A Hot Commodity

I remember my first day of German class.  It was my freshman year of college and the only German I knew was the little bit I had learned at my friend Regina's house in Germany two summers ago.  My professor was in her thirties and very youthful and energetic.  "Aufstehen!" she said loudly, raising her arms.  We understood and stood up.

"Springen!" she shouted.  She started jumping up and down.  We knew to follow her.  Obviously, "springen" was the word for "jump."

"Setzen Sie sich," she said, sitting down.  We sat. 

There's a lot I was taught in college that I never learned.  But that one class really sticks out in my mind.  I've known ever since that day that it doesn't matter if you're a small child or fully grown--to "do" is to learn.  She didn't need to give us the words in English to teach us what they meant.

Teaching English to Korean children works in very much the same way.  Most of us know almost no Korean.  The ones who do know some know only a few key phrases.  So with the little ones, we use concrete examples to teach them what we are saying.  Pictures help, for words like "cat" or "banana."  Little toys help too.  Obviously you can hold up a blue sheet of paper and say "BLUE!" many times until some of them start repeating it.  "Good!" you can say, shooting them a smile.  When it's time to sit down we say, "Sit on your chair!" and physically put their little butts in the chairs if we have to.  We, of course, aren't rough with the children...but we give them a few nudges here and there.  "Put on your shoes!" being said a million times a day while physically touching their little feet gives them the idea of what they are supposed to do when they hear that phrase.  Slowly but surely, they learn English.

With my older kids who have been studying English a few years, it's a little different...but not much.  Many words can be explained using other words at the level they are at...but that doesn't mean a little acting out or drawing shouldn't be used.  And the more you can get the kids to do the acting and drawing, the better!  A lot of it I do myself.  Some words are easy--like "caterpillar" or "giggle."  But others aren't so easy to explain.  Try explaining "culture" or "imagination" to yourself as though you don't know the word.  Today I had to explain "to show up" to kids who also didn't know the meaning of the word "arrive."  It was a little tougher than you might think!  After explaining it one way and getting a bunch of blank stares, I have to try and come up with something else!

This week was my toughest so far.  Parent-teacher conferences left everyone still stressing a bit at the beginning of the week.  I met with three mothers and it wasn't so bad...it was good, actually.  And I got that kid back who's mother pulled him out of my class for that mistake I made.  They had put him in a class that had kids far below his level and he was bored.  Hopefully I can meet his mother's extreme expectations!

I've been struggling to keep up with checking papers....checking checking checking...some things I can check during my breaks but other things have to go home with the kids the very same day so I have to check during class time.  It's not easy to juggle teaching and checking!  Every question of every workbook page has to have a check by it and every page has to have some kind of comment, like, "Use better handwriting!" or "Watch verb conjugation!" Even the pages we do together as a class have to be checked like this.   Luckily I only have 7 kids!  It seems overwhelming right now though.  The parents check each page thoroughly and always want to know what to tell their kids to improve on.  It's understandable.  They're paying at least $1000 per month per child to send their kids there.

That little tidbit of information I actually learned last weekend when I met my recruiter, Sunny, for dinner at Insa-dong.  It was a cute touristy area with lots of handmade Korean merchandise for sale.  We ate at an amazing vegetarian restaurant--I had my first Korean food!  We also went for traditional Korean tea, which I loved.  It was a fun experience.  There were little pine nuts floating in our tea.  "We put those on spaghetti!" I said.

"Really?" Sunny said, "We only put them in tea!"  Sunny's the one who works for the agency I went through that found me a job in Korea.  I asked her all about the hogwans (Korean private schools).  I asked her how many people she places here who end up hating it once they get here.  "Some people don't like it at first, but then it gets better," she said.

I asked her what percentage of Korean children went to schools like mine to learn English.  "I'd say about 5-10%, because they are very expensive."  That's when I found out how much they actually pay.  We (the other English teachers and I) knew it must be a lot, because we know how much we all get paid and how many of us there are.  A million won per month IS a lot...and there are a lot with 2 kids at my school! 

"So, why do Koreans want to learn English so much?" I asked her.

She looked taken aback, like she hadn't really thought about it before.  "Well, Korea is a very small country, and we are taught when we are young that if you want to have a good job, you need to know English very well," she told me.  "Even when communicating with surrounding countries like China, we need English to do it."

I guess I'm a real "hot commodity," as they say.  I wonder how I'd explain the meaning of that phrase to my kids!

Our vegetarian Korean meal

Inside the restaurant

Sunny and I at Insa-dong

Inside the Korean Tea House

Our Tea (with Pinenuts), Rice Cakes, and Honey

Sunny and her mother, who bought me a present after we had tea :)