Sweet Buddha, I'm a teacher!

Among all the excitement of being in a foreign country and meeting so many incredible new people, it is easy to lose sight of what I officially came here to do—teach English! My first day of teaching was last Thursday, and thus far, it’s been an adventure!

To back up a bit, the last few days of my orientation were pretty rough. We learned a lot about Korean culture, and one of the key elements was that things change very last minute and we are just expected to “roll with the punches” as they say. To illustrate this point, some pretty upsetting things occurred the last few days of training. First, my good friend here got kicked out for failing the drug test. I realize that’s a pretty serious offense, but the treatment she received was pretty brutal. On that same day, 7 people from my training class were told that they got moved out of Seoul and into the middle of the countryside. Needless to say, we were all very apprehensive about where we would be placed, so the atmosphere was really tense over the last few days of training.

I, however, got extremely lucky! I am currently residing in Gangnam, which is definitely one of the best possible areas to be! It is south of the river and is basically the haute couture part of Seoul. This is where people come to buy their Dior and Gucci and drive fancy cars. It’s also the place to come for the best clubs and bars. This is what I’ve been told anyway. I’m one of few people in the entire program that got placed within central Seoul, so this makes my placement even luckier! The only downside of living in this area is that everything is more expensive. Food and such are still cheap, but not as cheap as in other areas. My apartment is really small (about twice the size of my Paris apartment for those of you that saw it), but I can walk to my school in less than 5 minutes, and I am in the thick of all the action. Everyone else I’ve talked to has a pretty substantial commute—one girl even travels an hour and a half every day—so again, I’m very lucky. I am, however, under a constant microscope. As a foreigner, I get gawked at everywhere I go, and Koreans are not at all shy about staring. Because I’m so close to my school, I see my students outside of class constantly, so I need to be on my best behavior at all times i.e. no getting blasted on Soju and stumbling home. But not to worry—on those nights, I just stay with friends :-)

So, teaching! Wow! It’s been craziness. I’m teaching Freshmen at an all girls private Buddhist high school. It’s so different from anything in the states for sure. There’s a huge temple at the entrance to the school, which is the first thing I saw last Wednesday when I went to meet my new colleagues. The position itself is quite different from what we were prepared for, but then again, I seem to be the exception to every rule thus far. In training, we were taught how to co-teach with a native Korean English teacher, meaning that we aren’t entirely responsible for the class, and we are certainly never teaching alone. How large a role we play in the classroom is left entirely up to the Korean co teacher. I, however, do not have a co-teacher. I am entirely responsible for my class and represent 15% of their total English grade. As someone who has never taught before, this came as a bit of a shock, especially when they told me Wednesday evening (the day I arrived at my school) that I would be teaching a full day on Thursday. Every other person I talked to didn’t even begin co teaching until Monday. By this point, I had already taught 10 classes. I am also the only teacher in the entire school that has their own classroom. In Korean schools, teachers move to the various rooms while the students stay, but I have my own room which is connected to my office, and the students come to me. So, yes, I seem to have gotten the cushiest native English speaking position in all of Seoul, but also the most responsibility.

Teaching itself has been pretty good. I’m actually pretty impressed with how well my classes are going, although admittedly, we’re only doing introductions for my first 5 days which isn’t really teaching. The classes that I have are divided into beginner and advanced. Normally, all the classes are blended and you have to employ different teaching techniques to be able to teach all the levels together, but I only teach one at a time (again, cushy). Thus far, I’ve only taught beginner classes, but I only have each class once a week, so I only need to plan two lessons for each week, a beginner, and an advanced. Because each class has 20 students and I teach 5 classes a day, I am responsible for roughly 500 students. I find this number overwhelming, especially given that I need to learn their names—Korean names—which are incredibly long and difficult to pronounce.

The biggest challenge in my classes is that culturally, the ideal female student is expected to be silent. Apparently, I have a class of perfect Korean girls, because they do not talk. At all. Clearly this is an issue in a class entitled “English Conversation” where my sole duty is to get these girls talking. Last week, I saw 200 terrified faces staring at me, silently pleading with me not to make them speak. Seriously, these girls are terrified to speak in front of me. I’m hoping my advanced students are more talkative, but it has not been easy. I made two girls cry last week. As an introductory activity, I had the students create nametags and illustrate them with things they like to do. To prepare them, we drilled and practiced saying “My name is ________” and “I like __________” We went over all the different vocabulary and I had them pair up and practice before they made their nametags. Then, all they had to do was introduce themselves to the rest of the class using these two expressions. One girl had tears falling out of her eyes and was shaking so hard I could hardly understand her when it was her turn. Another girl came up to me, bowing profusely, begging me not to make her do the activity. Needless to say, it’s pretty rough. I really want my class to be one that they look forward to attending, not the one they dread all week. The expectations for these girls are really high—they attend classes 6 days a week, they attend school from 7:00 AM until 4:30 PM, then they attend private academies from 6:00 PM-11:00 PM EVERY DAY. This doesn’t even take into account the obscene amount of homework that they are given daily. High school is also the time when they prepare for their exams, and the pressure on them to do well is unreal. It’s insane. Point being, I want my class to be one hour a week where they can relax and have fun, not cry. Hopefully they’ll relax a little as time goes on.

My colleagues have been fantastic. It’s obvious that they want me to be happy. I office with 5 other English teachers, and any time I ask a question to the room at large, all 5 of them will converge and start talking in rapid Korean, and then give me the most thorough answer possible to the most basic question. They also say that the students are the same way in their classes as they are in mine, and that they’ve heard nothing but positive things from the students, so that makes me rest a little easier.

I guess the long and short of it is that I continue to be very very happy here, and things actually seem to get better and better. I realize this is a new position, but I really am enjoying teaching. The days fly by, and it seems to really suit my personality. More updates to come.

XOXO
Tiffany