What I'm learning

Today at the market I specifically looked for my favorite:  "ho-duk" - a hot freshly-made pancake with seeds and some sort of sweetener inside. I was pleased to find them, and even more excited that one of the customers also standing there eating hers showed me something I wouldn't otherwise have known about. After she ate her hot ho-duk from the paper cup it was served in, she spooned some hot brothy soup into the cup and drank it right there. So I followed suit. It was delicious soup! I'm glad I took the time to stand with her and her friend, to observe how they were eating, and to copy them.

I'm learning my numbers fairly well what with always asking, "How much does this cost?" in Korean, and getting used to what the answers sound like. Also, this past week in Korean class I learned how to say the following words:  How was your day? Good; pencil, pencil case, desk, door, chair, foreigner...

Parent-Teacher Conferences

For parent-teacher conferences, my Korean teacher counterpart introduced me, I gave a short intro of myself in English, and then she talked the rest of the meeting in Korean going through a handout (in Korean) with the parents. (About 20-25 parents showed up, almost all women.)

After the meeting, I walked up to a few parents who were hanging around and said, "Hello," politely in Korean, with a slight bow, and showed them my class list of students. I asked, "Who is your son or daughter?" She'd say her son's or daughter's English name, and we'd find it on my list. Then I'd nodd, smile, and say in Korean, "Nice to meet you." If she didn't speak English, the conversation ended there. If she spoke a little (or a lot of) English, the conversation continued, usuallly with her asking me how her child was in class.

Garbage bags and phone car-cards

Green garbage bags- Everyone here must buy these specific green bags in which to put their trash. You have to be sure to tell what district you live in when you buys these because each district has a different bag. It may sound like a hassle but it's not and I'm sure it makes picking up trash a lot easier!

Parking - 
This was also on the shelf at the indoor grocery store in the
line for check out. Many people here have tags viewable from the
windshield or window, in their cars on the dash, to display their phone
numbers so that if their car is in your way (because of the narrow
side streets), you can call them and ask them to move their car.
Ingenious! Some people even leave their keys in the ignition in their
cars all day so that you yourself can move *their* car if need be! It's THAT
safe here!

When in Rome, do as the Romans do...

Yup. I just did it. I changed pants and socks, and even brushed my hair, just to walk downstairs to put my trash out on the curb for pickup in the morning. I changed *just* for that! Hey, I'm told the Koreans change just to walk to the next-door store to get something. 

Besides, I have an image to uphold- that of a teacher, and here teachers are highly respected! 

Anyway, I didn't feel comfortable being seen in my pj bottoms and disheveled hair. 

It's laundry day so the only pants that are dry are my pj bottoms and the work pants I'll wear tomorrow. (Things dry slowly here! No wonder people do laundry early and put their clothes out on the line to air dry first thing in the morning!)

Thank you LP Phrasebook!

The purse-sized Lonely Plant Korean Phrasebook I have (that B&A Buck lent me) has come in quite handy! I applied it today to tell the taxi driver, "Continue on this road. Stop here please." I also used it for, "I'm from the USA. I'm sorry I don't speak Korean." With it I have practiced how to say the proper "Goodbye" that one is to use when leaving a shop, office, or restaurant. So far responses to this proper "Goodbye" have been all smiles, looks of surprise, and positive nods of the head.  :)

Some recent photos

Yes, they have McDonald's here. I haven't tried it yet. They also have Starbucks (which looks exactly the same), Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut, 7eleven, and COSTCO to name a few...

Here I am changing from outdoor street shoes to "indoor" classroom/school work shoes. Funny how most of the Korean teachers and staff wear very nice formal business clothes to teach and work in, but then wear these cheap "indoor" shoes. Only a few wear nice "indoor" shoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, March 16, 2012 (Our first payday!)

Beware:  This jumps around a lot!

I just read an interesting article from a great blog called, "Ask a Korean!" I'm now listening to the beautiful voice of Lee Seon-Hee at http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2012/03/50-most-influential-k-pop-artists-21.html.

Whew! I made it through the second week of classes. I can't believe it was the second week- it feels like it was the first, maybe because there's still so much to learn, figure out, and because one of the classes I'm supposed to teach (ESL- grade 5) hasn't started yet (but will next week).

