3-8

Anyong!

Hana do, juseyo?

It's time that I stop slacking and send out another update to everyone.

Things have been busy here the past few weeks. The last week of term one was now three weeks ago. Each day I had to go in early for training sessions on the new format of all classes. The classes I had been trained in changed so I had to be completely re-trained on how to administer them. Then I also picked up two classes that I wasn't previously trained in, so I had to learn them.

We're getting new teachers for this term. One went home at the end of last term, which I mentioned in the last e-mail. One of the new teachers, Jonathan, is here now and just finished his first week. The next one, Alice, got here this weekend and starts on Monday. Their classes had to be on the schedule, though, which meant we had to fill in for them until they got here. The first two weeks, I had to teach Alice's classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 'morning' (4:30-7:30). While I did that, our sub-teachers taught my classes. If that sounds weird, it was done because they wanted the sub teachers to only teach one level, in this case EC4 while the CDI teachers covered the random classes. I didn't like doing this at first, but it turned out pretty well.

One of the classes I was teaching for her was EC2, the lowest level we offer at CDI. Now, the EC2 kids are not just beginners to the language...so it's not like I have to play charades when teaching...they know enough that we have a lesson and the skill lecture is on some of the easier English rules. I was really nervous before that, though, because my biggest area for improvement was to slow down my delivery. Considering the lowest level I had taught was Memory Mega (a reminder, EC2, EC3, EC4, Memory Mega, Giga, Tera, Reading/Listening-Bridge, Par, Birdie, Albatross are the levels in order...albatross being near fluent), it was going to be a challenge to drop down to the level where speaking slowly is imperative for their comprehension. Also, those kids can be the toughest to control because they are young and have so much energy. We teachers jokingly call them 'the little ankle-biters.' That said, the class has gone great. I was able to speak perfectly to their level and I had a lot of fun teaching them. It's so much easier when they really want to learn and it makes me feel good when I know they understand the skills I'm teaching them. They knew that I was only going to be their teacher for 2 weeks and many of them were sad to see me go. On their words-to-chunks review test on the week's second class, a few of them told me to pick their test up last because they wrote notes to me on the back. I wish I had taken a picture because I'll never forget the feeling when I read them. Their English of course isn't all that great yet, but the basic things they said were:

"Joe Teacher,
I don't want you to go.
I really like you as my teacher.
You have taught as a lot and you are very fun.
Please don't go"

Not going to lie, I was trying pretty hard not to tear up right there in front of the class. One of the greatest compliments I've ever had. The class that I was so nervous/challenged for turned out to go so well that the kids didn't want me to leave. Even the girls, who were at first excited that they'd be getting a female teacher, didn't want me to go. I also was going to miss them a lot. They had easily been one of my top 2 classes so far and I didn't want to lose them.

So...I went to talk to our principal (basically), Jeon. I told him about the notes that the kids wrote for me and how much I liked that class. (I also found out last night from one of the staff girls that some parents had called in saying their kid liked me and didn't want to get a new teacher) I asked if there was any way that I could keep the class and let Alice take the classes that would have been mine. I think Jeon probably doubted me more than I did about speaking slowly...he's always reminding me about it but I think he knew things were going well. He agreed to let me keep the class! That was great news that I received on Friday. Since the class is Monday-Wednesday, the kids do not even know that I'm going to continue being their teacher yet...so I'm really looking forward to seeing them on Monday and telling them that they get to keep me after all.

Unfortunately, the second class on Friday brought me back down to earth a little bit. This term, I have a class on Monday-Friday night (middle-school kids) that is Memory Mega. Mega is a low level course, so when middle-school kids are at this level, it becomes very difficult to teach. They don't want to talk/participate because it's not cool and their ability isn't very advanced. I end up talking even slower than I do to the EC2 kids, though I shouldn't have to because they are smarter than they act...they just don't want to do anything. They will even know the answer...and just sit there and not say anything...often times just playing dumb. This makes it very hard to get through all the material that we're supposed to do. Hell, on the first day, when trying to give them English names, they didn't even respond as I listed every English name I could think of. It's actually harder to give an English name than I thought...I run down a list of friend's names and them family names and then just anyone I can think of. I give them all the common names like Ryan, Andrew, Tim, David, etc. but none of those sound good to them. I end up with a class with Chelsea (a boy, despite me telling him that's a girl's name), Irene, Brown, etc. They have been by far my worst class at CDI. I used to look forward to the last class of the week because that was my favorite class last term...now the last class of the week just puts me in a bad mood.

