ELT Experiences

Yesterday, Michael Griffin shared on LinkedIn some of his favourite posts from his blog / website, ELT Rants, Reviews, and Reflections, and one particular post caught my attention which was about his attendance policy as explained to his students. Despite this post being written and published in 2014, it still struck a chord with me now in 2026 as I am now teaching at an International Business School here in South Korea and one of the struggles that I encounter each semester is attendance.

For those that are unaware, the calculation of grades includes a number of variables each semester, such as the Participation, Midterm Exam, and the Final Exam. Each weighted 20%, 20%, and 40% respectively but this leaves 20% of the calculation of the grade being assigned for attendance. This was perhaps one of the initial struggles that I encountered culturally when attendance was included within the calculation of grades. To give you some perspective, in the UK, attendance is not included in the calculation of grades and students. However, for international students in the UK are expected to attend 80% of their lessons. If their attendance drops below this, then the Home Office have the right to withdraw their visa.

Anyhow, one of the biggest differences between the UK and South Korea also include inclusion of relative grading for the latter country, whereas for us Brits we are accustomed to absolute grading, regardless if it is an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. Therefore, not only did I have to learn how to grade students based upon the different weighted variables, as mentioned previously, but I also have to grade depending on a curve. Currently, 40% of students or less are eligible for an A+/A0, 40% or less a B+/B0, and 20% or more a C+ or lower. This makes the whole course and atmosphere amongst incredibly competitive as well as rather stressful.

So, as Michael Griffin mentioned in his post about attendance, I set out clear rules regarding student absence. I explain that the easiest 20% of the course can be had from attending the course and that on average those students who have perfect attendance are likely to get an A+ whereas those that miss a day here or there are likely to get a B+ or lower.

I share some common excuses that I have had over the years from students ranging from appropriate to the more interesting, along with my replies:

• “I have a medical appointment” – Get a doctor’s note or certificate and submit for authorised absence
• “I must go to a funeral” – My condolences and apply for authorised absence
• “My toilet is blocked and I had to wait for someone to fix it” – Okay, I hope it is fixed soon but seek authorisation from Academic Affairs
• “I couldn’t sleep and woke up late” – Sorry to hear that, but I don’t think you would be able to get Authorised Absence
• “I missed the bus and was late for class” – Totally understand, yet try to get to class on time

I explain that my role is to mark anyone who is in class and mark anyone who is absent. My 90 minute lessons are split into 30 minute segments for attendance policy, with three points to mark attendance. I highlight that if students are more than 15 minutes late, then the first 30-minute of the lesson is marked as absent and the remaining two are marked as attended. I have had students come to me a week later asking why their first lesson was marked as absent, thankfully I have learnt to keep a record of students absent or the time they arrive so I can explain the reason. Again, it makes the whole process of marking attendance a little more stresstful.

I do recall when I first started teaching at my current University, that students would use their phones and the Bluetooth signal to sign-in for their attendance and then would quietly disappear from the classroom – particularly when I had larger classes of 40 students or more. One day, I did a quick head count and realised that 5 students were missing, so I check attendance once again into the lesson and marked those that eloped from the classroom as absent. Predictably, they came to see me the next class to provide a variety of excuses for them leaving the class half-way through but I stuck to my guns.

One final thing that I do is explain to students that my role is to mark attendance and anyone who is absent, and wishes to seek authorised absence, that I am unable to authorise this so should go to Academic Affairs and submit the necessary paperwork. It is still surprising how many students still feel the urge to try to seek leniency personally or provide reasons, but I still remind them of the policy of the university and what they should do.

However, when I have students absent from class for three lessons, I usually send out an email to check all is well and include Academic Affairs to the email so they are aware of the absence. If I don’t receive a reply, I ask Academic Affairs to see if they can get in touch with the student to check all is well and keep me in the loop. On the other hand, I do expect students to let me know if they are going to be absent as it is common courtesy.

This is my approach to attendance, but let me know what you consider is important, particularly for those based in Korea or if you are required to calculate a grade which includes attendance.

Yesterday, I was in my office getting things organised for my lesson when some students came to get their case study printed out as their printer was unavailable. Once I printed out their case study, I asked the four Korean students if they had pens to make notes on the printed worksheet and one student said that they did not.

I did make a video about this in response to my reflections which is available below. Feel free to watch my ramblings below.

It turned out the student without a pen had a tablet and a digital pen to annotate notes on a digital document. When I asked them the last time they had a pens and notepaper, they said six years ago. I soon became worried that students, particularly in a higher educational institute were becoming more reliant on technology, rather than truly connecting with each other or with the learning material. So, I decided to get the four students into my office, sit down, and then read the case study for fifteen to twenty minutes in silence without any reliance of technology or social media notifications.

