I have a nasty cold, and it's gotten the better of me. I went to my first day of teacher training at CDI today. To call it intense would be, well, just about right, actually. They've taken a month-long program and condensed it into 3.5 days. I came out feeling old, useless, and stupid. But I also came out liking CDI, and I enjoyed my in-class observation of the teacher and his kids. More on this later, but Koreans hoping to apply to CDI should know: you're expected to speak absolutely perfect English. I met not a single Korean there who spoke with anything less than a perfect North American accent. No grammar errors, nothing*.
When I applied to CDI, I sent my app to two departments: the high-paying teaching department and the lower-paying R&D department. To be honest, after today's training, I'm leaning more toward R&D. We'll see what the future holds. Stay tuned.
*Don't take that the wrong way. I'm not astounded by the fact that people of Korean heritage can speak perfect, unaccented American English. That's a yawner for me. No; I'm talking more about CDI's obviously stringent hiring policy. Other hagwons give a lot more leeway to Korean employees, often hiring people who haven't mastered everything about English grammar, pronunciation, and usage. CDI, at least so far, is air-tight. I came away truly impressed... though I got the impression that a lot of those female teachers were suffering from acute kongju-byeong ("princess syndrome," i.e., spoiled and overprivileged).
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