One thing is for sure. I need to carry *with* me a Korean-English dictionary. Yes, I can survive without it but two or three times this week an English-speaking Korean was not around to help me understand what the Korean-speaking person was trying to communicate to me. Thank goodness I can *see* and *move* my body! I was able to guess at what she wanted based on her body language, and communicate myself somewhat through my body language. Still, I felt somewhat ashamed for not knowing Korean. I am trying to learn one word a day, but still...

How many Americans have you heard complain about a Mexican, or other Spanish-speaking person, living in the U.S. but not being able to speak English? How am *I* any different? I came here for a better-paying job, and for better health care, and I came not knowing more than ten words of the national language. This sounds very similar to thousands of people who move to the U.S., for a better-paying job and other things, while not knowing more than ten words of the United States' national language.

Today's teaching excitements included a student seeing the word "imagine" in the word "imaginative," and "religion" in "religious." <<I love languages!>>

I will post more pictures this weekend! Tomorrow I'll go to the Daejeon Intercultural Community Center, and who knows where else... Hopefully my bank card will work, as we were supposed to have been paid today by direct deposit. Then I can buy some garlic, ginger, and Korean pancakes at the market!

Holidays and gifts

Here in Korea, Valentine's Day is celebrated a little differently than in the U.S. The major difference is that it's a day when women and girls give gifts to men and boys. The opposite happens on White Day which is a commercial holiday on March 14th when men and boys are supposed to give gifts back to the women and girls they received gifts from on Valentine's Day.

This past week three students gave me gifts! Two gave me gifts, on White Day, of candy in cute wrapping (one even in a nice glass container from a nearby store called, "Paris Baguette"), and a third gave me earrings today in a cute little green box. I wonder if it was in a green box because she'd remembered I'd told her class about St. Patrick's Day being about green things, or if it was just coincidence? Anyway, I was surprised to receive gifts- wow! I wasn't sure what to do so I thanked her, and put on the earrings and wore them the rest of the day.

Apparently March 14th was also Pi Day, to commemorate the mathematical pi. One of my students wrote in his English diary about how he and his family celebrated pi day which for him involved eating pie. Sounds good to me!

Disclaimer

Every time I say, "Koreans this," or "Koreans that," keep in mind that this blog is only MY perspective of what I'm seeing, hearing, and otherwise experiencing here in Korea. It does not mean what I post goes for all Koreans nor all of Korea. I know you know this but I thought I'd give you a reminder.  :)

(Yes, I decided to put this in after seeing in on another blog. Liked the idea, obviously.)

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Today we received our Name Badges- yay! Also, without telling us, we had class pictures taken this morning. I hope my cheap adidas-looking indoor flip flop shoes don't show in the photo. Luckily they told us about the all-school photo that will be taken tomorrow.

Shoot. I keep forgetting not to point to students. I've almost gotten down the proper way to put your hands when giving and receiving money and things, but not when pointing or calling on students. One cannot just point your finger; that's a big no-no!

Today at the market I bought a dozen eggs for $2! Another piece of exciting news:  we get paid (for the first time) this Friday by noon; yay!

Photo of the school

Here is a photo of the school. I know it's not great but anyway...

"Dream high. Broaden your wisdom. Love deeply."

My Work Schedule

Some of you have asked, so here's my work schedule as of now. All classes are 4th grade except "After-School" classes, which are 3rd grade, and ESL, which is 5th grade.

Mondays: 
Math (18 kids, 40 minutes)
Social Studies (18 kids, 40  min.)
Lunch
prep

"After-School" - an extra-English help class (4 kids, 40 minutes)
Grade 4 staff meeting

Tuesdays:
I teach two Language Arts classes back to back (12 kids, 80 min. each)

lunch

another L.A. class (12 kids, 80 min.)

prep

"After School" class

Wednesdays:

weekly foreign teacher meeting

Fun Activity of my choice (36 kids, 40 min.)

ESL (15 kids, 40 min.)

lunch

prep

"After School"

Thursdays:

I teach two Science classes back to back (18 kids, 40 min each)

lunch

Math (18 kids, 40 minutes)
Social Studies (18 kids, 40  min.)

prep

"After School"

Korean for Beginners- where *I'm* the student- yay! (5 students?, 30 min)

Fridays:

same as Tuesdays

except no "After-School"

Friday, March 9, 2012

I woke up early today, about 5:30am, to prepare for school. Once at school I taught two 80-minute L.A. classes back to back, then lunch, then the last 80-minute L.A. class. The last class was difficult though, and probably will be a lot of times, because it’s right after lunch. 80 minutes is a long time too, and it’s on a Friday, right before the weekend, and students get out early on Fridays anyway! I had students draw pictures to match with vocab words. Curious- so many of them are good at drawing!

