Our Story

Hello English Jammers!

We are Jessie and Mei, and we are both happy that you are here to start your English teaching journey with us! We’d like to share our story and speak about what inspired us to start our JaM with Confidence venture! 

We both grew up in Canada, and we were raised in Toronto, Ontario. Growing up as children from immigrant families, we learnt the importance of integrating and adapting to the duality of Canadian and Asian cultures at a young age since we had to take on the role of the ‘mediator and translator’ for our parents. Interestingly, even though we look like sisters, we did not know each other until we travelled more than 8,300 KM across the sea to Korea! We were both in the same teaching cohort and orientation group and later learnt that we were from the same country! This was not only where our friendship began, but also our passions and interests for teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language.

Living in Korea wasn’t easy since we, too, had to experience a new culture, but most importantly, we had to build our confidence to learn and use the Korean language to survive not only in the classroom, but also beyond that in an environment that was completely new.  We struggled and experienced moments of avoidance, isolation, fear and even embarrassment, yet, with time, practice and patience, we pulled through. We made mistakes, put ourselves in uncomfortable situations, established meaningful friendships with Koreans, but essentially, we celebrated every little victory we had. 

We celebrated our ability to listen to Korean conversations and being able to understand 50% of it, and even ordering food from a restaurant and having it delivered. Every small victory made us more confident and empowered to do more with the language. This experience helped us to truly understand what it feels like to learn a language that is completely different from our native language, which is English. Through this, we were better able to relate to our students, and strengthen our relationships in the classroom where students became more motivated to learn English. This is what we want for you - to have a successful engaging class and grow as an educator. 

It wasn’t until 2 years later that we both reconnected because we worked at the same private language school. As the years went by, our friendship continued to grow, and from there, through discussions, we made the decision to start and build an online English coaching business called JaM With Confidence. We learnt through our own personal and professional experiences teaching students that having confidence is the key ingredient in teaching. Without this, we tend to feel helpless, little, and insignificant because we allow our ‘’perfectionism’’ to stop us from expressing ourselves. As educators, we want to make sure that our lesson plans are perfect, and best for the students, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. 

  JaM With Confidence was established with the mission to help break down these insecurities and doubts by creating a safe, learning space for you to make mistakes and to face your teaching fears, so you can become resilient reflective teachers. We know you have the potential, now, it is your turn to believe in yourself. So, take part in this English teaching journey with us and you’ll soon realize that teaching is more than just grammar and ‘’the perfect lesson”. We are excited to meet and help you to advance your career in the field of education.

“Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” – Albert Einstein