Work – Stephen's Travels

So I realize all my photos have been out and about vacation stuff. However, I am here in Busan to do a job. I teach 6 classes a day, Monday through Friday. Since it’s a private academy, the classes start after the students’ regular school day is over. This means my first class begins at 3:30 pm and my last one ends at 10:20 pm. There are definitely some pros and cons to this schedule.

Here I am in action - half of my classes I was able to sit down in a conference table setting — Here I am in action – half of my classes I was able to sit down in a conference table setting

3 of my classes were students between 9 and 13 years old. Each class had 10 to 15 students with the numbers fluctuating throughout the year (22 was the most).

Students working together – on Fridays we would do group competition

The other 3 classes were older students (15-23 years old) who were preparing to take the TOEFL test. These classes usually had between 4 to 10 students.

International students wishing to attend a university in the U.S. need to take this test to prove their proficiency in English

Teachers are respected very much in Korea. With my younger students, they wouldn’t be happy going to academy AFTER a full day of regular school – think 15 hour days of schooling. However, they never disrespected me or my time.

DSCN3538 — The view outside my classroom

I took the bus everyday to work. I used a small electronic tag to pay the fare. This pass could also be used for cabs, the subway and vending machines. Everything is hooked up to fiber optics, so the system recognizes when you transfer from a bus to another bus or subway to a bus (or vice versa) and only charges you a nominal transfer fee instead of the full fare.