After the students finished reading the case study, I turned to one student and asked them what their thoughts or ideas were. They then explained what was included in the article quite effectively but did not provide an answer to my query. So the next student, I asked their thoughts and ideas regarding the case study. They realised that they were being asked about their opinion and were able to provide their response after reading.

I was not focusing on the language, comprehension, or knowledge of the article but I wanted to know what the students’ response would be after reading something. I feel that there is too much pressure on students to remember facts or information and not respond with their own thoughts or ideas. So, I suppose getting students sharing their opinions is more important than merely repeating what they have read. It isn’t exactly rocket science.

Afterwards, the students shared that they appreciated the opportunity to have the space and time to read without any expectation to repeat facts nor be assessed on how much they had remembered. Perhaps we still need to remind ourselves that opening our door, getting students to withdraw from tech, and becoming more comfortable in communicating is more important.

It is the start of the autumn semester – also known as the fall semester for those people from across the pond – here in South Korea. And this always leads me to think of different ways to get to know students in those crucial first lessons.

In this post, I am sharing five of my favourite first lesson activities to help develop that rapport and for learners to get to know you too. Let me know which are your favourite and how you get to know students in those first lessons in the comments.

Five years ago, during the height of the pandemic, I decided to activate my Preply profile and start dabbling in the world of freelance online teaching, while also working full-time, with the aid of the Preply platform. Five years later, I am still continuing to teach to students from around the world and I recently achieved having taught over 2,000 students on the Preply platform. In this post, I will share ten tips after teaching 2,000 students on Preply for new or experienced online tutors.

You may also watch a video which I created sharing these tips, which is available above. If you have not subscribed or watched my previous videos about the Preply platform, feel free to subscribe as I share regular videos whenever I get a chance.

Last Monday, I returned back to the classroom for an intensive English course that I was to teach for four days with Japanese high school students from Okinawa. Their aim was to improve their English academic skills but what did they want to do? Well, it was pretty clear immediately – they only wanted to have fun. This is essentially a personal reflection of what went well and what I would do differently next time with a closed group of Japanese high school students.

In this post, I will share my initial experiences and my reflections about how best to improve future closed groups of Japanese learners for intensive language courses. However, if you have any recommendations for what to include for next time, or how best to get high school students more engaged or chatty then please share in the comments.

Back in 2011, I was in the process of completing my dissertation: ‘An investigation into teacher and student attitudes of the key tenets of Dogme ELT’. The was first introduced to to the publication ‘Teaching Unplugged’, authored by Luke Meddings and Scott Thornbury, in 2010 when I wrote a review of this new book. Returning back to my original dissertation and action research, around 15 years later, I thought it would be best to share personal experiences and reflections post-dissertation (albeit 15 years too late).

Nonetheless, if you are interested in reading my dissertation, you are more than welcome to download. Unfortunately, it is unavailable from the University of Sussex library which I guess is related to the recent ethical guidelines that universities have to abide by these years. Anyhow, it is freely available below and you will see the time and effort I spent conducting quantative and qualitative research through the use of surveys with local language schools as well as speaking with teachers and transcribing these interviews.

I was incredibly fortunate to be invited to Seoul last weekend to act as publicity for Korea TESOL their International Conference in Seoul. If you are unaware, KOTESOL organises an International Conference every year around Spring, usually April or May, and they have many speakers and guests from around world. However, it was the first time that I had been to an international conference for many years, and also it being my first in South Korea.

In this post, I will be sharing some key takeaways from the weekend and reflecting upon the KOTESOL International Conference, while also acting as their official photographer from the event. If you were fortunate to have attended the annual conference, let me know in the comments.

Preply is possibly one of the most popular online tutoring sites available for many around the world. I had previously shared some of the thoughts about teaching or relying too heavily on the platform. Nonetheless, there are thousands of language tutors using the site each and every day, but there are also some important updates that Preply have shared recently. These particular updates are important as they directly impact anyone using Preply to either teach or learn a language.

For those that use Preply to tutor online, whether full-time or part-time, language teachers can be discovered by potential students based upon a variety of filters: language(s) taught, location of the tutor, cost, as well as a range of factors. One factor that can be used to find a reputable tutor is the ‘Super Tutor Badge’.

Last Friday, I was fortunate to have the chance to visit Seoul. It’s always nice to get away from the habits of one’s place, to explore elsewhere. Yet, it was more than just a weekend to visit Seoul, I attended the KOTESOL Connections last Saturday as well as to discuss the upcoming KOTESOL International Conference for 2026. It was also the perfect opportunity to use my new camera, in the field, and to capture some pictures while attending.