So, there's the background on this class. Friday night was the typical class. Silence, playing dumb, we get behind on material. They don't want to work, no matter what kind of threats I give. I talk to my co-workers about how they handle these classes during our dinner break and usually the protocol is I send the worst students to the office to be lectured by Jeon about their expectations in the class room, etc. I come back from dinner break realizing that something has to be done. I have yet to send any kids to the office, even though some have deserved it. I have only had a few stern lectures to classes on how to behave, but after a few minutes of the usual playing dumb, I lecture them about how their attitudes are going to have to change. I move on to the next skill activity...listening/taking notes. Here, they listen to a short passage from the chapter that we read...no new material at all, it's the same thing they've been reading for the past hour and a half. After talking about notes, I have to call on a few of them to give me an oral summary using their notes. I call on one girl who usually is a bit of a problem, but she had some notes and did fairly well. I then call on the worst offender of playing dumb/not trying in class, Morgan. I ask him to give me his summary and he just sits there in silence for about 10-15 seconds. I move closer and ask him again to tell me anything about the passage he just heard. I see that he has no notes at all written down and he remains silent for another 10-15 seconds. I tell him he has 10 seconds to say ANYTHING...anything at all. He just continues to ignore me and look at his book. An example needs to be made in this class, so Morgan just became the example. I tell him if he's not even going to try, then quit wasting my time and his and get out of my class and talk to Jeon in the office. He looks up at me like I'm not serious, but I assure him that I want him to go to the office. He just continues to sit there despite me continuing to say he has to go to the office and talk to Jeon about why he doesn't even try in class. I open the door and tell him that I'm not starting class again until he leaves. This will usually get the student's attention and they'll leave...but he still wouldn't get up from his seat...and he still hasn't said a word. I keep talking to him for about a minute before Jeon walks into the classroom, likely hearing me talking to him since my door was open. I tell him what happens and then John tells him to go wait in his office and lectures the whole class for about 10 minutes. He leaves and we finish class with no further problems...the kids got the message.

Morgan doesn't return to class the last hour. The bell rings for everyone to go home. After all the kids left, Morgan walks back into the room. His eyes are bright red and he's still sniffling. He had been crying for probably the better part of 20 minutes with Jeon talking to him. Kids cry a lot, especially at the lower levels when they don't understand something. I hadn't had any criers yet, though, until this one. Education is taken very seriously over here and these kids know that they will be in big trouble at home if they don't do their work or get in trouble at school. Jeon puts a big scare into them, too. Morgan just comes up to me and says "Sorry teacher." I of course feel bad that he's been crying, but he really needed some kind of wake up call for this class to get any better. Someone had to be the example, he was the best option to be the example. I just patted him on the back and told him. "It's not that I don't like you..and I'm not trying to pick on you, but you have to try in class. It's really hard to teach when kids aren't even trying and there's no way that I can evaluate them and their progress if they are not putting any effort into it. I told him that all I want from him is to start trying in class and everything will be okay." I didn't have his respect before, but I think he now understands that I'm the boss in the classroom and if I say he has to do something, then he has to do it.

So, after all of that, I was in a bad mood. I was upset from that class going horribly for the 4th time in a row and the actions that had to happen for any hope of it getting better. Jeon talked to me and told me everything was alright, sometimes classes are just really hard. I was again feeling like I needed to fight back my own tears because I try so hard to be the teacher that the kids like and joke around with and it hurts me to discipline them. I'm better at acting out to get the kids involved and that has made most of my classes better, but this one has been really hard and I think Jeon understands that I'm trying my best and was just dealt a bad class. Most of those students are new and they're even worse than veteran middle-school classes because they don't know what's going on. Usually, the low-level middle-school classes are saved for teachers in their first term because even the staff knows they are horrible and difficult. Hopefully I won't have any more in my third term...maybe even get one of the advanced classes.

