The way that the language program during Orientation is set up is that you and your classmates (10 in my class total) have a teacher for the first two hours of instruction and then they switch out and the class has a new teacher for the other two hours. Both of my teachers are really great and really try their best to get us to understand what is going on.
Lately, I have been struggling to keep up the intense pace of the class (it is about 2 semesters worth crammed into 6ish weeks) and it has been terribly frustrating. As you saw from my last post, I am not exactly the top pupil in my class. We have quizzes every Monday and I felt more prepared for this one than I have all my other ones so far. I set my alarm an hour early so I could make sure that I got breakfast and get a bit of last-minute studying in before I could go.
What I did not realize is that in the process of changing my alarm, I accidentally turned it off entirely. I woke up to an OC knocking on my door at 10:00, an hour into class and I missed the quiz. To say that this soured my mood is an extreme understatement. I immediately thought the worst thoughts. Will I be able to take the quiz? How will I catch up missing a whole hour of class? Will san-sang-neem(teacher) think I am disrespecting him and his class? The thought of being removed from the program due to poor Korean grades even crossed my mind. I threw on some clothes over my pajamas and got to class as fast as I could.
After class, I was feeling as down as I have ever been in Korea. I couldn't believe that I missed my quiz. I wanted to go to the supplementary talks in the afternoon but I was just in too horrible of a mood to get much out of them so I studied my Korean outside by the track. This whole situation just summed up my feelings about Korean classes and how I felt so far in over my head and incompetent. The language seemed like this huge barricade between me and the rest of my grant year. Later in the afternoon, I learned that my teacher was going to allow me to take the quiz after all. That in itself was a huge relief, but I still have to do well on it regardless.
I took it this evening with my homeroom/first teacher carefully watching over me and keeping the time. He reminded me a few times to read the questions and answers carefully and was trying to help the best he could without giving me answers. I don't know how well I did...I will find out tomorrow. But I turned it in and we started to pack up. He asked me where I was going and, of course, I said office hours because 1.) I was mandated to go and 2.) I really needed to review what I missed/everything else. Then I gave him a thing of candy and an apology letter for being late to his class (in my best Korean! But a small English one on the bottom of the page). It is customary to give gifts and I felt like I really needed to since he let me take the quiz.
Then he told me, in English, (he almost never uses English in class!! Only for the most important points) to keep fighting and that I was a good student. Those few words have easily been the most powerful and inspiring words I have heard at Orientation so far. Just hours ago, I was at my all time low in Korea and was just so down because of the classes and my inability to grasp this language. It was just really nice to hear that he and the other teachers can see how much work I am putting in, even if the results are few and seemingly insignificant. It has given me the drive to push myself to try harder and put more hours into learning and studying. This is something that I must remember for when I am teaching my own classes. A teacher must always acknowledge the efforts of his or her students, even those who don't seem to make much progress, because it will mean the world to them. Even if my teacher isn't able to get me to understand all of the grammar points and vocabulary terms, he has done something even better; He has shown me and my classmates how to be a great teacher.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
My First Detention (aka "Mandatory Office Hours")
Who would have thought that my first detention I have ever had to serve would be in Korea? Well technically it is not detention, but rather a mandatory study hall that I must attend since my Korean grade isn't up to snuff. It's not really even a punishment per se but just a way to make sure that I will stay on the right track to graduate Korean class with a passing grade. We have had two quizzes thus far and I earned a 12 out of 20 on the first and a 7 out of 20 on the second. You need a 14 average to be passing. Oops.
It isn't even that I am not studying, but it is more 1.) I am not studying the right things; I focused more on writing than vocab and the quiz was very vocab heavy, and 2.) I have discovered that I am awful at rote memorization, hence I am struggling with vocabulary. Also, I am having some difficulties reading. I can read it, but sometimes mistake similar looking letters and I read at a pretty slow pace compared to most of my classmates. I suspect that some of these troubles stem from a lack of foreign language studies (I haven't studied a language since junior year of high school since I miraculously tested out of German at Walsh) and the fact that I haven't really had a need for rote memorization as a history/education. My assignments were more project-based or writing research papers instead of cramming for tests. I am really going to buckle down on studying this weekend and go to more office hours than required. I will be sure to report back my next quiz score which I will receive next Tuesday....
