Faye Clark

Before coming to Korea, my favorite past time was DIY projects. Crafting and making something bespoke gave me such a great feeling of accomplishment. I often wondered how I could combine this with my teaching – and I have found some great ways to do so.

I work at three schools in the south of the Jeolla province, two are middle schools and one is a high school – so, being creative is a given. Despite the busy schedule, I have come to see the rewards of my extra efforts – even in the short time I have been in the country.

Half the battle (for me) in teaching, is engagement. As teachers, we have to constantly be a step-ahead and think of refreshing activities or lessons for our students. We want them to feel like they are not really learning, but that learning is almost secondary – nurturing their curiosities and drawing out their knowledge through fun and unique experiences. One of the ways I have done this is by hand-making realia or decorations for my classroom. From small gestures to large activities (it doesn’t always have to be OTT), they always go down a storm with my students and I can see a huge shift in their willingness to learn.

Most supplies can be found already in my school office or classroom, sometimes I will bring projects home to finesse – but for the most part, I have been able to make the majority of my creations at school using basic supplies.



My most successful project (thus far) is my escape room. Granted this did take a long time to prepare, but these simple, yet effective crafts helped to elevate my class to another level. I was able to take textbook activities and recreate them as something unique for the students – taking inspiration from other fellow ESL teachers. I received great feedback from my students and co teacher about the combination of activities and the effort put into creating them.

It can be a fine line between elevating and distracting when implementing ideas like this, so sometimes it can be a case of trial and error. But, if you have the mind-set of wanting to drive your students towards excellence, it’s difficult to go wrong!

These gestures have made a difference to the relationship that I have with my fellow teachers and students – which I think is vital in our role as guest teachers here in Korea. Also, bringing a sense of my personality into what I do has helped the students to relate to me and become more personable. Seeing their reactions is a huge reward for me and helps me to know that they appreciate the time and effort taken to put everything together. There are plenty of resources available if you need inspiration and I have taken advice from fellow teachers in the community about what has and what hasn’t worked well with their students. Collaboration is a huge part of our role and collaborating / sharing ideas like this has helped to form some great relationships with other fellow teachers here in Korea.