GET IT IN WRITING

I knew…. I KNEW better than to just take a ‘yea that’s ok’ as an answer. But I did. Because I really, really wanted that to be the answer. Friends/family/stalkers (hello there!) may remember a few months ago I had to raise a bit of a stink with my main middle school because they wanted me to come in on Saturdays to teach English camps. I tried to compromise with them-
A) Why not do the English camps in the summer like it’s ALWAYS done? My contract gives me Saturdays free.
CT’s answer: impossible summer camp.
ok fine, so how about B) I’ll teach the Saturday camps, but for every 2 half-days I come, I get a compensatory day off in the summer break- when no one is at school anyway.
CT’s answer: impossible give day off.

I said well fine, if you can’t compromise, then you can’t compromise. They found another NET to cover the camps (the number of which, by the way, magically changed to only 2 half-days instead of a dozen half-Saturdays).

Come end of first semester. High school camp lined up, Gibuk camp lined up- which is AWESOME. I am/was SO stoked to be able to do a camp with my gibuk kids. We’re gonna have a blast. I figured though, that the Gibuk camp was there to make up for the lack of Gigye MS camp, since, you know, she’d told me summer classes were ‘impossible’.

Come AWESOME opportunity: 2-week camp in another city. I signed up straight away on the win-win of not spending money on a summer holiday and earning money on the summer holiday.

I ask my head co-teacher, and inform her that last year I was able to help out camps at other schools no problem. (Technically on EPIK contracts, it’s illegal to have ANY source of income outside our school. However, if the principal approves, we can be ‘loaned out’, basically, to other public schools.) She said no problem. Said she’d ask the VP. Said again, no problem.

Lo and behold, appear other co-teacher! Head co comes up to be a bit later- “middle school co teacher is asking about your summer schedule to plan English classes.”

me: WTF?

MS co-teacher is now insisting that I fulfill my contract to the letter- 22 teaching hours, 8:30-4:30 days, even (especially?)  in the summer. She has reminded me no fewer than 5 times that once the high school, gibuk, and middle school camps finish (around 12:30), I must remain at school until 4:30. Fulfilling the contract doesn’t bother me- I agreed to it, duh. What bothers me is that SHE is insisting on it. And that I have the sneaking feeling that if I had agreed to give up my Saturdays (and seriously- if I had known it were only the two, I wouldn’t have made a fuss at all), she wouldn’t me giving me this crap now.

The scheduling conflict is thus: There are 4 weeks and 2 days in our summer recess. 1 of those days (plus the last day of school) is a Teacher Trip that I have agreed to go on (dear God, please keep me safe, sober, and moderately well-fed). I have two days of High school camps, 4 days of Gibuk camps. One day is a Korean holiday. That leaves 2 weeks, 4 days of possible vacation time for me. 2 of those weeks was dedicated to this extra camp. 4 of those days (only two of which are consecutive) were to be contracted vacation days. Co-teach is now insisting that I must teach 5 days of middle school camp (oh sorry, this was my favorite part- they’re not ‘camps’, they’re ‘classes’. There were always going to be summer ‘classes’, but impossible to do summer ‘camps’.)

Fought with her a bit about dates, and I reminded her that Saturdays exist as well (doesn’t she remember trying to force me to come in Saturdays??). We went to the classroom and asked the students who would come to camp on XYZ days. They were all keen- even the one class that would have to have a Friday-Saturday camp (2 grades, 2-day camp, 1 grade a 1-day camp; 5 days of camp). Alas, now she’s saying, nevermind, I cannot teach on Saturday in the summer, so I must do the camps on a Monday-Tuesday, and thus miss an entire day of the extra camp, which makes me a lot less appealing/useful to them, not to mention (like I’m doing now) completely letting them down at the, well, maybe only the 10th hour. The 11th hour would be day before the camp.

In the end: I apologize for this sounding like a semi-whiny (or very whiny) rant. It is a rant. I’m more apologizing about the whiny part though. I’m rather upset about all this. And worse scheduling conflicts have happened with other NETs (eg conflicts involving already-purchased, non-refundable plane tickets). But let this be a lesson to my future self and any NETs in Korea: always, ALWAYS get it in writing. Also, be wary of the petty co-teacher. Far too many exist. And don’t stoop to their level. I’m tempted to respond in, well, when it comes down to it, a very ‘tit for tat’, dishonorable manner. Instead I’m going to pray that I get to do this extra camp still, attempt to look on the bright side if I don’t, apologize like mad to the coordinator whom I was supposed to email today with the completed content for the 10.5 hours of camp lessons, and eat half a bar of chocolate when I get home. I’m also thinking about asking my head co-teacher to go to bat for me….

A new challenge

This does in no way refer to my previous post about my friends who just got married, however much of a new challenge they are beginning. This one is about moi, and has nothing to do with getting married. I am about to embark upon an exciting, terrifying, completely new journey- unlike anything I’ve ever done before. What is it? I already learned how to ride a bike (although, that did take me awhile, I’ll admit), I passed drivers ed, graduated high school, went to college and graduated that, and then moved to a completely foreign country, whose language I didn’t (and still mostly don’t) speak, and whose culture I didn’t (and still mostly don’t) understand, to begin a new job I had barely any experience in. What on earth is left?

So, so much.