On a more positive note, I went to a traditional Korean tea ceremony tonight. It was a lot more fun than I anticipated it to be. As many of you know, I am not really the best at sitting still for long periods of time, but it was more active than I thought it would be. It was almost like the choreography of a dance with the moves you had to make with brewing the tea, pouring it, and then cleaning it up. We were able to have two teas, a green tea and a fruit-based tea. I preferred the fruit tea as it was much sweeter (naturally! No sugar added!) but the green tea was good too. The facilitator of the ceremony was telling us that we should be able to taste 4 or 5 different flavors in the green tea, like bitter, salty, sweet, and something else that our ETA coordinator couldn't translate, but it just tasted like regular unsweetened tea to me. She said that it takes about 6 months of drinking 5-10 cups of tea a day to really refine your tea palate. That sounds like a lot but the cups are only three gulps of tea so it isn't an exorbitant amount. Another interesting thing that she said was that the ideal temp. for tea was about 70 degrees or so and that you should only brew it for 2-3 minutes max. A lot of people were taking pics and I forgot my camera so when I see some, I will post some for you all to see because it was actually pretty nifty.
So tonight, I have to submit my placement form (due in fifty minutes) and write six more questions in Korean using numbers in the question or answer (due tomorrow in class). For the placement, I am still pretty unsure of what I want. I am probably going to put "no preference" for most of it because it is honestly true. I don't really know enough about Korea to know exactly what I want and even if I did, I would not want too high of expectations for my school and city. So I think I'm pretty much going to wing it. All that I know is that I don't really want an urban school because I want to be more involved with the community and this is harder to do in a city of millions. So I am going to shoot for suburban or rural. Interestingly enough, the school populations are often opposite of America's in how the urban schools are often better than schools in suburbs or rural settings because they have more access to resources and they are more appealing to live in, which is good for high-performing teachers and parents with money. Also, the public schools tend to be better than private schools as the teachers and administrators in public schools have to undergo rigorous testing and they have to rotate around schools every 3 to 5 years. That means in a public school, the most senior staff member will only have 5 years at that school. This spreads the high-performing teachers and administrators all over the districts. Another benefit for public schools is that they get much more funding than a private school would. But anyways, the differences between the Korean educational system and the American one are vast and I am sure that I will be able to discuss them in a more intellectual and informed manner once I actually get to the schools so I'll stop before you leave the page with a headache.
That's about it for now. I'm teaching my lesson on love tomorrow haha. I'm actually doing an old school dating game show type format where I have some wonderful ETA friends coming in to be contestants that are interviewing the students. I think it is going to be pretty fun. And we have a mostly free weekend! I am most likely going to be staying in Goesan playing catch-up and working with the camp, but I'm sure I'll sneak some fun in here and there.
Until next time!
It isn't even that I am not studying, but it is more 1.) I am not studying the right things; I focused more on writing than vocab and the quiz was very vocab heavy, and 2.) I have discovered that I am awful at rote memorization, hence I am struggling with vocabulary. Also, I am having some difficulties reading. I can read it, but sometimes mistake similar looking letters and I read at a pretty slow pace compared to most of my classmates. I suspect that some of these troubles stem from a lack of foreign language studies (I haven't studied a language since junior year of high school since I miraculously tested out of German at Walsh) and the fact that I haven't really had a need for rote memorization as a history/education. My assignments were more project-based or writing research papers instead of cramming for tests. I am really going to buckle down on studying this weekend and go to more office hours than required. I will be sure to report back my next quiz score which I will receive next Tuesday....
On a more positive note, I went to a traditional Korean tea ceremony tonight. It was a lot more fun than I anticipated it to be. As many of you know, I am not really the best at sitting still for long periods of time, but it was more active than I thought it would be. It was almost like the choreography of a dance with the moves you had to make with brewing the tea, pouring it, and then cleaning it up. We were able to have two teas, a green tea and a fruit-based tea. I preferred the fruit tea as it was much sweeter (naturally! No sugar added!) but the green tea was good too. The facilitator of the ceremony was telling us that we should be able to taste 4 or 5 different flavors in the green tea, like bitter, salty, sweet, and something else that our ETA coordinator couldn't translate, but it just tasted like regular unsweetened tea to me. She said that it takes about 6 months of drinking 5-10 cups of tea a day to really refine your tea palate. That sounds like a lot but the cups are only three gulps of tea so it isn't an exorbitant amount. Another interesting thing that she said was that the ideal temp. for tea was about 70 degrees or so and that you should only brew it for 2-3 minutes max. A lot of people were taking pics and I forgot my camera so when I see some, I will post some for you all to see because it was actually pretty nifty.