So, those are the good/bad of my term schedule. Last term, I had mostly memory level classes. This term, I have fewer of those. I have the aforementioned Mega class on Monday/Friday night. I have a tera class on Thursday night and another Mega on Friday morning, both of which I split with another teacher. Then I have one listening class, Bridge, on Thursday morning after having two last term. I now teach two Bridge reading classes on Tuesday. The Tuesday/Thursday reading/listening class is a pretty good one. Half the class is from a tera class that I had last term that leveled up. I'm not sure how a couple of the girls leveled up, but whatever. I'll try as hard as I can to bring them up to speed in that level. My other class is the EC2 class that I now get to keep. I again have Wednesday evening off, thankfully. I love having that time off...perfect way to get a rest in the middle of the week. So, like I said...the EC2 class is pretty good and the reading/listening combo is pretty good and the M/F mega is pretty bad...but the rest are right in line with what I've had so far. The reading class on Tuesday night can be pretty frustrating, though. There are a couple of good kids, but the room is packed with 16 kids and I have some troublemakers...two of them which got caught cheating on their review test this week. I can deal with them by sitting them on opposite corners of the room.

I am definitely spending more time preparing for classes now. I was not satisfied with my overall ratings by the students and know I can do better, so I'm trying harder to master the material before class starts. I need to remember that my job is to teach these kids, not show up and have fun with them for three hours a day, which maybe I was guilty of too often in the first term. I like it, though, I feel much smarter when I spend more time preparing and I think the confidence I have with the material allows me to act out a bit more which helps to engage the students more. So, I believe my teaching is getting better and I'll see those results at the end of the term. Hard work pays off and I need to remember that more often. Now that I have a term of experience under my belt and have seen the level up tests, I have a better idea of just how I need to advance the kids' skills and what things are more important than others during the lesson.

One of the kids in my reading/listening combo class brought me a cake this week. Well, I guess his mom technically brought it for me, but that was really nice. He's a kid that has a hard time paying attention in class. He's a good kid and really pretty smart, but I think he's a little ADD. He likes to raise his hand and comment though it gets frustrating because he'll go off on a tangent about something not too closely related to the material. I see the other kids roll their eyes when he starts talking (I usually give them an evil glare if I catch it) so I'm sure he doesn't have many friends, so I just try really hard to listen to what he says and offer a short comment while transitioning back to the required class material. The new structure has really added a lot of material to the class, so we have to hustle to get through everything (which makes the silent classes that much more frustrating because we lose so much time while they are sitting there and playing dumb...or if we have a kid like Mike that goes off on tangents). I think Mike likes me, though, and must have said something at home for his mother to bring in a cake for me. Or...she could just be trying to bribe me. I don't care, whatever gets me more cake. :) I had a similar kid last term, Edward, whose mom had him bring me a couple packages of a Korean snack.

In non-school news, you might remember me saying that the week where I sent the last update had been my best in Korea. Just a great week, lots of fun, lots of good things happening. It was definitely making me lean towards staying longer if those kinds of weeks continued. Then, the following week went to hell more or less. My best week was followed by my worst week here to bring me back down to earth a little bit. I'm not sure I can really pinpoint one or two reasons that made it so bad, but it was just not a good week. It was the first week of the new term, so I was going into work very early to prepare to teach the new classes and then I had some drama in my social life that I had to correct. For the most part, I've met a lot of good people but as my dad reminded me after that update, there will always be those with ulterior motives that you don't see immediately. Turns out he was right, again. Don't get me wrong, nothing serious or really bad happened, just some unfortunate events which will make me focus a bit more in the future. Things are starting to go well again now.

I just want to say it again, in case I haven't said it enough already, that no matter how well things are going here, I miss everyone from back home a lot. I have friends here, but none of them can replace those of you that I've shared many good and bad memories with over the past 5-10 years of my life. I also think I have maybe under appreciated just how much my family has done for me to get me where I am today and I hope to make that up to all of them when I return.