This little gem though, is a mostly spur-of-the-moment choice to attempt to help myself be a bit more disciplined about my free time. For 40 days, I will forgo all movies, TV shows, cartoons. There shall be no comics, webcomics, manga, or manhwa. There will be music. Probably lots and lots of music. And books. As long as they’re not comic books. Two of which sit on my shelf right now, one of which might be arriving in the mail for my birthday (some friends always give spoilers, you know?). That latter one will be an exception however. Not because it’s my birthday, but because the book ends, and there’s no ‘next chapter’ button a mouse click away.

Today is day 1, and I’m not going to bother looking at a particular end date on the calendar, but stick with my little prison-style tick marks on my notepad by my computer. I know other people have done similar things, for similar periods of time (no facebook for 2 weeks, no twitter for 3 months, basically any kind of nutritional diet, whatever). Good for them. Truly- giving things up for periods of time helps us, IMHO, practice and maintain discipline.But just like some people all too easily reach for the oreos when they’re hungry instead of the carrot sticks, I’m ready to admit that I have started to way too easily pop on a movie or some episodes of Korra, MASH, or Burn Notice, when I could be doing something ever so slightly more productive.

I challenge other people to take a step back from their lives, pick the one thing that’s distracting them from living well the most, and set a number of days on the table. 40, 100, 5. Maybe now, maybe 6 months from now. But at some point, set yourself up a challenge, and see if you learn anything from it. If you manage your time perfectly, then kudos to you; here writes a lesser mortal.

Heeeeere we go! 화이팅!

AtM: I just felt like writing really… (and another note on Korean open classes)

And that’s about that. I feel like I haven’t written much, and when someone tells me they enjoy reading my blog, well, I get all warm and fuzzy inside and think ‘hey! maybe I can be funny and clever!’ That’s only half true though. I know I’m funny and clever.

But, to be serious, I simply haven’t had that much to write about (from my perspective anyway). We had our Open Classes yesterday- about which I actually got like 2 weeks of warning. I’ll admit, at first I thought it must bit a translation error, and the classes were really the next day. But nope, two full weeks. I was to teach only two- first grade middle school, and first grade high school.

Now, as I’ve recently said, I’ve been having better luck with that 1-1 HS class, who previously were second-worst scourge of my teaching life. Plus, this was actually going to be a ‘co’ class- I was going to teach with my co-teacher (imagine that!) However…. the students’ overall attitudes apparently cannot change that much that quickly, and nothing can make up for the simple lack of English that half the class has. Her portion of the class was taught entirely in Korean, and I was to prepare a game/activity. Since the story they were reading discussed identity, and their vocab was all personality characteristics, I went with the ‘Who am I?’ game. I even made a whole list of questions and traits in English and Korean as a cheat sheet for them. But, apparently, that was still far too difficult, and explaining the rules in Korean (‘wait your turn.’ is that so hard??) didn’t cut it either. In the end, I was happy no parents showed up.

My 1-1 middle school class, in a stark difference, are one of the joys of my teaching life. I could ask them to write lines, and they’d say ‘ok teacher!!’ smile bigger than their own heads, and then search frantically for a pencil and piece of paper. Brief back note: probably the average number of parents to show up to any given class is 3-5. I got to their classroom, however, to see ~15+ mothers (and a veeeery little brother or sister, who caused us some amusement later on). The computer wasn’t turned on, my flash drive didn’t work. Bad start, but I got class rolling eventually to my bunch of jazzed up energetic…. what? Why are you guys DEAD? This is practically the same lesson we did last class, on Monday. You KNOW this stuff. You… you’re always so perky, and… and… WHERE DID YOUR SOULS GO????

I did my best to animate the silent and stiff students (woah, alliteration sneak!), but they were just too dead on our activity, so I said ‘finished!’ and whipped out the taboo for the last 7 minutes. Taboo is almost ALWAYS a win.

Which brings me to what’s really on my mind right now. Being dead tired of constantly attempting to create my own curriculum, and teach it to students who couldn’t care about the one they ARE graded for. This morning, I’m tired, sore, and not really feeling ‘Korea’. I came in fully intending to continue the lesson I’d been working on. But due to the being abnormally sore from yesterday (perhaps on top of previous days), and just plain not-really-caring, I’ve made two decisions.

1) Today, in each of my 3 high school classes (have I ever mentioned that Fridays for me SUCK?), we will be playing taboo. I will not give them any candy, but they can have a stamp if they have their name cards. We will not study, we will play taboo, (at least every student will go once though- they still must practice English *shakefist*), and we will end early, so that I can just chill they can study.

2) Starting next week (what better way to start a week than a Monday?), I will be ‘coolmessenger’ing my high school co-teacher. Every. Single. Moday. Morning. I will MAKE her tell me what lesson they’re on, the topic, and what the vocab is. I’ve only recently (ie last week) acquired the first grade text book for high school, so I have that at my disposal if I can know where they are in it. But NO LONGER will I just flail about in these eastern winds. Nope. She’s giving me lesson content, whether she likes it or not. She already told me this week that her Monday mornings are slow. She definitely has time to chuck the books over to my desk so I can skim through the current chapter.