So tonight, I have to submit my placement form (due in fifty minutes) and write six more questions in Korean using numbers in the question or answer (due tomorrow in class). For the placement, I am still pretty unsure of what I want. I am probably going to put "no preference" for most of it because it is honestly true. I don't really know enough about Korea to know exactly what I want and even if I did, I would not want too high of expectations for my school and city. So I think I'm pretty much going to wing it. All that I know is that I don't really want an urban school because I want to be more involved with the community and this is harder to do in a city of millions. So I am going to shoot for suburban or rural. Interestingly enough, the school populations are often opposite of America's in how the urban schools are often better than schools in suburbs or rural settings because they have more access to resources and they are more appealing to live in, which is good for high-performing teachers and parents with money. Also, the public schools tend to be better than private schools as the teachers and administrators in public schools have to undergo rigorous testing and they have to rotate around schools every 3 to 5 years. That means in a public school, the most senior staff member will only have 5 years at that school. This spreads the high-performing teachers and administrators all over the districts. Another benefit for public schools is that they get much more funding than a private school would. But anyways, the differences between the Korean educational system and the American one are vast and I am sure that I will be able to discuss them in a more intellectual and informed manner once I actually get to the schools so I'll stop before you leave the page with a headache.
That's about it for now. I'm teaching my lesson on love tomorrow haha. I'm actually doing an old school dating game show type format where I have some wonderful ETA friends coming in to be contestants that are interviewing the students. I think it is going to be pretty fun. And we have a mostly free weekend! I am most likely going to be staying in Goesan playing catch-up and working with the camp, but I'm sure I'll sneak some fun in here and there.
Until next time!
Monday, July 23, 2012
Adventures in Donghae
The Fulbright Office in Seoul gave us a wonderful treat this past weekend. They paid for a 3 day 2 night vacation in the city of Donghae! It was awesome! Donghae is still somewhat rural (although much bigger than Goesan) and is on the coast. Our hotel was a five minute walk to the beach and I could see it from my room. By the way, this is what my room looked like.
You may have noticed that our beds are indeed simply mats on a floor. Not the most comfortable thing in the world, but it did the job I suppose.
We got there and were given an hour or so to settle in and look at the beach. We didn't have time to play in the water, but it was good to at least stand in it and breathe the ocean air. Afterwards, we headed into the hotel to have our lunch. It was a great Korean dish called Bibimap (at least I think that is how you spell it.). Then we sat through a 90 minute lecture on Buddhism. I am sure that it was quite interesting, but I struggled a bit to pay attention as the speaker had a very sleepy voice and we were all tired from our 3 hour bus ride and a huge lunch.
To wake up, we headed out to the temple/hiking site. It was great to explore the outdoors and go on a rigorous hike. After climbing high, we were rewarded with views like these:
It was quite the experience to say the least. After our hike, we had a dinner and then we had the rest of the evening to ourselves. I just stayed on the beach and hung out with my fellow ETAs. I tried to play in the ocean but was told that we couldn't. Still had fun anyways.
Saturday came along and we had another pleasant surprise. No workshops or meetings! We had the whole day to ourselves and could do whatever we wanted to!! We did have to go to breakfast, but I am not complaining since it had wonderful food like eggs, french toast, orange juice, and BACON. We haven't had a breakfast anything like this as long as we have been here so it was amazing. Shortly after breakfast, I split for the beach. Unfortunately, it was a bit wavy so we were not allowed to swim at all. I really didn't think it was that bad and I have swam in much more worse conditions but those lifeguards certainly didn't think so. They even blew their whistle at me when I tried to fill up my pail to build my sand-octopus! I was a bit annoyed but we made do. I just played a bunch of volleyball and other sports on the sand.
A few of the OCs invited some of the gentlemen to join them at the sauna. I decided that I mind as well give it a try so I went along. Our hotel has a nice little sauna in the basement(and I guess Jungwon University where I am staying does too). So for a mere 6-ish dollars, I had access to all of the amenities of spa (minus massages and stuff). A thing about Korean spas though is that the patrons are all completely nude. Clothes are not permitted inside the saunas, pools, tubs, etc. It was a bit awkward at first, especially since I and some of my friends stood out a bit since we are clearly not of Asian descent (especially Jonathan who is originally from Nigeria) and we received quite a few stares. Nevertheless, it was a very relaxing and stress-relieving time. I am planning on hitting up a few more spas throughout my grant year.
The only other thing of note during our Donghae weekend was the bizarre museum. Apparently, Mrs. Shim, the head of Fulbright Korea, is friends with the owner and feels that it was a great cultural event for us to attend. While I will concede that it was very cultural and education, I have to confess that I found it to be a bit boring, especially after a long weekend and a 3 hour bus ride ahead of us. I put some photos of it on facebook but there really weren't any that were that exciting.
In other news:
Camp Fulbright: CF has officially started! Basically students ranging from grades 5-11 come and invade Jungwon to have their English camp. My ETA peers and I are responsible for teaching them a few lessons. I taught my first one today. Each day has a theme and today's was mystery/detective (the overall theme is movie genres). Basically we did a scavenger hunt and the clues that they found told them about the ETAs that would be teaching them. I also did an introduction to myself and so on. It seemed like it went pretty well and a lot of the students enjoyed it. I am doing "night fun" tonight where I will basically be hanging out and playing games with the campers. My next lesson is on the Love Story day. I will probably be doing a dating game show of some sort featuring my ETA friends (hopefully) and I will talk about compatibility and so on.