 

Folks back home got my postcard that I’d sent as an experiment through the free iPhone app "postagram." http://postagramapp.com/  Cool app! (To send a postcard of whatever picture you want I think it costs only 99 cent, if you buy at least 4 at once I believe...)

This weekend:  art museum and house-warming potluck. Last weekend I went to “Time World-eu” with other teachers where we ate in the food court of The Galleria (fancy shopping mall). I paid about $6 for a huge bowl of delicious soup that had three sides- seaweed-wrapped rice balls, zucchini tempura, and of course the obligatory yellow pickled radishes (which I love!). Koreans love their side dishes!

I LOVE my experience so far! I feel so lucky because the school I work at is very organized and there seems to be a lot of support for us foreign teachers. It will be interesting to meet other foreign teachers tomorrow at the potluck who don't work where I do.

School

Some things are not the same here at school... Upon entering the door, you must take off your street shoes and put on your inside shoes. Here's where the students store their shoes, by grade. Staff members store their shoes in different place depending on in which building their office is located.

Here's a picture of the school on the wall when you enter the admin building (pictured on the right). I know this isn't easy to see but it'll have to do for now. 

Note:  there isn't any grass. Right now it's all dirt, and a couple days ago it was all mud. It was so muddy that kids were sinking in it up to their knees, and teachers had to pull them out! One girl even lost one of her shoes to the mud! Nope- no aides here to keep kids from going in the mud.

Photos: speed limit; Buddhist sign

(near school)

The red symbol is a Buddhist sign here. This is one of the possible side streets I can take to get home from school on my 7-minute walk.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Assessments. All the time I spent with students today was on assessing them. Understandably, we had to explain that "draw a pencil sketch" means, "draw a picture," and "write a continuation of the story" means, "you make the story of what happens next."

Speaking of language, that reminds me about the very first day of school, last Friday. The students are supposed to put up a fist (instead of raising their hands) if they object to something. I was explaining the meaning of this word, and had written it on the board. Then, one student asked about the meaning of another word I had already put on the board:  "Objective." I hadn't noticed how similar they are until then! 

While explaining, I realized (luckily in my head and not out loud) that the verb to object is spelled the exact same way but pronounced differently than the noun object (as in, "What is that strange flying object in the sky?"). Wow- English; what a challenge!

Now to grade 35 "English Diaries" and 35 L.A. assessments.

(Dinner:  rice, made in the electric rice cooker, of course, and pot stickers with some sort of Korean hot sauce- yummy!)

Monday, March 5, 2012

What a great way to start! Today I had more than one hour of prep time before teaching, and I only had two classes- math and social studies- which I taught to only half my students while the other half were in tae kwon do, flute, violin, art, or other classes. (I'm not counting my "After School" English class as a class to prep for because today was very relaxed.) 

Math and social studies went well but I'm sure I can do better. I teach math and social studies again later this week to the other half of my students so they'll probably get more out of it given that I know now of a few of the kinks that need ironing out... 

One thing that surprised me was to read that a lot of my students' favorite subject in school is social studies. I heard an American teacher say that, in their Korean classes, these students don't start learning about non-Korean social studies until high school! I wonder if that's accurate?

In "After School," I had students trace their hand and write, one in each finger, five things that're important to them. Their answers blew me away! "My brain, because if my brain is dead, I am dead." Another student wrote, "see, hear, taste, touch, smell."

It's been raining outside all day so for lunch and dinner I had homemade garlic-cabbage soup, with rice of course!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Today I set up house, or started anyway. I discovered I need some things.

I need containers to organize things... Maybe I can find some small boxes at work or on the way to school. How would I find boxes on the way to school? Because one can put recycling out on the curb *every* day of the week; it's collected *every* day of the week. "Even Sunday?" you might ask. (I'm not sure yet. Need to take note next Sunday.)

I also need ways to hang things on the walls. I brought some thumb tacks with me but they're not nearly as cool as some of the things I'm sure I could find here to use... Everything here is so cute! The pens, stickers, hooks for the wall, pencil cases, pencils...

