Rediscovering the joy of teaching

Dongsan High School is with us this week. A Christian specialist school, it's considered among the top five schools in Korea, and every year, they send their freshman students for a week at English Village, before they even start proper school. It's a chance for freshmen to get to know each other, form relationships, do a bit of teambuilding, and compete for the clubs and societies that mark this school as different from the average - which consider clubs as a waste of time that distracts students from their studies...

They are a joy to teach. My first day, I'm so used to herding unruly middle-schoolers, my jaw drops when the students walk out of their hotel ahead of me, in two perfect lines, making their way to our homeroom without even being told. I can stalk at the back, talking to two girls, who tell me "We're very excited about this great opportunity to study with real foreigners." Apart from the pristine language, who ever knew English Village students could be so thrilled about studying English!

The lessons are a pleasure; even the lower-level kids are interested, and the high-level ones actually laugh when the teachers joke with them!

On the Wednesday, we're walking them to the classroom when we pass the school teachers' hotel at the bottom of the road. A teacher is watching TV just inside the open door, and one of the girls lets out a scream of delight. Before long, we've lost them all, a crowd of teenagers cheering and clapping as Kim Yu-Na, the country's top figure-skater, takes first place in the initial round at the Winter Olympics. She's not a singer or a society princess, but Yu-Na is more than a celebrity in Korea - kids here worship those who rise above the crowds to excel in anything. When we complain, the girls reluctantly leave the doorway to get back in line, but our headteacher, who's standing nearby, says that it's ok for them to take a couple of minutes to watch the performance, and the smiles on their faces as they run back to see uplifts me. Later, my coteacher plays the full video of Yu-Na's triumphant piece; she's absolutely perfect, slipping along on the ice as if humans were made to move on two razor thin blades.

Each day, a member of the Overseas Class appears holding a bundle of newspapers for the students and teachers. The Overseas Class is an elite group of students fluent in English. The freshmen actually took a test to be considered for this class while at English Village. Because they couldn't be expected to skip any classes or initiation for the exam, it was written at 11pm - and that didn't even raise an eyebrow from my coteacher, who explained that these children, the cream of the crop, have been raised from birth attending English private lessons and piano classes from 7am until midnight in order to give them the chance of attending such a school as Dongsan. The newspaper is impressive, written at EV, rushed back to the school where it's printed on the private printing press they own, and then driven back to EV the following morning for the students to read over the morning break.

It's a bit of an ego trip for English Village. Their newspaper, commenting on the opening day, calls the teachers "of a high quality, and very handsome and beautiful like princes and princesses."

On the other hand, the headline is "Students Meet Foreigners". Yes. As if we were an exhibit in a zoo. Ahem.

On Friday at lunchtime, I'm with a number of teachers in the pizza restaurant in the Village during the freestyle skating, the second and final round. The Japanese and American contestants are awarded decent scores, but not fantastic. Kim Yu-Na comes on. The restaurant has filled with children, teenagers and parents, and one of my colleagues climbs on a table to turn the volume up on the flat-screen; everyone falls silent, the chefs stop clattering, and we all watch Yu-Na effortlessly break her own record to take the gold, 40 points ahead of her Japanese rival. I can't believe that even the young schoolkids, who haven't been herded in by adults but have hurried in of their own accord in time for her display, are absolutely engrossed in the TV, and when Yu-Na's score is announced - clearly so far ahead as to be unbeatable - the restaurant bursts into tears and applause. It's emotional...


My students compete in a debate they've been preparing for all week. My girls have to compete against boys - until now, they've not been allowed to cohabit classrooms with the opposite gender - Dongsan is strictly Christian. Not sure entirely why it's even co-ed... The boys are also terrified, hiding their fear behind jokes and laughing and formal handshakes. They're more fluent, but my girls have much better grammar. The boys win...




























I listen to their hard work, and then later, can't believe it when a head teacher tells me I was actually assigned the lowest level class in the school! These kids weren't fluent, by any means, but they were miles ahead of any of my previous students - even better than some of our Korean teachers! Polite, well-behaved, interested, willing to participate, smart, creative... At the closing ceremony, I eye their foreign English teacher, wondering if he's going to be leaving the job anytime soon - for these kids, I'd return to Korea.