Korean Classes: These have been a bit rougher than I anticipated. We have our second quiz tomorrow and I need to get a 16 out of 20 on it in order to get out of mandatory study time. So I actually need to wrap this up soon so I can go study!
Placement Forms: We received our placement forms yesterday and this is a form where we can make requests as to what we would like in terms of our school and location placement for our grant year. I am still very unsure of it generally, but right now I am leaning towards a rural or suburban high-level middle or high school. But this could change at anytime. I really don't know where I am going to be but I don't think I will make that many suggestions so as not to disappoint myself by too high of expectations for anything.
I think that is about it. This Monday and Tuesday are crazy because of Camp and the Quiz, but it should be easier once Tuesday evening hits. I have all of Saturday free so I might go explore another city...haven't decided yet. Hope things are going well back home!
You may have noticed that our beds are indeed simply mats on a floor. Not the most comfortable thing in the world, but it did the job I suppose.
We got there and were given an hour or so to settle in and look at the beach. We didn't have time to play in the water, but it was good to at least stand in it and breathe the ocean air. Afterwards, we headed into the hotel to have our lunch. It was a great Korean dish called Bibimap (at least I think that is how you spell it.). Then we sat through a 90 minute lecture on Buddhism. I am sure that it was quite interesting, but I struggled a bit to pay attention as the speaker had a very sleepy voice and we were all tired from our 3 hour bus ride and a huge lunch.
To wake up, we headed out to the temple/hiking site. It was great to explore the outdoors and go on a rigorous hike. After climbing high, we were rewarded with views like these:
Saturday came along and we had another pleasant surprise. No workshops or meetings! We had the whole day to ourselves and could do whatever we wanted to!! We did have to go to breakfast, but I am not complaining since it had wonderful food like eggs, french toast, orange juice, and BACON. We haven't had a breakfast anything like this as long as we have been here so it was amazing. Shortly after breakfast, I split for the beach. Unfortunately, it was a bit wavy so we were not allowed to swim at all. I really didn't think it was that bad and I have swam in much more worse conditions but those lifeguards certainly didn't think so. They even blew their whistle at me when I tried to fill up my pail to build my sand-octopus! I was a bit annoyed but we made do. I just played a bunch of volleyball and other sports on the sand.
A few of the OCs invited some of the gentlemen to join them at the sauna. I decided that I mind as well give it a try so I went along. Our hotel has a nice little sauna in the basement(and I guess Jungwon University where I am staying does too). So for a mere 6-ish dollars, I had access to all of the amenities of spa (minus massages and stuff). A thing about Korean spas though is that the patrons are all completely nude. Clothes are not permitted inside the saunas, pools, tubs, etc. It was a bit awkward at first, especially since I and some of my friends stood out a bit since we are clearly not of Asian descent (especially Jonathan who is originally from Nigeria) and we received quite a few stares. Nevertheless, it was a very relaxing and stress-relieving time. I am planning on hitting up a few more spas throughout my grant year.
The only other thing of note during our Donghae weekend was the bizarre museum. Apparently, Mrs. Shim, the head of Fulbright Korea, is friends with the owner and feels that it was a great cultural event for us to attend. While I will concede that it was very cultural and education, I have to confess that I found it to be a bit boring, especially after a long weekend and a 3 hour bus ride ahead of us. I put some photos of it on facebook but there really weren't any that were that exciting.
In other news:
Camp Fulbright: CF has officially started! Basically students ranging from grades 5-11 come and invade Jungwon to have their English camp. My ETA peers and I are responsible for teaching them a few lessons. I taught my first one today. Each day has a theme and today's was mystery/detective (the overall theme is movie genres). Basically we did a scavenger hunt and the clues that they found told them about the ETAs that would be teaching them. I also did an introduction to myself and so on. It seemed like it went pretty well and a lot of the students enjoyed it. I am doing "night fun" tonight where I will basically be hanging out and playing games with the campers. My next lesson is on the Love Story day. I will probably be doing a dating game show of some sort featuring my ETA friends (hopefully) and I will talk about compatibility and so on.
Korean Classes: These have been a bit rougher than I anticipated. We have our second quiz tomorrow and I need to get a 16 out of 20 on it in order to get out of mandatory study time. So I actually need to wrap this up soon so I can go study!
