hung out with people from the chat group who were at the Busan orientation. And because we were already chatting with one another, we already had a sense of who were are and thus we clicked fairly well.
Now for the orientation itself, there were tons of lessons on classroom management, storytelling, teaching theories, etc. It’s kind of a refresher course for those who slept through their TEFL course. A lot was geared towards younger aged students. There were problems with that though. Though the orientation specialized on younger kids, many were placed in middle schools and were not too sure what to do. I’m happy I got an elementary school in the city. And my instructors were totally awesome!
As for the food during orientation...it was good, but not fully Korean! I think because many people were jet-lagged and still trying to accommodate themselves to Korea, the venue wanted to slowly bring us Korean food. There was kimchi and rice with every meal, but the main dishes were sometimes not...well...stereotypically Korean. We had curry one day, katsu the next. They also fed very well. I felt like I was being fattened up before I actually made it into the real world (where they know we’d be low on money and wouldn’t eat!).
But yeah, that’s really my quick blog update on that~
- John