Whelp, bell’s about to ring to start my day. Now that I got all this distraction out of the way, I can get down to business later and sort my middle school lessons for next week. Cheers, dear reader! (I mean, you must be at least a little bored too if you’re reading the off-hand, mostly irrelevant musings of a foreign English teacher in Korea…)

Progress

One day, early on in the semester, when pondering over my difficulties with my 2-2 class (second grade high school, class/homeroom 2), I had this seemingly brilliant idea: divide and conquer. I wanted to make a smart historical reference, but I’m terrible at history so I looked it up just now: the two top examples google gave me of men who employed this strategy were not very encouraging in the long run (Napoleon and Stonewall Jackson). Anyway, I thought I would divide the classes into groups of 5 or 6 students, because these classes cannot be taught as a whole- they are too… too many things. However, when I would go around helping individuals, or a couple students at a time, we actually got a lot done, and they learned.

“So if you thought it was such a great idea, and even had the beginnings of solid proof, why didn’t you thoroughly implement the structure?”
…why indeed? T_T Partly because I had so little (in-class) support from my co-teacher, and I’m not able to explain to the students how class would be structured, and partly (I’ll admit it) because I’ve been really disorganized. But today I decided to plunge right in, without bothering to explain to the class what’s happening.

It. Was. Magical.

From my halfhearted attempts at this method I’ve already tried, I’ve learned that this works best with 3 or 4 students. Could be 2 (but that’s a little inefficient at that point), but 5 is too many.

I just finished a lesson about telling time… which took up 5 classes. But, I want to be giving them practical things that they might actually use in their future. And seeing as how I believe it practical, I want them to actually learn it. I decided that the next topic for them would be getting sick or hurt, and so today I started with some basic body parts.  I started with the students with better attitudes, to go easy on myself, which meant 2 boys and a girl up front. I spent maybe 15 minutes with them, gave them the ‘worksheet’ (outline of a body and a picture of some baby, labeled in English), and they wrote the appropriate Korean for it. About half the words were new, which had been my guess. Next I had them pronounce the words, and then I quizzed them, and had them quiz each other for 2 minutes. After they did that, I gave just the 3 of them a speed quiz, kept points, and gave them all rewards at the end (2 hole-punches to the winner, and 1 to the other students).

When we were finished, I scooted my chair over to some other students; 4 this time. Gave them the English pictures, had them write the Korean, quiz, quiz each other, speed quiz, reward. I wrapped up that group with just over 5 minutes left in the period, so not enough time to move on and tackle another set of students. So I asked them instead what time it was. And you know what? They answered. Then I looked over at the boys goofing off with their friends, and pointed to my elbow (one of the new words for the students). And you know what he said? ‘elbow’.

If any of this sounds stiff or joyless, I apologize. I was and still am so intensely pleased with this accomplishment. But I started writing just after the class, and then I got interrupted with, you know, work… and now I’ve just come back from giving 32 middle school students 32 speaking tests in “45 minutes”. My head is spinning and my co-teacher is most definitely insane. Any eloquence I might have had dissipated in the chaos of running, chanting, and freaking-out students. In a perfect world (or with fluent students), 32 speaking tests MIGHT be able to be done in 45 minutes. MIGHT.

*dies*

Korean Dentists (and other medicaly people)

I have to warn you in advance, this isn’t going to be a very amusing post at all. It’s not morbid, or anything like that, just mildly informative. Anybody in or connected to South Korea has probably heard rumors of the Korean medical world- ‘it’s cheaper than in the States’, ‘it’s just as good’, and of course, ‘all they do is plastic surgery, right?’

Well, while South Korea is considered the plastic surgery capital of the world (apparently with Brazil in a close second), they do also have regular old doctors here. Going to see the doctor for something standard (the flu, say) generally involves walking into the office, flashing your ARC (and possibly insurance information), sitting down for 3 minutes, and answering some standard questions and getting checked out. Then, oh so very likely, you will be prescribed pills. LOTS of them. What are they? Who knows… I tried to ask the couple times I went to the doctor, but never got much of an answer. So, anecdotal examples, how exciting! And shouldn’t things come in threes? Enjoy, if you’re so bored inclined to do so:

First
My first experience with a Korean doctor was when I suspected I was becoming anemic (thank you, Korean diet), and I wanted a blood test. I walked in, showed my ARC and insurance paper, sat down, and the doctor had moderate English. Enough to do business. He was pretty chatty (keen to use his English), so you might have to keep the doc on track. Once my blood test results came back, I asked him if I could then have some iron supplements  (I was anemic, by the way).  He was at first reluctant to do so, and asked me if I knew what foods I should eat to get iron.

‘Of course,’ I said ‘red meat, beans, spinach, almonds and other nuts… It’s just very expensive and/or difficult to get those things here.’
‘Ah, wait.’ The man took out a piece of paper and began writing the foods down. ‘Ok, continue.’

…Who’s the doctor here?? I thought it was that guy in the chair, with the diploma behind him. Eventually I got my supplements though and I’m okie dokie now. The visit cost me about $8, and the supplements cost me the same (and there will usually be a pharmacy right next door to a doctor’s office).

Second
My second experience was when I got very stubbornly ill about a month ago. It was the beginning of the semester, and I felt pretty bad about missing a day of work (if it was unclear, being sick doesn’t mean missing work in Korea, it means deal with it, because being sick is your fault, how dare you). I walked in, showed the receptionist (a position where it’s rare to find English, though the doctors speak at least a little) my ARC, sat, waited. This doctor spoke incredible English. Incredible medical English. Never had I been gladder to have been raised by a mother whose hobby was medicine.