Placement Forms: We received our placement forms yesterday and this is a form where we can make requests as to what we would like in terms of our school and location placement for our grant year. I am still very unsure of it generally, but right now I am leaning towards a rural or suburban high-level middle or high school. But this could change at anytime. I really don't know where I am going to be but I don't think I will make that many suggestions so as not to disappoint myself by too high of expectations for anything.
I think that is about it. This Monday and Tuesday are crazy because of Camp and the Quiz, but it should be easier once Tuesday evening hits. I have all of Saturday free so I might go explore another city...haven't decided yet. Hope things are going well back home!
Monday, July 16, 2012
What in the world have I been up to?
Well it is a good question I suppose. Last time I left this, the wise Mrs. Shim paid a visit to our quaint little Goesan. Since then, we have been quite busy. Taekwondo (TKD) has really picked up and is very enjoyable. I have never done a martial art but it's pretty fun. We have been practicing elementary punches and kicks for the most part since we are all beginners. I got my uniform today and it looks pretty snazzy. Not the most comfortable thing in the world as it is almost like a plastic-y material but it makes the whole thing much more legit so I will embrace it. I have TKD classes four nights a week so it is definitely a commitment but one that is totally worthwhile.
Korean classes have been really amping up in terms of difficulty levels. It seems like once I finally mastered one concept, we are thrown another. This is largely due to the fact that we have four hours of class a day and are moving at a very accelerated pace. I took a quiz today and I think that it went fairly well, but I still struggle a bit with the dictation part as many of the letters sound the same to my untrained ear. Other than that, I think that I am happy with how things went on the quiz. We have two teachers, one for the first 2 hours and another for the second half. The first teacher is a very funny and easy going man who is quite the talented artist, which really helps explain what certain words mean as he uses virtually no English in class. The second teacher is a perky, energetic lady who always smiles and likes to act out words or our mistakes. For example, she asked me "Where are you from?" and I misinterpreted the question and answered "No" which prompted some fake crying from her. But I just got done with my first session with one of my classmates, Nhu, who has a background in Asian languages and was so incredibly helpful. She was able to get me to better understand the grammar and sentence structure which helped so much. I was really just memorizing words in certain order which made it difficult to understand but she really taught me that it was much more than that. I am definitely going to be having more tutoring sessions with her. Her and the rest of my classmates are awesome, especially Liam who sits next to me and has the misfortune of listening and watching me stumble through the readings and conversations each day. Both of them have been great though and have really helped me make some progress.
We have also had a lot of workshops about teaching and a few cultural ones as well. The ones about teaching are actually better than I thought they would be. As most of you know, I have a teaching background and I graduated this past April with my BA in Education so I figured I would already know most everything in the workshops. But teaching in Korea sounds very different from the states, especially with the roles that ETAs have. For examples, I will only be seeing my students once a week at most and possibly as little as twice a month, a huge change for me. Also, I will not give grades to my students, which is a very foreign concept to me. This makes it challenging to motivate students to work when it doesn't affect their grades. There are a few other differences, but I am sure that I will be able to elaborate on them more once I actually get into the classroom and teach.
Oh I also took my first yoga class! One of the ETAs here, Tyler, is a yoga instructor back home and he is offering free classes for anyone who wants to try them out. It was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be, but it was pretty enjoyable. I don't know if I have the zen personality for it as I prefer to be up and moving around, but it was still a great class and I will probably go again when the opportunity presents itself.
Lastly, I went to Seoul this past Sunday. It was a two hour bus ride, but it was only like $20.00 for a round trip so it was a decent deal. I went with Jason, Neal, Kaley, Robyn, Megan, and Luke, who's girlfriend is from there and her family took us around town. It was so great to see Korea outside of Goesan. Goesan is extremely rural and isn't necessarily the most accurate representation of Korea as a whole. It was raining right when we got there and, of course, I left my umbrella at Jungwon. Oops. But it eventually stopped raining in the afternoon. Anyways, the two fine ladies who took us around town were absolutely amazing. So energetic and friendly. They really welcomed us as if they had known us all of their life. And they were very generous, to the point where I and the others felt a bit guilty but there wasn't anything we could do about it! Luke tried to convince them not to, but nearly all of his endeavors failed. Speaking of Luke, he was totally awesome. He speaks near fluent Korean and was awesome for letting us tag along everywhere and for translating and answering questions for us. Overall it was an awesome day and it makes me excited to explore and see what else this country has to offer.
