4-Week TESOL Certification Course in Incheon, South Korea

The phrase “Oh, I just do it for the piece of mind” is the first thing I thought of when writing this review. Knowing that I had a team of experienced experts that would walk me through each step of the way through the pre-arrival process proved to be invaluable. I could not imagine having to weather this process alone or with the help of just one or two people.
Greenheart Travel and their team of partners made this entire experience far less stressful than it could have been. Finding a job abroad, then finding and sending all the required paperwork is no simple feat. However, with their help and very detailed guides, it proved to be something I could easily manage.

Still, it didn’t end once I arrived in Korea. The in country TESOL course proved to be invaluable for countless reasons. The one-week introduction course was a great welcome to the country and helped ease many of my nerves and anxieties about moving to a new country. Not only this, but the course allowed me to practice lesson planning as well as actual teaching, all under the supervisor of an experienced TESOL instructor. During the four-week course, there was always someone I could turn to if I needed a question answered about anything at all. The best part, however, were the friends and experiences I had. It was wonderful being with so many likeminded individuals and getting to know them. To this day, I still keep in touch with most of them and make efforts to see them as much as possible.

Lastly, even after my course came to an end, I had several, professional, contacts I could reach out to in case I needed help or advice. Greenheart Travel’s program essentially sets you up with a “friend you can always turn to”; best of all, they are obligated to reply, and they always do.

If you are looking to move abroad to teach, this program is absolutely worth the investment and will ease any worries you may have about your potential new home and any struggles you may have.

Thanks to Covid-19 turning everyone’s world upside down, it wasn’t quite the experience I initially signed up for, but I thought they adapted well. Taking the course online wasn’t as bad as I thought, because I learn much better in person, but I found it very helpful and very informative in how to go about teaching English in a foreign country. Lots of insights on not just teaching but how to deal with culture shock and behavioral issues. The instructor was very knowledgeable and made it very understandable.

I decided to do the TESOL course in-country as I thought it would give me an opportunity to familiarise myself with Korea in the safety of a course before I was left on my own in a foreign country. I also saw it as an opportunity to get some in-classroom experience on the camp days before I was teaching myself as I did not have any prior experience. The TESOL course was fantastic, the XploreAsia team were amazing and really supportive and Greenheart Travel were also amazing in helping and supporting me before I flew out. I didn't have any questions left unanswered and emails were replied to within a day. It was definitely the best thing I have done, I have made friends for life and now I am settled in my job I still see them usually on a weekly basis. I would sign up with Greenheart and XploreAsia again in a heartbeat!

The experience was amazing. Comparison to my peers, I had the least amount discrepancies in the whole process. Some of the students who were going through the course had trouble being placed by the placement team. Please be warned as a lot of them were not given enough information about many items, had not enough time to save up before being told how much money to bring and had a lot of time before being placed. There was a lot of problems that my peers had to endure due to the placement team. I felt lucky as I was able to get a great job, but I do have to bring up the issues that the placement did. There were many cases of students being placed past the allocated time, being denied to have residency here due to the placement being unfit for the standards of the government and my peers running out of money.

Kara was super helpful answering any pre-departure questions. I really enjoyed my time in Incheon, I felt that I learned a lot of important information and also met some great friends while I was there. The workload was pretty intense, but it was reasonably manageable. The teacher was really thorough and prepped us for the worst-case scenario, which was good but it also didn't really apply to many of our situations. It kind of put us on edge, but all of the students who have been placed in a job are in pretty nice locations, with nice facilities at our schools. The town we were studying in was great because it was really close to the airport which was convenient for our visa runs. It was a very nice town and had everything we needed, food, grocery stores, and convenience stores too.

The course is good for giving a basic structure on how to teacher a class, but the best part is the confidence that is gained from actually teaching in front of others. Through this program, future teachers can go into an actually classroom with real ESL learners and give a lesson to many different age groups. I felt that experiencing this real classroom setting was exceptionally helpful in terms of building confidence for the teaching job I would hold in the future. By the time I got to my actual teaching position, I felt much more prepared than I would have felt had I gone in without this experience. I could think back on the classes I taught during the course and think about how I solved problems or how I made the class more fun for the students.

I'm so glad that I chose to take the 4 week TESOL course while in Korea. It was the best option for me and for those teachers that are new to teaching in Korea or new to teaching, I would highly recommend. Can you take an online course and get by? Of course you can, however this TESOL course gets you in front of the classroom almost daily and helps build that pacing that new teachers/new teachers to Korea might not have. Further, even if you have been a teacher, teaching a language is very different from teaching other subjects in your own language. I found this course to be hugely valuable and when I arrived at my placement I found that most of the information and ways to teach were the same and so the adjustment was minimal in the field. The team is always there to help and the instructor that I had (Jon Harman) really took the time to highlight strengths and areas of improvement for any teacher that presented. Finally, the TESOL course allowed us to teach at a camp for two days which was a sneak peek into how real Korean kids would act/respond and taught us quickly how to adapt our lesson plans and tailor them in a way that best communicated the information to the children. For me, this course was the bridge between my travel abroad/teaching experience and the new country. It was a way to wade into the culture, language, and customs of Korea while being surrounded by a helpful team and other westerners . It's a safe way to gradually be introduced to a foreign way of life and make it digestible. I cannot thank the team enough for their support and assistance in this transition and I would highly recommend this class for anyone who is new to teaching, Korea, or teaching in Korea. Best of luck travelers!