Speaking of pencils, the students are not allowed to use mechanical pencils at our school. This surprised me as it reminds me of some public schools I've worked in in the U.S. However, the pencils here that the students use *don't* have erasers on them. Therefore, the students have to have separate erasers. Curious. "Why's this?" I wonder... Is it to suggest they write it all perfectly the first time?

Anyway, today I also did a load of laundry, my first in my new apartment, which is on the fourth floor. My washing machine is in an enclosed balcony-like area off the side of my kitchen. It's quite handy to have it separated this way. Another thing of note, I'm not sure what all the buttons on the machine mean, but there are a lot of options! It takes 55 minutes to do one load of laundry, but given the amount of water I hear pouring in and out of the machine, I'm guessing the machine uses less water and less energy than your generic one in the U.S. Just a guess.

This afternoon when I went outside to walk around a bit and take pictures, an old lady walking past me on the opposite side of the narrow steep street actually stopped and stared at me as if I were an alien. Well, I guess I am, just not the kind I was thinking of... Not knowing how to react, I smiled and said, "an-nyung-ha-shim-nikka" which I believe is the "Hello" version that you're supposed to use with elders (and those of high positions). By this point I had passed her so I'm not sure what her reaction was.

Tomorrow is the first full day of school! I'll be teaching math and social studies to start with. Our job as teachers is to teach math VOCABULARY, not the mathematical concepts because apparently the students here are light years ahead of students in the U.S. when it comes to mathematics.

All for now. Goodbye. 안녕히가세요 (annyeonghi gaseyo). [I'm not sure if I should use the "go in peace" version of 'goodbye' or the "stay in peace" version in this instance.]

Street views

Some of you have been asking what the city looks like. Here are a couple street views... I'll post more in the future, *especially* after going to the Arboretum later this school year (on a field trip)!

1.  View of street on which I used to live.

2. View of houses from a bridge over train tracks.

 

View from my side...

2 Mar 2012

Dear family, friends, and colleagues,

I'm sorry I haven't posted more on this blog yet. As you can see (below), the view of my blog from my side makes it difficult to post things. All the instructions are in Korean as opposed to English regardless of which computer I use. This happened promptly upon arrival.

I hope to figure out how to get it set back on English- at least on my laptop- next week!

Sincerely,

you know who:)

Street vendor

Here's a street vendor selling hot pancakes, called "ho-duck," (only available in winter) with melt-in-your-mouth chocolate-like insides- yummy!

First day of school

Contrary to the rainy weather (a first for me), today- Friday, March 2nd- was EXCITING as it was the first day of school!

At 8:20am, the Opening Ceremony for grades 3-6 started in the chapel/event auditorium. All Korean teachers sat together, all "foreign teachers" (as we're called) sat together, and all students sat together in school uniform by grade level.

Similar to some U.S. school assemblies, the smiley principal introduced the Administrative staff, and then everyone stood for the pledge of allegiance to the Korean red-white-blue-black [flag] followed by everyone singing the national anthem's first verse (minus foreign teachers of course), accompanied by a teacher on the grand piano. Hesitantly, unsure of protocol as a foreigner, I put my hand over my heart for the pledge as the Koreans did, figuring that at least it was my way of demonstrating *respect* for the flag; a couple other foreign teachers did the same.

Next, the principal introduced all the teachers by grade level. We went up on stage, bowed when our names were called, and stood next to our well-dressed Korean counterparts. Finally, the principal gave a lengthy speech, in Korean, during which the students became increasingly fidgety and restless. Kids are kids everywhere! When I pointed to those goofing off and motioned, "No!" for them to stop, they got the message.

After the Opening Ceremony, the students went to their classrooms with their Korean teachers. An hour later, we foreign teachers spent 40 minutes with our students in their classrooms to go over rules, go over their English names, and learn a little bit about them. Then we turned them back over to their Korean teachers. Shortly after, they were done and left school.

In the afternoon, we all attended the Opening Ceremony for 1st-2nd grades. This time, however, those of us who don't teach these grades didn't go to their classrooms afterwards. Instead we had time in the Foreign Teachers' Office to prepare for next week. 

Monday will be our official full regular day of school. Yes, I'm nervous, *and* excited!