Korean classes have been really amping up in terms of difficulty levels. It seems like once I finally mastered one concept, we are thrown another. This is largely due to the fact that we have four hours of class a day and are moving at a very accelerated pace. I took a quiz today and I think that it went fairly well, but I still struggle a bit with the dictation part as many of the letters sound the same to my untrained ear. Other than that, I think that I am happy with how things went on the quiz. We have two teachers, one for the first 2 hours and another for the second half. The first teacher is a very funny and easy going man who is quite the talented artist, which really helps explain what certain words mean as he uses virtually no English in class. The second teacher is a perky, energetic lady who always smiles and likes to act out words or our mistakes. For example, she asked me "Where are you from?" and I misinterpreted the question and answered "No" which prompted some fake crying from her. But I just got done with my first session with one of my classmates, Nhu, who has a background in Asian languages and was so incredibly helpful. She was able to get me to better understand the grammar and sentence structure which helped so much. I was really just memorizing words in certain order which made it difficult to understand but she really taught me that it was much more than that. I am definitely going to be having more tutoring sessions with her. Her and the rest of my classmates are awesome, especially Liam who sits next to me and has the misfortune of listening and watching me stumble through the readings and conversations each day. Both of them have been great though and have really helped me make some progress.
We have also had a lot of workshops about teaching and a few cultural ones as well. The ones about teaching are actually better than I thought they would be. As most of you know, I have a teaching background and I graduated this past April with my BA in Education so I figured I would already know most everything in the workshops. But teaching in Korea sounds very different from the states, especially with the roles that ETAs have. For examples, I will only be seeing my students once a week at most and possibly as little as twice a month, a huge change for me. Also, I will not give grades to my students, which is a very foreign concept to me. This makes it challenging to motivate students to work when it doesn't affect their grades. There are a few other differences, but I am sure that I will be able to elaborate on them more once I actually get into the classroom and teach.
Oh I also took my first yoga class! One of the ETAs here, Tyler, is a yoga instructor back home and he is offering free classes for anyone who wants to try them out. It was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be, but it was pretty enjoyable. I don't know if I have the zen personality for it as I prefer to be up and moving around, but it was still a great class and I will probably go again when the opportunity presents itself.
Lastly, I went to Seoul this past Sunday. It was a two hour bus ride, but it was only like $20.00 for a round trip so it was a decent deal. I went with Jason, Neal, Kaley, Robyn, Megan, and Luke, who's girlfriend is from there and her family took us around town. It was so great to see Korea outside of Goesan. Goesan is extremely rural and isn't necessarily the most accurate representation of Korea as a whole. It was raining right when we got there and, of course, I left my umbrella at Jungwon. Oops. But it eventually stopped raining in the afternoon. Anyways, the two fine ladies who took us around town were absolutely amazing. So energetic and friendly. They really welcomed us as if they had known us all of their life. And they were very generous, to the point where I and the others felt a bit guilty but there wasn't anything we could do about it! Luke tried to convince them not to, but nearly all of his endeavors failed. Speaking of Luke, he was totally awesome. He speaks near fluent Korean and was awesome for letting us tag along everywhere and for translating and answering questions for us. Overall it was an awesome day and it makes me excited to explore and see what else this country has to offer.
These are the two ladies (and Jason) were such
friendly and amazing hostesses for us!
Before I forget, here is a link to Tyler's website where he has some great images of Jungwon University, where I am staying. In addition to being a cool yoga instructor, he is an extremely talented photographer/videographer. I don't have the slightest clue how he did it, but he captured Jungwon beautifully through these outstanding panoramic images. You really need to check it out; it is totally worth it. Here is the link!
http://www.vanarsdalephoto.com/jungwontour/tour.html
Now I have to see if a dryer is free and have to write a lesson plan that is due tomorrow so I will update hopefully sooner than this time. By the way, I have Skype set up now so feel free to add me there. My name thing is benjamin.m.louis. Pretty simple. Hope everything is going well back in the US of A.
Update coming soon
I didn't realize that I have fallen a bit behind in my updates so I plan to update this tomorrow (or I guess today since it is technically morning). So I just wanted to let you all know that I am still alive and kicking. This past week was crazy with Korean lessons, teaching workshops, and a day trip to Seoul. It's all been pretty fun though and I will tell you all about it soon but now I have to go to bed because I am super tired and I have a quiz in Korean class tomorrow. Korea is a pretty neat country so far. More tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Adventures in Daejeon
So Monday we ventured into the wonderful city of Daejeon, about 2 hours away from Goesan. Daejeon is the fifth largest city in all of Korea so it was great to be able to see a big city. There are about 12 ETAs placed in Daejeon (a few of them being renewees) so there is a possibility that I could be in there. I journeyed with nine other ETAs and we had the pleasure of visiting one of the top schools in city. It was an all-girls high school and has sent several students to the SKY universities. These consist of three universities (Seoul National, Korea, and Yonsei Universities) and they are essentially the Ivy Leauges of Korea. Every Korean student and parent aspires for the student to go there so it is a really big deal that this school sent 14 students to these universities. It's the equivalent to sending 14 American students to Harvard and Yale and all from one school.