‘You have rhinitis, yes? You have pyrexia or other pulmonary problem? Ah, okay. You have mucus congest in naval cavity, it go to pharynx. Especially when you sleep. We must clean pharynx so I will prescribe you antibiotic.’

Why yes, my good sir, I do have a fever and a stuffy and runny nose. Yep, sore throat too. It’s your textbook cold. My favorite though was “Do you have many sternutation?” I didn’t even know where to start with that. Who knew it was just fancy medical-speak for ‘sneezing’? End result: a $4 doctor’s fee and shock at how many pills a person can get for 5 bucks.

Third
My third experience is actually of the dental variety, and I’m in the middle of it right now. I’ve known for awhile that I was in need of a root canal, so I took advantage of midterms’ half days to muster up the courage to visit the dentist finally. Really I went to make an appointment for a possible (ok, probable) cavity, and I’ve never been a huge fan (is anybody?) of the dentist’s chair, so when they were all ‘we can do now’, I was a little unnerved.

Nevertheless, in I went. An xray machine that made me sure they were going to blast me into space, sitting in the chair with a girl my age (very nice) prodding through my mouth. She had very good English, despite her claim (the sentence ‘my vocabulary is very limited.’ is a complete oxymoron by the way). Then the head dentist came by, and the two of them gave me the run down. Not wanting to think about the panoramic they just took, I had a couple cavities to be filled, and a root canal and crown in the ‘necessary’ list. Well, the fillings would be covered by insurance, as well as some/most/all? of the root canal procedure, but the crown itself isn’t covered. In the states (to my knowledge), a crown will run around $1,000 with a wide margin on either side, so I wasn’t very thrilled to hear this. However, I asked how much it would cost, and she put on this sad, troubled face, as if unwilling to break the worst. ‘Maybe, 400 thousand won…’  That’s about $350. $351.84, according to today’s rates (as in May 11). I can totally deal with that.

I was less thrilled when she told me the root canal would take 6 ‘treatments’, and even MORE less thrilled when she told me they could (and would) do the first one today. My first experience (that I can remember) at a dentist’s office involved me being a freaked out kid with her first cavity and a dentist who couldn’t give two cents about the patient’s morale. Shortly thereafter I went to another dentist, who pumped me so full of nitrous oxide that I (literally) saw stars (they spun in such a pretty circle, too). So being in Korea (do they even HAVE laughing gas here??), suddenly told to just lean back and open wide again… I wasn’t happy. Then they stuck me with novocain. Which was ironically quite painful. Not looking forward to it again in… 2h36m from now. But once everything numbed away and the shrill sound of the spraying water (drill? what drill? there’s no drill in my mouth!) set in (and gave me a headache), I was pretty bored. I’ve got my ipod ready for today though. And I’d heard such awful stories about novocain and half-numb mouths and uncontrollable drooling. But I drooled not a drop, in fact, the novocain lump wore off completely about 20 minutes after he finished.

Done with all that, I went to pay and make my next appointment (for 2h34 minutes from now). I was prepared to accept the worst with the cost of the xrays and the first treatment (nevermind the consultation part of it all), but turns out the whole shebang only ran me $5. And I got another prescription. 3 pills after every meal, although why they gave me enough for 5 days… I asked the pharmacist what the pills were. ‘antibiotic, painkiller’. So what the heck is the third one?

End take on my limited experience with Korean health care
Despite medical and dental care so far being really very cheap (and still quality), this mild obsession with prescribing pills is very unnerving. Especially when they can’t even tell me what they all are. I tried to tell the dental assistant that I had painkiller at home (asprin), but she frowned and said that maybe I should just take the prescription. To be fair, I asked her what the prescription would be, and if it would be painkillers. She responded with yes painkillers, but also ‘special’ medicine’. I contribute that to the language barrier though. The short of it, if you have to get something done, do it here.

PS- if you’re able (and needy), definitely, definitely buy glasses in Korea. The eye exam is free, cheap frames (in Korea to in America) are MUCH cheaper in price and better in quality, although expensive frames are pretty similar to back home. Lenses though, alas- the financial burden! Sure, my eyes aren’t that bad, and I don’t have anything funky going on, just your standard nearsightedness, but oh, at $10 a lens! I suppose I didn’t need to splurge on that anti-scratch coating (I need things like that…) and UV coating. My frames also cost $10. So to replace my $300 glasses from America, I paid… 10%. They also, of course, throw in a cleaning cloth and a cheap, but fit-for-the-job case.

AtM: Offensive Name-calling

Anybody who I regularly talk to (so like, 3 people,  in 3 very different time zones) will be asking themselves: ‘Offensive name-calling? But she’s writing on Wednesday. Wednesdays are her Gibuk days, and those are her awesome students, right?’
Yes indeed they are, still all of them, and they have not become un-awesome. It is I, in fact, that have perpetrated such a terrible violation of human rights.