Winter Wonderland

Movie stars, cute kids and a tonne of polystyrene. It's Christmas in the English Village...

A week ago, the Villagers awoke to the sounds of yet another film crew creating a set. It took all day, but by evening, Main Street had been transformed. Our tram had been pulled out on its tracks - and by pulled out, I mean it was hooked up to a car and towed on wheels. This is because it was built without brakes. Or, according to another rumour, Korean engineers built the tracks, and foreign engineers built the tram, and neither side told the other side what specifications to build to, so they don't fit together. Either way, our tram does not work. But it certainly looked awfully pretty sitting there in front of the pub, atop a beautifully white road - courtesy not of the November weather, but some cleverly placed white sheets and a dusting of polystyrene snow, artistically blown about by a clever man with a blower thing.

Lights had been draped over all the store fronts and the tram decked with holly and red ribbons and other Decemberish adornments. I had to leave to teach my evening military lesson, so I ducked down the back route, now blocked by an enormous van serving kimchi and coffee to the starved and frozen crew.

When I returned at 9pm, a crowd of teachers and students from our adult programs had taken up position behind a gauntlet of luminous lights, enormous cameras and a sound machine set to repeat, playing the Xmas jingle of a major electronics megastore. The stars of the Korean hit movie Kwasok Scandle (or Speed Scandal) were obliging the director with 5 seconds of dance, again, and again, and again... The youngest cast member - only about 5 years old, extremely cute under a mop of curly hair, and currently to be seen on every single talk show, game show and advert on TV - swung his legs from his perch on the tram, while the main star smiled delightfully at every request to start from the top.

Meanwhile, from my own perch on some side steps, I could see and talk to the extras - three little families, strong father, mother in miniskirt, perfect child in designer clothes - whose job it was to walk back and forth across the road and be shouted at by a guy in a beret with a megaphone.

As for me, I got bored after half an hour and went home to bed. The lights and music continued until 4am. Mmm, this showbiz thing - it's not for everyone you know...

The Deep Shame of Havingnothingtodo

Since the Swine Flu Episode, schools have been cancelling by the busload, and even the day programmes have been hit hard by the inherent Korean fear of foreigners and their diseases. I've not had much to write about really. The Village has been amazingly quiet, even on the weekends, and I have to admit I'm starting to miss being badgered for my autograph when I go to buy a coffee - amazing but true. I've started to fill the space in my heart with photographs of my new home (not so new anymore - I celebrated my six-month anniversary this week!) This is our deserted main street, normally not visible under the tramp of stilettoed heels.

Here's a photo from the City Hall looking up the main street.


The Village is filled with signposts made in the style of London signs - until you look closely at them, when you notice the Americanised spelling. There are more Americans here than any other nation, but when we combine, the Canadians, Brits and Antipodeans outnumber those who use American spelling. It can be annoying when we're in class and a Powerpoint uses a different spelling to the one you've just used on a board, and your kids point out to you that you're wrong! I just see it as my mission to show Korean learners that there's more than one way to spell favourite...


One bonus of the silence is the number of animals who now venture into EV. I sat one morning and watched a dark brown Tree Squirrel leap about the courtyard below my balcony - none of us had ever seen a Korean squirrel before!



There has been a little excitement - film crews, taking advantage of the silence, have been busy. We've had a music video, a horror movie (with tiny little blonde actresses, about 5 years old...), a soapie episode, and a school uniform photo shoot... um, well the last isn't very exciting, I'll admit.

As for work... well, we don't have any. For the past three weeks we've been doing workshops, talks, lectures, discussion groups, team-building exercises, training, briefings, debriefings, and a LOT of coffee breaks. I got to teach a special elementary program one week, and the sight of the wee ones running round screaming and pulling each other's hair... well, it brought tears to my childless eyes, I tell you. I miss the monsters. I really do.