We got in and met the ETA, co-teacher, principal, and vice principals. All of them were great and very welcoming. Then the students saw us. Wow. Some of the OC's warned us about a rockstar effect but I really didn't think much of it. Until they saw us. It was probably similar to Beatlemania in the 60's. Girls screaming, giggling, waving, running towards and away, pounding on classroom windows and doors, shouting "You're so handsome!" and similar things. If you are a Western looking guy and ever need an ego boost, I now know where you should go. It was the most bizarre thing that has probably ever happened to me.
Despite all of that, we were able to see a lesson so that was really great. She has all of the first year students and they are split into three levels of English knowledge. Korean high schools generally have three grades, equivalent to American sophomores, juniors, and seniors. ETAs generally teach 1st and 2nd grade since 3rd graders must study for the high pressure national exam. This exam determines where they can go for school and what they can major in. The 3rd year students spend most of their school day studying for this exam, especially at a school as prestigious as the one I was visiting. The exam is intense, especially if you want to go to a SKY university. For example, to be accepted into the medical program at Korea University, you must get a perfect score on the test. According to Wikipedia, only 1.84% of the students who applied to the med school at Korea University received offers of admission. Anyways, the lessons were great and the ETA did an amazing job and made me and all of the others who visited really excited about teaching.
Today we started Korean classes. It went pretty well overall. The program is actually ran through Korea University so it is one of the best out there. The instructors are both very nice. We have four hours of class and one instructor for the 1st half and a different for the next. Today we just went over the alphabet so it wasn't bad. I can recognize all of the letters and know what sound they make but it just takes me a while to read them out loud when put together into words. I'm definitely not going to be fluent by the end of orientation or my grant year(and realistically ever) but it is still going to be a decent amount of progress. At least enough to hopefully make my way around.
The last big piece of news is that Mrs. Shim is coming tomorrow! Mrs. Shim is the head of the Korean American Education Commission, which makes her the head of Fulbright Korea. She is a very important and influential woman. We have to get all dressed up and look nice for her and we have to give her insa. Insa is a full 90 degree bow, saved only for the most respected and important people.
That is about it as far as updates go. I finally set up Skype and I think I know how everything works. My name is benjamin.m.louis on there if you want to add me! I am loving it here so far and cannot believe I have only been here less than a week. It seems like I have known a lot of my new pals for so much longer and have been in this country for a while.
So far it's been great and I'm looking forward to see what else is in store.
We got in and met the ETA, co-teacher, principal, and vice principals. All of them were great and very welcoming. Then the students saw us. Wow. Some of the OC's warned us about a rockstar effect but I really didn't think much of it. Until they saw us. It was probably similar to Beatlemania in the 60's. Girls screaming, giggling, waving, running towards and away, pounding on classroom windows and doors, shouting "You're so handsome!" and similar things. If you are a Western looking guy and ever need an ego boost, I now know where you should go. It was the most bizarre thing that has probably ever happened to me.
Despite all of that, we were able to see a lesson so that was really great. She has all of the first year students and they are split into three levels of English knowledge. Korean high schools generally have three grades, equivalent to American sophomores, juniors, and seniors. ETAs generally teach 1st and 2nd grade since 3rd graders must study for the high pressure national exam. This exam determines where they can go for school and what they can major in. The 3rd year students spend most of their school day studying for this exam, especially at a school as prestigious as the one I was visiting. The exam is intense, especially if you want to go to a SKY university. For example, to be accepted into the medical program at Korea University, you must get a perfect score on the test. According to Wikipedia, only 1.84% of the students who applied to the med school at Korea University received offers of admission. Anyways, the lessons were great and the ETA did an amazing job and made me and all of the others who visited really excited about teaching.
Today we started Korean classes. It went pretty well overall. The program is actually ran through Korea University so it is one of the best out there. The instructors are both very nice. We have four hours of class and one instructor for the 1st half and a different for the next. Today we just went over the alphabet so it wasn't bad. I can recognize all of the letters and know what sound they make but it just takes me a while to read them out loud when put together into words. I'm definitely not going to be fluent by the end of orientation or my grant year(and realistically ever) but it is still going to be a decent amount of progress. At least enough to hopefully make my way around.
The last big piece of news is that Mrs. Shim is coming tomorrow! Mrs. Shim is the head of the Korean American Education Commission, which makes her the head of Fulbright Korea. She is a very important and influential woman. We have to get all dressed up and look nice for her and we have to give her insa. Insa is a full 90 degree bow, saved only for the most respected and important people.