I forgot to mention in the last e-mail that if I do stay for a second year, that I will be asking for two weeks of vacation in my contract with a guarantee that I get to use one of them on the week surrounding Christmas '09. I do not want to miss two straight Christmas days and that would be the best time for me to see as many people as possible since most people will have time off work. I'll probably be there about 5 days, starting with the Monday of Christmas week. Someone had better be sure to get me tickets to the Braggin' Rights game because I'm also strategically planning my time in the US around that too! This waking up early in the morning or staying up really late at night to watch games is too frustrating...especially when the end result shows that I should have just stayed in bed like the Illini's game against Penn State (either of them). The bright side to my work schedule is that I should be able to watch just about the entire NCAA tournament without missing any time at work, though I will probably be sleep deprived those first two weekends. So, as I continue to update everyone from over here, I look forward to seeing everyone this Christmas!

...and if anyone can afford a plane ticket to Korea for a week/weekend, all of your food/drinks are on me while you're here ;)

Until then, take care and keep me updated on your lives!

2-20

Anyong!

I am able to type out this update this morning/today because I actually got to bed at a decent hour last night. I had a lot of late nights this week doing nothing in particular and it finally caught up to me. I was beyond exhausted when I crashed at 11:17 last night. Usually I have some kind of mental block that tells me that I cannot go to bed before midnight, but I know that is something I will one day have to push up to about 10 PM at least if I plan on teaching in the US.

It has been a pretty eventful few weeks for me, but in a good way. These past two weeks have been arguably my best in the Republic. There have been some downs to go with the ups, but by and large the ups have a more lasting impression. I'll try to detail as many of those as possible here. I actually wrote a few things down this week so I'd remember them when it came time to type this e-mail up.

I had my first event of being carded over here when buying alcohol. It caught me off guard because I hadn't been carded at all, bar or store, over here. I think most would see a westerner and easily assume we are post-college grads here teaching. At least I haven't met any that have come here to study. On top of that, the drinking age is 19 which I think I clearly look older than. This happened at Lotte-Mart when I was buying my white russian supplies. The lady looked confused about something when scanning the kahlua. I had my wallet out to dig for money and after a minute she looked at my ARC and I guess then decided it was okay to sell me the liquor. I guess the birth date is on the ARC...I see numbers on there but none of them are my birthday though. Lots of Korean with a few numbers that are similar to a driver's license #. Oh well, whatever she saw must have been good enough.

Last Tuesday, I got up early and took the KTX to Daejeon to visit a friend and attend her graduation. While I knew I wouldn't be able to understand a single word of the event, I thought it would be cool to see a graduation over here. This definitely turned out to be one of the weirdest experiences for me over here, though. I met my friend outside the school and walked around with her and a few others for a while. I got many, many wide-eyed looks when walking around. I was the only white person there and it almost seemed like some had never seen one in person. Many girls would walk by and say 'hi' and when I said 'hi' back, they just giggled and ran away talking to their friends. Everyone kept asking Phoebe (my friend) if I was her boyfriend (I'm not) and mostly couldn't take their eyes off me. It definitely was a little uncomfortable but I said if she was okay with it, then I was too. During the ceremony, I just walked towards a corner of the gym to stand and watch. A few girls (I keep mentioning girls, it was an all-girls school) gave me a program that was all in Korean. I tried to look like I fit in as much as possible by looking at it for a while, pretending I could read it. Afterwards, I guess they like to throw flour and eggs at each other. I was dressed for work because I was going to be getting back just in time for parent teacher conferences, so I had to try pretty hard to avoid getting hit with something. I've said before that there are very few times in life where I have been a minority, but that was definitely the most out-of-place moment I've ever felt.

Speaking of parent teacher conferences, I have now done my first set on the teacher side! It wasn't too difficult. I had a list of four students whose parents (moms) were going to be coming by to talk to me via translator so I prepared reports on each student before hand. Only two of them showed up and they were two students that I liked, so it was pretty easy. We sat down in my room and I would talk about my notes for a minute or two, then wait for one of our staff members to translate, then repeat and/or answer any questions the parent had. It was over and done with fairly quickly, probably about 5 minutes for the first student and closer to 10 for the second whose mother had a lot of questions about how to improve her girl's ability.