At the end of our 3rd week post-Isolation, we started observing Day Program classes and Edutainer edutainments in the street. Lots of fun and very interesting to see how they adapt to the environment and time constraints and still manage to teach something to the kids. We even took part in a game one morning - every single OWP teacher working that day was there, so around 50 adults packed onto the verandah type space. Oh, and one very small kid and his smaller baby sister. We hustled them up to the front and made sure he was included in games and challenges and he didn't seem fazed at all. Once a friend of mine called to him and told him to come sit by her, and he looked a bit cross, turned to her, very theatrically put his finger to his lips and loudly whispered "Shhhhh!"

This is our team winning one of the challenges...



Because of the lack of work, we've been given the option of unpaid leave for the last week before the Chuseok holiday which Harry jumped at - on Saturday morning I was up at 5am to drive him to the airport and see him onto a plane to Japan for 2 weeks. It's been odd not having him around! Funny how quickly you get used to situations!

It's all good though, as I now have less than a week till I leave for Bali on Friday night. Very excited, mostly about the fact that I'm meeting my sister in Bangkok. We'll be in Indonesia for a week, then it's back to EV, and management swears we have a program booked for after Chuseok. Here's hoping...

In The Trough

This week, paranoia and fear hit English Village. Scared to leave their rooms, teachers took voluntary unpaid leave rather than work with their colleagues. Other teachers were villified for walking their dogs and sharing meals with friends. Management was charged with reckless endangerment and a petition was started. Masks were brought out. Today, the village is eerily silent; yes, ladies and gentlemen, the dreaded pox has arrived.

The deadly swine flu (well, 2 people did die last weekend in Korea...) was brought into the village by six teachers here to train on a drama course, after they went home for the weekend and contracted the disease. They continued to walk around for another two days before leaving for good; on Sunday four EV drama teachers were isolated and tested for the flu, their first tests came back positive on Tuesday; schools withdrew their kids within hours and the Village was closed to day visitors. On Wednesday one case was confirmed. On Thursday afternoon, the regional government had an emergency meeting with EV Administration and teachers were sent home for the afternoon. Still in training for a phonics programme, 20 of us continued to attend the course, and being the largest group we were the first to be told that quarantine was going to be applied to all teachers - so of course, the minute the course ended (a day early - cram those phonics...) we all rushed out to catch taxis and lifts with friends to the local shops where we stocked up on pot noodles, eggs, milk and beer - all the essentials - before the edict could be made public. Luckily nobody ran screaming down the streets when they saw us - they were obviously the public who hadn't yet seen the local newspaper, or the KBS reporters hanging around at the closed EV gates.

So quarantine kicked in Thursday night and we're all locked up for the duration. By lunchtime on Friday, I was already suffering from cabin fever... Apparently there's a limit on the number of movies you can watch in one go. The village is so quiet - not even the usual people wandering past my balcony or congregating on the benches to chat. Everyone is wearing masks when outside, and we have nurses coming daily to our apartments to check temperatures. Of course, we figure that if any one of us has it, the rest have already been exposed, so at least I've had Cait and Leigh with me all day - we've decided to fight the boredom with milk tarts, yoghurt cakes, and scrabble. Hooray!

We also - I have to admit - had a bit of a party last night in Harry's apartment. Hey, whatever works to make us feel better about being stuck here for a week!

My Week In ESL Hell

Every once in a while, a bunch of kids arrives at English Village so special, so unique, that they will never be forgotten. A day spent with these awe-inspiring students leads even the most dedicated teacher home to cry quietly in his apartment and call "Mummy!" in his sleep. Teachers dropping like flies - sickness, exhaustion, sudden calls from home that mean they cannot come to work that day... Such is the life we have led this week with the amazing, the jaw-dropping, the fantastic Suju Middle School.

Starting on Monday with the Survival English lesson - where I discovered my class didn't know how to ask somebody's name. A cheery "how's it going?" met with 26 blank faces - but the more formal "How are you?" still only raised a mediocre "I am fine" from about 5 students. I don't have an issue with low students - if their attitude is right, I can adjust lessons and language to suit them.