(And to be clear, this was all pretty funny cause the kid’s a good student with a good attitude- God bless these students for understanding (and implementing, at times) dry humor. Most Koreans don’t get it. Maybe that’s why I love Gibuk…)

The name of the student who transferred in at the end of last semester is romanized Dan Hyeongjin. So, likely needless to say, when I read it, I immediately thought, ‘Oh, ‘Dan’. Haha, I have a Korean Daniel. He’s got a ready-made English name, cool.’ and have thusly thought of him as ‘Dan’ ever since. Now, keep in mind, in English, it’s /dæn/ (probably what you’re thinking of right now) as opposed to the Korean vowel sound of 아, /dan/ (dahn). I don’t often have a need to address the students by name since there are so few, but I’ve been meaning to ask him how he prefers to be called. So just now, after returning first grade’s diary, I stop in the 3-1 classroom and tell my little story about how in English we have a common name, Daniel, also commonly shortened to ‘Dan’.

Well. Well, well, well. Apparently this was highly, thoroughly unacceptable. The girls started laughing, and he refused to look at me, instead staring a hole into the letter he was writing (all the students are writing thank you letters to their tele-NET*s), pen digging a bit deeper into the paper than necessary.

“So, I wanted to ask you, what do you prefer to be called?”

*looks up*
*stares straight at me*
형진. (Hyeongjin)

Ooook. Heh, so ‘Dan’ is not ok then?

*stares* Yes.

Dan is ok or Dan is not ok?

형진.

Alllllrighty, Hyeongjin it is then.

Teacher, *holds up finished letter* please make right.

Well gee, thanks kid. No idea you were so sensitive about your name, then you’re all, ‘oh and please correct this for me.’ Anyway, I get back to my desk, get out my correcting pen of the day (orange), and read:

Dear Elieza teacher.
Hello teacher. I’m Dan. —

Kid’s got some ‘splaining to do next break period…

—————————————————————————–

I walked in the room, and as they rushed out, I read the first few lines with flourish, highlighting the ‘I’m Dan’ part. The girls laughed, he flushed, and told me that yes, he was indeed English ‘Dan’ with his tele-teacher. I guess when I explained ‘Daniel’ to him, all they knew was ‘Danielle’, and he thought I was calling him a girl?? That’s the only logical rationale I see. But since when are Korean kids rational? He was very evasive about the whole thing. It could just be he’s a ninja in training and I was on to his codename. That’s the next most logical rationale.

*NET = Native English Teacher

for those of you who didn’t know.

Poetry from Gibuk Students

Poems that were read at our recent Poetry Slam at Gibuk. My students are so awesome. About half of these were peer-edited as a class to check rhyming and syllable patterns. They had to write 1 acrostic, 1 haiku, and 2 ‘Roses are red’ ABCB poems. (felt weird about using their names so we’re going with initials. all are girls but for the 2 H’s in third and second grade.)

Third Grade

——————-N——————-

Roses
Octopus
Start
English
Saturday
———–
A beautiful star
I see the beautiful star
I feel very good
———–
Roses are red,
Violets are blue
If I had any orange
I never eat it too!
———–
Oranges are yellow
Apples are delicious
If fruit are all delicious
I want to eat is!

——————-M——————-

Sleep
Teacher
Uew
Day
Yesterday
———–
My new lovely friends
They really are very kind
So I love them all
———–
Roses are red
Sugar is sweet
If I had any bread
I wouldn’t give it to you to eat

——————-H——————-

Love
Olive
Violin
Elephant
———–
Five fingers are short
I hate very short fingers
But they’re important
———–
Roses are red
Violin is beautiful
If I had any grapes
Then my mouth would be full
———–
Chocolate is sweet
Banana is long
I love banana
I like sing a song

Second Grade

——————-H——————-

Danger
Old
Get sick
———–
A Korean Student
I really like games
I do really love Starcraft
I still say ‘game-suh’
———–
Roses are red
Sky is blue
People are green
And so are you!
———–
Roses are wilting
Grass is red
Sky is black
The world is dead!

——————-S——————-

Dirty
Obey
Good
———–
I saw a person
Who cannot read many books
I can understand
———–
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Salt is salty
I can’t see you!
———–
Roses are red
Violets are colorful
Tulips are blue
They are beautiful!

——————-J——————-

Dread
Obey
Guide
———–
Dog obey person
The dog is a guide for blind
I really love dogs
———–
I really like sweets
I really love choc’late
I still say ‘sweet-uh’
———–
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Lilies are white
They are beautiful too.
———–
Roses are red
Violets are white
Red roses are strawberry chocolate
White lily is chocolate light
———–
Dreams are happy
Another dreams scary
Dreams are far
Another dreams are near

First Grade

——————-H——————-

Book
Art
Green
———–
Fat man makes a cake
The cake is very delicious
All his friends eat together
———–
Roses are yellow
Violets are blue
Flowers are beautiful
I like them too

Quotable Quotes

I attempted to keep a list of the funnier things said and done by my students and co-teachers. This is the final compilation of the first semester. If I know the student’s name I’ll use it, otherwise they are referred to with numbers or letters (and hey, all the KTs use numbers). For Gibuk’s diary entries at the end, I tried to copy them as exactly as I could, to how they were written.