Sticking on the school theme for a while, I had a meeting with our principal this week to discuss the results of student surveys from class that rated my teaching ability. I was pretty disappointed with my scores, but most of my bad ones were from my worst classes that really just don't care and don't want to be there. I think it's a little unfair, for students that don't care, to just mark me down. The effort is there on my part, but it's hard to have an entertaining class with kids that prefer to just sit there and do nothing for three hours. Things I need to work on are showing more energy/enthusiasm. Most of you know my personality, my emotions are usually pretty laid-back and even...I don't get too up or down in any situation. These kids really react to energy so I need to work on being more visual in that energy. Along those lines, I need to speak louder sometimes, which is more difficult than I anticipated. I will also need to continue to work on the speed of my delivery, especially since I have lower-level classes next term.

Today is the last day of term 1, so I guess that officially puts me here for 1/4 of a year. It has definitely gone better than I thought it would. I am sad to say goodbye to some of my classes as it looks like I probably won't have many repeat classes next term. Some of my students, I believe, will miss me while others, naturally, won't. In any case, after one term, I have a good idea of where I need to improve and get better. I also know things that I do which the kids like, so I will try to continue to do as much of those things as possible. Next term, I still have 27 hours with Wednesday evening off. The big difference, though, is the classes that I'm teaching. As you may or may not recall, I taught mostly 2nd level (memory English) classes this past term. Next term, I only have one Memory Mega (lowest of the three) class and then I have one split Tera class. That's down from one mega, two tera, and a split tera class. I will again teach one bridge listening class on Thursday while now I also will teach back to back bridge reading classes on Tuesday. I think this will mean that I will get many students from my bad listening class again, but this time in reading as most of them leveled up in listening and not reading. I will also now have one English Chip (the lowest level) class and a split EC class. These classes will be a challenge because I will have to work even harder on slowing down my delivery and collapsing my vocabulary.

I've had to go in early each day of this week for more training due to the class structure changes across the board for CDI. 1.5 hour training sessions before work haven't been much fun and frustrating since I just trained in a few of these 3 months ago. I do get a break today, though, as I do not have to go in for the workshop. Today's workshop is high-level reading which I currently do not teach. That said, these past few days have been much easier than usual. For the last day of class, we have a pizza party during the last hour of class where we watch a movie. All of that pizza is on me, so I've spent 75,000 on pizza the past two days and that will go up to about 110,000 after today's classes. I don't mind paying for the good classes, but the classes that sit there and make my life hell for three hours a day don't exactly get me in the mood to be all giving. I've now watched Harry Potter three times and will get to do it again twice today. I'd rather be watching Harry Potter than teaching the third hour of class, though, so I get a break. I brought in some of my own DVDs to show the kids...one of my classes voted to watch Ghostbusters which would have been a lot of fun, before I found out that my computer doesn't have a DVD drive.

Today is the last day at CDI for my co-worker, Steve ("Steve-uh" to many students). Other than Alan, whom I came here with at the same time, Steve has been the teacher I've hung out with the most. It's good that I've met some other friends recently so I'll continue to have groups of people to hang out with. Steve will be returning to Arkansas and his departure of course means many drinks will be had at a local watering hole tonight. I'm predicting another 5-6 AM taxi ride home.

I am looking forward to hanging out with my new friends in the future. They always have questions about life in the US and it's seemingly Korean nature to be very complimentary. It's almost hard not to be vain. The group I hang out with on Wednesday nights (Andrew, Sady, Hyun-A) all seem to think I'm handsome and like to tell me this every time they see me. I also heard "You look smart" for the first time in my life. It's been nice to be here and seemingly be respected and thought well of by everyone. I have no enemies or people who would only look to exploit me. I'm starting to learn a little more Korean though I have much to learn. I'm going to buy a couple of beginner workbooks and have some of them teach me the basics. In return, I teach them American slang. Juice, the bartender at Metro, loves to call his necklace 'bling' now that I've told him that's what his jewelry is. His wife brought in some chocolate covered strawberries one night last weekend and he gave one to me. He also always makes sure to pour a shot or two of bailey's in my guinness. Now that Steve is leaving, I think I'm becoming the new favorite westerner there by the bartenders. I'm learning the Korean words to a song, Superman by Norazo, that they dance to during their 'magic show.'