On Tuesday, my first student was dragged kicking and screaming "But it's not fair!" (in Korean, naturally) to the Head Teacher's office for some Korean-style discipline (writing letters for an hour while sitting in the most uncomfortable position at the teacher's disposal) for talking repeatedly in class and ignoring his teacher. By the end of the day, my class was the class teachers were groaning about when they saw their name on the schedule to teach them.

On Wednesday three students sexually harassed one of my friends, touching themselves and calling her over. I lost all 3 to the Head Teachers for the rest of that day, and most of the next one. Teaching another class Science, I refused to allow two groups to take part in the experiment after their appalling behaviour, and was harassed for ten minutes by outraged girls who couldn't understand that their parents' payment to EV didn't guarantee them luxurious treatment, but perhaps should be a reason for working hard to justify the sacrifice made in their low-income homes.

On Thursday I arrived in my class - on my own, my co-teacher being 'sick' - to find 5 girls sobbing uncontrollably in the bathroom and refusing to be in the same classroom as the boys, who had commented on their periods and called a slightly chubby girl a fat pig. The Korean counsellor talked to them in Korean for my entire lesson, discovering that the girls had retaliated in equal fashion. They spent the evening writing apology letters instead of watching a movie.

On Friday my Korean co-teacher lectured them in Korean for 30 minutes - and an angry tirade in Korean scares even me, so harsh a language is it - while I stood over two boys standing against the wall outside with their hands above their heads. We refused to give prizes to the kids with the most stickers and instead chose 3 students who we felt had at least tried (and were probably being bullied for it). Taking the boys to the Concert Hall for closing ceremony, I had to call over a head teacher to shout at a boy (the main protagonist of the week) for swearing at me in both Korean and English.

Closing Ceremony finally began, and the MC - one of my coteachers - congratulated the school on being the most incredible school in our 3-year history, noting that he could see many of the teachers actually had tears in their eyes. The pleasure that can be taken in taking the piss out of people without them understanding a word is hard to quantify.

There were more than tears in my eyes as I saw the kids off that afternoon, and the staff gathering for the meeting were clearly overjoyed! Next week another school is coming from the same place - I'm giving it one day before I decide whether or not to call in sick for the other four.

Life in a theme park

Oh, the sweet joy of waking up in English Village! Not for us the intrusive sounds of angry traffic! Nor must we endure the twittering of birds in the hills surrounding our houses. For the powers that be, and oh how I thank them every day, have seen fit to install a speaker outside Jupiter Building, on a streetlight so that it's just at the level of my room. Through this speaker come such treasures!

This morning for instance, it was "If you're happy and you know it". Yesterday we had "I like doughnuts! I love doughnuts! They make me happy!" (we're apparently on a mission to turn kids from the healthy Asians they are into tubby Westerners...)

Anything, though, anything at all, is better than the theme song.

"Welcome to English Village.... I like speaking English..... it's greeeeaaaaat, it's fun, it's English Village!"

I told you in one of my first posts about losing half my class when they saw a celebrity wandering the streets of EV. Film crews, musicians and soap-stars are common here, the scenery as exotic to Koreans as the hanok villages are to us westerners. A few weeks ago, a music video was shot in the Village. I took the picture below from the teachers' room of the male singer with his backing dancers. Later, we emerged from our Friday closing ceremony with the kids to find the main route to the cafeteria blocked by the film crew, and our cries of "No running!" went completely ignored as 400 teenagers ran screaming for the barriers. My coteachers and I found ourselves physically holding students back as the two main singers tried to hide behind props! It was like being in an old Beatles video! Eventually, the female singer, her head hidden beneath a blanket, was rushed to a van with darkened windows and then we were able to start ushering the students to the cafeteria for their lunch. A surreal experience. I found out from one of the girls (almost fainting with excitement) that the female singer was one half of Davichi, a popular girlband.

The video is sweet, funny, and very typically Korean. You can watch it here: "If You Pretend" It's full of subtext and references and insider jokes for Korean teenagers. Right at the end, as the girl sinks onto his shoulder, he wonders "Who should I score next? Hyori?" - Hyori is a beautiful very famous actress-singer - the highest paid in Korea :)

Cultural blunders...