Gigye High School

Student 1: Teacha! Englishee hard, no Englishee!
Me: English good– English can be fun. But it’s hard work, yes, it’s difficult.
Student 1: Noooooo, teacha! Englishee BAD, I HATE you teacha!
random Student 2 from hallway: Ah, Teacha, hi teacha! *sees my reward bag I usually carry* ah! Teacha! Englishee coupon! you have candy?? I speak good Englishee, you give me coupon??
Student 1: oh, teacha I LOVE you! coupon? coupon? Englishee good, I love you teacha……

*~*~*~*

Walking into the classroom one day: students going nuts. One boy is chasing a girl with a broom (‘ew, dirty!’) because she hit him, then she’s chasing him cause he hit her with the broom, and back and forth. I block one off from the other once or twice, and they switch roles, and eventually I’m between the two, classic pose, holding them each at arm’s length.
boy: teacha! he! he! (having done this three times already, I know he’s going for ‘he hit me!’ and meaning ‘she hit me!’)
me: ‘she’, ‘she hit you’
boy: ‘no! HE! transgender!’
they both run off again, girl screaming. Sometimes I wonder at the students’ vocabularies.

*~*~*~*

*passing in hallway*
Student: Oh Teacha, goodbye bye bye bye
Me: Ok, bye
Student: *behind me at this point* kill, kill kill kill die
Me: *turns around* Excuse me?
Student: *pointing to his friend, as if a gun to his back* he die, die die
Me: *turns back around* Oh ok. Have fun.

*~*~*~*

playing taboo
“beach”
SEXY GIRL! BIKINI! PALM TREE! SEKSHEEEEE!! (note that this was a taboo game of gestures inclusive, and that this class was ~80% male)

“What do you want to do before you die?”
From 3-1 class:
“I want to 10 wives. Before I die. Yes teacher. Jessica Alba.” (male student A)
———–
“I want to kill all world.” (male student B)
———–
“I want to *hand motions like single clap* Eminem- together, me, Eminem. Before I die. Him, me, close!” (female student C)
———–
“I want to rich-ee. Before I die. That’s all.” (female student D)
———–
male student E: I want to kill world, bring back. like Jesus.
me: If you kill everyone, then he *points (male student A)* will have no wives! Ok?
E: No- Jesus! *points at A* He wives- ok- come back *raising his hands*, he- ok- they alive. Everyone ‘uhh’ *hand motions ‘else’*- die.”
A: ah, thank you! teacher- he friend.
E: Ok, ok.
———–

Gigye Middle School

I see 4 students (boys) carrying a fifth by each of his limbs, face up. All of them are smiling, so I wasn’t that worried.
Student 1: *sees my approach* TEACHA! HIII, HIIII TEACHA!
Students 2, 3, 4: ah, teacha! HI!
Student being carried: waaaaaa!!! heellp! help teacha!
Me: ah… hi guys… where are you going?
Student being carried: teacha HEEEELLLLPPP!!!!
Student 3: we kill him!! *much enthusiastic nodding*
Me: I’m sorry? (they’re used to me saying this for ‘can you repeat that?’)
Student 3: we KILL him! die! die!
Student 2: ok! bye teacha! bye, bye!
They were all in class 7 minutes later, perfectly unscathed….

*~*~*~*

during a warm-up where I give the class a letter, and students need to offer words that begin with the letter. A higher-level, fairly serious student raised his hand, and very solemnly said (what sounded like) “shadf-pier”.
me: sorry, what?
Dong Yeol: shadf-pier *big, serious eyes*
me: ‘shadf-pier’? *trying desperately to think of a real word that sounds like ‘shadf-pier’*
Dong Yeol: yes.
me: uhhh…..
Seung Hyeon: teacha!! SHADFPIER!! FRIEND OF DIAMOND!!
me: oohhhhh! ‘sapphire’!

*~*~*~*

Midterms made them crazy:
I was walking over to the MS  before my next class, and the students are always hanging out outside. One rushed up to me from the doorway, flailing his arms, yelling ‘teacha! THIRD OF MAY??’ When he reached me, he caught his breath for a second and began to explain, “Teacha, is third of-“ at this point he is interrupted by another student screaming ‘spear!’, tackling the kid to the ground, and promptly running off again according to his previous path of motion. The kid on the ground gets up like nothing happened, and goes back to ‘teacha! Third of may- third of may, ok? Good? Third of may ok? Ok? Good, ‘third of may’?’ I look at him like he’s crazy, his big hopeful eyes staring up at me, and tell him, ‘uh, yea, yea ‘third of may’ is a good way to say it, although today’s the sixth of may…’ But as soon as I assured him it was proper English he bounds off, once again screaming and waving his arms. I proceed to the teachers’ office.

*~*~*~*

Playing pictionary with 1-1:
A girl is drawing ‘hairbrush’ on the board. She’s doing a well enough job (got a face with hair and a rough brush shape forming) and kids are yelling out things like ‘stick’, ‘hair’, ‘face’ and the like. As the initial onslaught of guessing dies down a bit, and there’s some quiet, suddenly Nemo (smallest boy in the school, but great English, and really good student(also, nickname)) stands up, hits his desk and screams “CHICKEN!!” I stared at him. The class stared at him. The KT stared at him. The girl drawing stopped and stared at him. There was laughter, and he sat down, unembarrassed. Eventually another student guessed ‘hairbrush’.