That is about it as far as updates go. I finally set up Skype and I think I know how everything works. My name is benjamin.m.louis on there if you want to add me! I am loving it here so far and cannot believe I have only been here less than a week. It seems like I have known a lot of my new pals for so much longer and have been in this country for a while.
So far it's been great and I'm looking forward to see what else is in store.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
I'm Here!!!
Well I officially made it! After a very long series of flights taking me from Cleveland to Chicago to Los Angeles to Incheon/Seoul, I am in Korea. I am staying on the lovely campus of Jungwon University on the top floor of the dorms. The city I am currently living in is the "rural" Goesan. I hesitate to officially declare it as rural since rural by Korean standards is a city of 50,000. But nevertheless, it is a beautiful city with many mountains and grassy scenes scattered throughout. Also, they are known for their peppers apparently. In Korea, many cities have a little claim to fame as the best fruit or vegetable or product of some sort in the country and Goesan boasts the best peppers in Korea. Or at least that is what I gandered from the 20 foot statues of Korean men and women hugging red peppers. I'll post a photo of it once I wander around town a bit more.
Everything has been pretty cool so far, minus the crazy long flights. Food is good so far. I have been trying to use chopsticks for my meal and have been semi-successful. I am generally able to eat most of my food with them, but it takes a few attempts to successfully grab something. Also, the chopsticks are metal which makes it a bit trickier as well. Most of the meals I have had are a rice based dish where you add certain things to it to make it taste nice (fish, beef, pork, etc.). There is also a soup and kimchi with every meal. Kimchi is basically pickled cabbage. It tastes as good as it sounds. I am usually able to have a few bites but have yet to eat all of it yet. Hopefully I will get used to it soon!
So orientation basically consists of us waking up, eating breakfast, going to some meetings/ceremonies, lunch, more meetings/workshops, some free time, dinner, an evening extra-curricular, and then more free time. Except next week, the morning will be language classes and the meetings in the morning will be moved to the free time before dinner. I'll be busy but in a very good way.
I signed up for a few extra curriculars and I am pretty excited about them. I am going to be taking Taekwondo four nights a week as well as a Korean cooking class, a traditional tea ceremony, and GLEE club. Glee club is not the singy type club but rather a global language exchange education club, which is good since we all know that I am not the most skilled singer.
We are going to go into a school next week and I am very excited to do that. We are going to get the chance to observe a current Fulbright ETA and get a better idea of what it is we are going to be doing while we are here. People keep asking what my preferences are for placements is but I am not really sure yet. I think I want to be on the coast because it's somewhere I've never really been before and I would like to be further south to hopefully avoid snowy winters. But really I am open to most any place.
Alrighty well I think that is about it for now. I am hoping today that I will be able to walk around and get some good pictures and stuff since it is finally sunny out. It is currently the rainy season in Korea and the past couple of days have been nothing but rain so I am really hoping that this sunshine will last a while. Next time I will be sure to try and post some photos!
Everything has been pretty cool so far, minus the crazy long flights. Food is good so far. I have been trying to use chopsticks for my meal and have been semi-successful. I am generally able to eat most of my food with them, but it takes a few attempts to successfully grab something. Also, the chopsticks are metal which makes it a bit trickier as well. Most of the meals I have had are a rice based dish where you add certain things to it to make it taste nice (fish, beef, pork, etc.). There is also a soup and kimchi with every meal. Kimchi is basically pickled cabbage. It tastes as good as it sounds. I am usually able to have a few bites but have yet to eat all of it yet. Hopefully I will get used to it soon!
So orientation basically consists of us waking up, eating breakfast, going to some meetings/ceremonies, lunch, more meetings/workshops, some free time, dinner, an evening extra-curricular, and then more free time. Except next week, the morning will be language classes and the meetings in the morning will be moved to the free time before dinner. I'll be busy but in a very good way.
I signed up for a few extra curriculars and I am pretty excited about them. I am going to be taking Taekwondo four nights a week as well as a Korean cooking class, a traditional tea ceremony, and GLEE club. Glee club is not the singy type club but rather a global language exchange education club, which is good since we all know that I am not the most skilled singer.
We are going to go into a school next week and I am very excited to do that. We are going to get the chance to observe a current Fulbright ETA and get a better idea of what it is we are going to be doing while we are here. People keep asking what my preferences are for placements is but I am not really sure yet. I think I want to be on the coast because it's somewhere I've never really been before and I would like to be further south to hopefully avoid snowy winters. But really I am open to most any place.
Alrighty well I think that is about it for now. I am hoping today that I will be able to walk around and get some good pictures and stuff since it is finally sunny out. It is currently the rainy season in Korea and the past couple of days have been nothing but rain so I am really hoping that this sunshine will last a while. Next time I will be sure to try and post some photos!
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