Last Sunday I read a book with one of the little girls who comes to see me in the cafe every week. Easy right? Hmm...

So we're reading a book about animals, and deciding which one is the King of the Beasts. Everything goes smoothly - we roar for the lion, we wiggle our noses for the rabbit, we woof woof for the dog... the little girl is unimpressed and shakes her head. Is that a dog? Yes! What does a dog do?

Mung Mung!

A cat goes "yow! yow!", and (my personal favourite) a frog goes not "ribbit ribbit", but "gaggle gaggle"!

I realise now why I often get blank faces in class when we're playing charades and other guessing games...

Another vital piece of cultural information for teachers is that red pens are now a no-no. I know what you're thinking - what is a teacher without her red pen? But using one runs the risk of accidentally writing someone's name in red, which implies that that person is dead. Quite important then.

It can be a bit of a minefield, but I'm still grateful that total Americanisation hasn't yet overwhelmed Korea :)

My First Week

Sunday: After meeting two other teachers from my SA agency at Incheon Airport, we make our way to the English Village north of Seoul, arriving just as the sun sets. My apartment is tiny but very neat and space-conscious, and there's a thoughtful present of noodles and loo roll on my bed. It's equipped with internet (hooray for high-speed first-world internet!), TV, heater, LOTS of storage, and a little kitchen + accessories. I also have my own bathroom. We're taken out for dinner at a local restaurant and already I can see I'm going to like the people here, Korean and otherwise :) Jet lag allows me to sleep till midnight, but gently prods me awake after that, and I spend the early hours of Monday morning watching K-pop (local music) on TV.

The photo is of my residence. I'm the window on the left at the top.

Monday: First day on the job! The two other new teachers (Ross from Zim and Caitlin from SA) and I are taken down to the teachers' room for the Monday meeting, and then it's straight out to the entrance of English Village (EV from now on), where, underneath an enormous Stonehenge, we rollcall our students with our shadow teachers. Mine is Park, a Korean guy who looks about 20 but is actually 32. My class doesn't understand a word I say and packs out laughing every time I say a name, so Park takes over. We drop them off at their "hotels" to unpack, and collect them 20 minutes later for an "opening ceremony" where two teachers (Korean and American) give a great show, enthusiastically taking the piss out of the 350+ students (nicknames are popular to avoid having to learn any names!) and listing the unbreakable rules (Speak English! Listen To Teachers! Don't Sleep In Class!). I sit in a sea of black-haired students who stare shamelessly at me and the other non-Korean teachers. Finally it's time for classes, and the rest of the day passes in a blur.

Tuesday: I lose half my class as they run screaming around a corner after a young guy in army fatigues. Park tells me with his usual affable smile that there is an actor shooting scenes from a popular Korean soap in the main street of the Village and goes striding after the lost girls and boys... Apparently the streets of EV are often closed down for the sole use of directors, and the local pub's walls are lined with autographs. My fellow teachers seem less excited. Probably because it's hard to explain to the teacher you're delivering a class to that you haven't a clue where the other fifteen children are.

Later, we're taken out for shabu-shabu at a local restaurant - the owner drives to EV to fetch us! This is a Japanese meal and is pretty special.


How to eat shabu-shabu:

1. Pull up a cushion and sit at the low table, where a potjie pot full of soup and vegetables is bubbling away above the built in gas flame. Fill up your bowl with the ladle - the professional way to do this is to slop it everywhere, including on yourself, and then admire the reddish stains. I'm happy to say I was immediately successful at this.
2. Ask the hostess for the meat - brought to you in about 20 rolled up very thin slices. Plunge a piece into the soup when you're ready and swish it about, waiting for it to cook. Shabu-shabu apparently means "swish swish". I can't comment on this part - vegetarians skip to the next step:
3. Pull up an enormous bowl of fresh white noodles and tip into the potjie pot. When cooked, spend half an hour attempting to transfer to your bowl using the ladle and your friends' chopsticks. Once in your bowl, attempt to eat with chopsticks. Drop slippery noodles around the table to great amusement of Koreanised teachers. Admit defeat when the hostess comes hurrying anxiously across with a fork. (The two other newbies laughed at me, but I notice they didn't attempt the noodles themselves...)
4. The hostess will remove the last bits of soup from the pot (these are put aside for take away) and then packs in a mix of uncooked rice and vegetables and a bit of leftover soup, pressing it down hard around the pot. Leave to cook over the flame for a couple of minutes, then scrape off the pot so that the black crunchy bits are mixed up, and pat it down again to cook some more. When it's to your taste, enjoy - this is the easiest part of the meal to actually eat and is surprisingly delicious.
5. Unfold your legs from underneath the table and attempt to stand up - it's alright to take a few wobbly attempts at this - after all, it has been an hour and a half of sitting on the floor...