*~*~*~*

‘Advice’ lesson
———–
Example: “I am about to die. What should I do?”
Student: “You should exciting!!”
———–
Example: “I broke my mother’s vase. What should I do?”
Student: “hide”
———–
Example: “I love a boy, but he doesn’t love me. What should I do?”
Student: “I think you should hit boy.”
———–

Playing 20 Questions
they hit 15 and so I give them a hint; I was thinking of ‘umbrella’:
Me: “you only use it outside, NEVER inside”
Half the class: “shoes!!”

playing taboo
 “tennis”
*motions for swinging a tennis racquet, and pointing to my co-teacher* TEACHA! TEACHA DO THIS!! *enthusiastic tennis motions*
Guesser: ‘hit’?

Korean Teachers (KT) and co-teachers (Co-T)

———–
KT: “you touching man? you like touching man, korea?”
me: O_O “…sorry?”
turns out he was asking about personal space between people and if I thought it was different in Korea. (I said yes.)
———–
Co-T: ‘prostate’ cancer?
Me: *feeling awkward* uhhh, man cancer…
Co-T: *looks up word*
Me: please, please just accept ‘man cancer’…
Co-T: ahhh! Penis! Penis?
Me: *bright red*
———–
Co-T: Salt is good for radioactivity.
———–

Gibuk

grammar and writing
failing to explain ‘conflict’ to Hyehee (1st grade)…
me: Ok, I want to eat you. [gestures inclusive] Is that ok?
her: yes… ok…
me: Eat? I can eat you? That’s ok?
her: yes…
———–
trying to explain ‘character’:
me: so, who is she? Who is ‘Nurli’? [a student]
Minji: uhhh she is girl…
Nurli: I am student…
me: Good, more. Is she a happy person, a sad person?
Minji: No, she is angry person!
Nurli: NOO!!!
…..as she starts hitting Minji

 

Diary entries
———————————Nurli (3rd grade):
July. 8.
-> Today is!!!!! the end of test.
wow! …..  but we also start. July. 12 is test.
I cry…. cry… ㅠ ㅠ.
———–
July. 10.
-> Today I study and study.
I only the study………… sorry. it is lie….
now. I’m play….
———————————Hongrak (2nd grade):
4/23
Today I’m sad. Because my sister came home again! Ha…… Ha…… Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.
———–
4/29
Today I don’t want go to school!!!!!
———–
6/26
Today rainning again…………………………………..
I feel like… crazy!!!!!!
I cance go out  side!! not computer!!!
I just watch TV! all day!!

6/28
Today I’m come back home… and…… just….
watch TV!!!! I don’t have not computer
ant cookies, and no book!!!
I’m really hate boring O.O
———–
July 4
Today….. I don’t want to writing a diary!!!
———–
July 9
Today is……. raining….. why!!!! Why!
Why every weekend… why raining!
Why!!~~~~~~
——————————————————-Jiyoung:
3/30
Today, teacher give homework. Teacher will be sorry. hahahaha
———–
6/18
— eats chicken…
um.. Its so delicious..
———–
6/22
ㅠoㅠ I’m so sad
because ~<foreigner> <sthe..pa..ny?> ->stephanie
gave me many ~ homework..
so~ I’m so sad ㅠ_ㅠ
——————————————————-Seoran (2nd grade)
6/10
I hate tomato. But people likes tomato. Why? Is it delicious?
———–
?/??
Today I was eat dinner out. That restaurant is very untasty.
———–

Natürlich!

A short anecdote about one student in particular who seems to be intrigued by languages. (Kiddo after my own heart, if it’s true) The irony in this story almost brought me to tears and certainly made it worth coming in today.

 Scene: In front of the cafeteria

Cast: myself, and a few dozen middle school students that I didn’t get to see today.

 I’m walking back from my OD on middle school teachers’ class (I kinda sorta maybe hate it). I only have my file folder, and not my bag for class (tokens, flash drive, candy), since I’ve had both my other two classes cancelled on me and I’m feeling a little miffed that I bothered to come into work. I see a bunch of my grade two students waiting to go in to the lunch room, and they look much hotter and sweatier than normal, for however much they constantly complain about the weather. So I walk by and thus the stage is set (yet written more like a novel):

Every other student in the foyer: “teachaaa, hellooooo…..”

Student 2: “TEACHA! Where chocolate bag??”

Me: *ignore* “Hi guys. You look very hot today…”

Student 1 looks over at me, and, attempting a wan smile, tells me, “Yes. Very hot today, teacha.”

“No- it’s very nice weather today.”

Shaking his head, student 1 sighs “Ah, very hot…”

Just for kicks I start to fan him with my folder a bit. He flinches when I first raise my folder, which must be some sort of comment on the use of corporeal punishment inKorea, although I never hit the students. Suddenly it kicks in and Student 2 is back.

“Teacha! very very hot,” he starts fanning himself with his hand. “Me, me!”

I stop fanning and tell the both of them, “It’s really not that hot.”

My whiner pipes up, “Noooo, very very hot…”

“Good grief. Why are you so warm?” But I compliantly wave my folder at him. Student 1 sees I’ve started again and so sneaks up behind Student 2 to get some more fan time in.

“Ah, hot…….”

“Teacha, physical education class. Before now.”

“Ahhh, I understand.” I laugh a bit at their current misfortune, but go ahead and fan them (comically enthusiastically) for a few moments, watching their faces melt into breeze-induced ecstasy. But, I want to drop off my folder so I can go get lunch myself unhindered. So I roughly inject an ‘ok now’ to wake them from their paradise, stop fanning, and turn to go. Student 1 sweeps me one of the deepest bows I’ve seen yet, a nice display for his audience, looks me straight in the face and says:

“Arigatou gozaimasu.”