Let's see...otther things...it was Valentine's Day here this past weekend. In Korea, Valentine's Day means the women get things for the men. That said, the men get women gifts on White Day next month. They have love-related holidays on the 14th of every month in order to help boost the birth rate over here. I received Valentine's from my parents and aunt, which were much appreciated. :D I bought some candy for my kids and staff last week. I didn't do anything special, I just used the day to sit at home and relax. I received four packages on the same day last week and attempted to carry three boxes home after work. Food is heavier than I thought and I had to stop a time or two on the way back to rest. It was a good work out, though. I think I'm going to start going to a fitness club here with Andrew to work out. He prefers swimming, but I want to lift weights and run. It will be nice enough outside to run soon, though it snowed last night and today. I don't have good swimming stamina. I'm still at the weight I was when I came over here so at least I haven't gained any despite not really improving my body much yet.

Another new experience that I had this week was going to pay my bills. I went to my bank and they have a machine which scans the bills. I swipe my account book and it deducts the bills straight from there. I then go to the desk and get receipts for the bills. It's definitely different than the US way of paying bills. I still wire home about half of my pay-check each month to pay bills from back there and build a little savings. I do not even use the remaining half of my paychecks from here so I'll have a decent amount to wire back whenever I decide to return home. I sure hope the exchange rate gets better, though. I lose 300,000 from each paycheck by wiring money home...it's currently around 1400/1 USD. Steve wired money home for the first time yesterday and lost $6,000 USD from his year here. That's a painful pill to swallow.

That just about concludes all I have to say. I'll save a little more for a later update. As I mentioned above, things have gone really well this first term and that has led me to start thinking about staying for longer than a year. I highly doubt I stay more than 2 years, but there's closer to a 50/50 chance that I extend my contract for another year when that time comes. With the money I'm saving and the fun I'm having, it's something to think about. I still miss everyone from back home and I hate having to look around to find Illini games online, but those will still be there when I return. I have a long time before having to make the decision. I'll decide within a month or so after returning from Japan this summer. I have to let them know by the end of August to give them enough time to find a replacement for me. I'm just going to keep it on the back of my mind and see how things go at work for these next two terms and then negotiate what it would take to keep me here for a second year. In the meantime, I'm going to start working harder on learning the language which would make a second year more fun.

P.S. I recorded another video last week in a cafe in yawoori. Alan has started to date the woman who owns the place, which is cool. Nothing special at all in the video, just saying hi! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeW94NFS9Rs

Also, because it took me an hour to type this e-mail, I've become too lazy to spell check. Sorry for the mistakes.

Take care, hope everyone is doing well!

Joe

P.S. I'll leave you with a story that one of my friends from training e-mailed me. It's a story that I couldn't possibly have since I'm a male, so just a different look at an adjustment/funny experience that a westerner had over here.

Who knew that going to the bathroom could be so complicated.

First off, not all bathrooms in Korea have traditional toilets. Many have "squatters." They are sort of like urinals in the floor.... you drop your knickers and squat over the hole in the ground and do your thing. This is not easy when wearing slacks, tights and heels.... imagine the consequences of losing your balance.

Second, many apartments, including my own, dont have a shower stall. There is a flexible metal tube connecting a shower head to your sink. You turn a knob and water is redirected from your sink to the showerhead (which by the way is not high enough to actually act as a shower... it hits me about chest level). There is a drain in the middle of my bathroom floor. When I shower, everything gets wet.... walls, floor, sink, toilet, (toilet paper... if i forget to move it) etc. Since yours truly is often a moron, I regularly forget to turn back the knob. Several times a week, I go to wash my hands and whammo! I blast myself with water from the showerhead. Fun!

Recently, I went to the ladies room in a restaurant. After using the potty, I stood up and looked at the toilet... I wanted to flush, but I didnt know which button (all in Korean) to push. So, I chose the big important looking button. Whammo! This was NOT the flush button. It was the bidet! The toilet started blasting me with water. I jumped to the side, but it continued to spray massive amounts of water at the bathroom door... splattering everything, including me, in that bathroom stall. I frantically pushed other buttons, as water pooled around my feet. Mind you, this was not a gentle stream of water.... it could have been used as a pressure washer. Finally, God stopped laughing and turned off the bidet.

I shared these stories with mom. I told her I needed to learn at least enough Korean to operate a public toilet. She said, "Or, you can start wearing a raincoat." I am still chuckling.