Wednesday: I have been assigned to the science section of the school, which means Invention, Science and Exploration classes, I think - and Robotics! Which is awesome, cause I always wanted a robot. Teachers are encouraged to try out projects before teaching them :) I get confused when being introduced to the class, as there is a short question-and-answer time every new class you take (although you are the Home Room teacher for one class for their whole week here, you also teach other classes through the day). During the Q&A I keep asking the students their ages, and every single one is 15. I understand that all babies start life as 1 year old on the day they're born, so all Koreans are a year older than we are. I now discover that at Chinese New Year, everyone turns a year older, which means that it doesn't matter which month you are born in, you are the same age from New Year to New Year. A child born the night before New Year will turn 2 the following day. So despite being 4 months from my 28th birthday, I am actually already 29 in Korea. I have started giving this age to students that ask: they ask so that they can mentally place you in the classroom's hierarchy - age is everything in Korea. The older I am, the more respect I get from the kids! Also, apparently I have "small face, teacher!", which I'm told is a good thing here :)

Thursday: Ross, Caitlin and I were taken to the local hospital for our medical exams. Everyone at EV has to do this once they arrive, and it's pretty comprehensive and in-depth. Basically, if you've smoked a joint in the last month, or are taking anything stronger than paracetamol without a prescription, you will fail, and you will be escorted from the country immediately... pretty terrifying! The hospital is amazing, absolutely spotless with huge potted palms and ferns lining the corridor and tiny, neat little nurses in bonnets. Nobody speaks much English, which meant that when standing on the height/weight machine, I was not prepared for a plastic thing to wallop me on the head while checking my height, and the nurse thought I was a real idiot when I couldn't complete the hearing test first time... Then, just to make sure you're really weirded out, you are given a cup and told to go get a urine sample. The bathroom is right down at the other end of the corridor, which means that you walk back to the exam room with an open cup of wee, past all the incoming patients in the foyer, who are already craning their necks to see you because you're foreign and interesting. Awesome. Blood test, eye test, blood pressure, medical history.... They delve deep. Or at least they attempt to, but without any Korean on my part and no English on their part, I'm not really sure how much history they got from my mime.

Friday: Hooray! Friday at last! I'm exhausted - and most of the teachers have been doing this for a straight ten days thanks to an anomaly in the Korean school term & exams... Morning class is Invention, in which the kids make "rainbow juice" from a mix of coloured juices and soda water. Afterwards, in Home Room, everyone writes postcards to their favourite teacher to round off. I get a satisfying little bundle :) The afternoon is filled with meetings and introductions, but we're given little bundles of rice cakes ("deok") by a teacher who's just been married - beautifully wrapped and boxed, they're not like the dry Western rice cakes, but thick, gooey rolls of (I assume) mashed rice, with bits and pieces mixed in - chocolate chips, black beans, and I'm not sure what the pink one is.... Deok is a very auspicious food, served on lots of important occasions.

On Friday night three of us head for Ilsan to do some shopping - this is the nearest big town to EV, about 20 minutes on the shuttle and then 5 minutes taxi to an enormous shopping street/mall. It seems like the entire town is lit up - Earth Day needn't bother with the rest of the world, just getting Korea to switch off for the day would stop global warming all on its own! The buildings are covered in electrical signs for the shops and offices inside, all flashing and doing their own little things. Think Times Square on steroids...