For anyone who is unsure, that’s ‘thank you very much’ in Japanese. I know this from watching too much anime, but thankfully the students all just figure I’m a genius. After I finished laughing at the situational inappropriateness of that phrase,  I taught him ‘muchas gracias’. He was instantly intrigued and I could see him converting it to ‘무차스 그라시아스’. WTG kid.

Fluency

Are you ILR Level 3 fluency? Or are you S-2 fluency? Maybe you’re B-2 or A-1. Or, perhaps, superior-mid or novice-high. You could also be DLPT 1/1+, DLPT 0+, or DLPT 2, or 2+ (but not 2/2+, though you can be 1, 1+, 0, or 0/0+).

what the bugger are these loonies on about?

For this reason I have decided to create my own fluency/proficiency chart. My own rating system. For Koreans, their level of proficiency is indirectly proportional to the number of tildes (or other punctuation marks) they use in any given written, typed, or texted message.

Hi guys~~ Nice 2 meet U~~ I am physical therapist in [name] rehabilitation hospital. I live in [city] area. my Eng is not good, but if someone need help, i will help u~ anyway have a nice day~~ ^^

Amicability notwithstanding, this person clearly is not fluent. They register a 5a3fnE-2fA on my scale.

kidding

But I did realize the other week that I think of fluency by my own scale. I rate it thusly:

Functional Mute

A Functional Mute might know his/her letters, but can barely get past ‘hello’ (let alone ‘my name is…’). Their primary form of communication consists of charades and facial expressions. Be warned though, Functional Mutes have the ability to scream and throw things.

Survival

My Korean is what I would like to think of as Survival Korean. I know how to say a nice list of standard phrases (hello, goodbye, thank you, et al.) and my numbers (one kind anyway, Korean’s annoying like that). I can brokenly ask if such and such bus goes to such and such place, and what time it leaves, or if the veggie dept has limes (they don’t). I can ask how much a shirt is, and then complain about the price. However, a Survivalist still relies heavily on charades when it comes down to anything substantial. I might be able to get across a ‘bus-uh terminal?’ to ask where it is but when kindly (or not so kindly) old Korean answers me with explicit instructions on which subway line to hop, and which stop to get off, I’m still lost in Busan.

Travel-worthy

This is the big standard that I award to all Koreans I meet. This is the big line to cross, in my book: are you travel-worthy, or not? Sure, you can travel on Survival [language], but everyone around you will be annoyed, and you’ll likely end up getting lost. Maybe in Busan. Many of my students I have deemed Travel-worthy, and I am proud of those students. Two of my co-teachers are definitely Travel-worthy (one’s lived in Canada, but the other’s never left Korea, so good on him), but the third, eh, she’s getting there. The difference between Survivalist and Travel-worthy is the difference between asking ‘bus-uh terminal??’ and asking ‘Excuse me, where is the Paris Baguette? Thank you.’ One student in particular, a 3^rd grade middle school girl- I can easily picture her bouncing around America, checking out sites, reading all the historical plaques and whatnot, asking for directions, and giving directions to other lost tourists. She has my T-W seal of approval.

Conversationalist

These people are a notch up from Travel-worthy. The Conversationalist is able to understand more complex jokes but sarcasm is still a bit of a stretch. They can give and take directions, and then ask you about that pirate movie you saw last week, if you liked it or not, and mention that the directors/producers and whatnot are all pathetic, money-grubbing sellouts. Afterwards, when you’re both sitting in Paris Baguette, they can tell you about how dairy products aren’t some diamond in the rough food item back home, but a staple.

Fluent

The Fluent person can hold the same conversation, but with actual words and phrases like ‘sellout’, ‘diamond in the rough’, and ‘staple’. A Fluent proficiency is my least disputed ranking, since it’s pretty understood by all. See the pun I made there? ‘Fluency is understood by all’? Yea, a Fluent person is able to grasp and employ sarcasm, but they probably won’t get the humor in a pun unless you explain it. A Fluent person can hold a debate with you though, in your first language, and then own your face. And then they can tell you that they’ve owned your face. And then hopefully, buy you ice cream or something (or 팥빙수 in Korea). The only misunderstanding, according to me, is that Fluent is not the furthest advanced stage of fluency.

You’re not native??

These folks are a rare breed, but it’s always a nice surprise to meet them. And by ‘nice’ I mean really actually a bit unsettling. Seriously- these guys could make you a bit paranoid. ‘If this person here- I honestly thought they grew up in like, the city or something- they can speak perfect English, but they’re from Tajikistan! I’ve never even HEARD of that –istan!!!’ I have though. Heard of Tajikistan, that is. It’s right below Kyrgyzstan, next to Uzbekistan and north of Afghanistan. I know you’ve heard of that last –istan at least, so we’ll wrap up. These people have somehow managed to build up and up from basic vocab, to intonation, the accent, slang, history, culture, current events, what have you, and can probably out-pun most native speakers.

The best way to tell the difference between a Fluent speaker and a YNN?? speaker is their grammar. If the person has down the your/you’re thing, or the they’re/there/their deal, they’re probably Fluent. The YNN?? They’ll bugger them up just like the rest of the population.