How is a gear shift like a grammar point?

Next month, I will buy my first car. While this is an exciting and very grownup-feeling thing to do, it's also a bit terrifying, for a variety of reasons. Not only will this be the most money I've ever spent in one go, but my future 2005 Chevy Kalos has...a manual transmission.

So, I recently started learning to drive stick. We started simple, in one of the few traditional student driver locations: a semi-abandoned parking lot.  On the way there the friend I'm buying the car from gave me the basic walk-through. This is the clutch, this is when you should shift, that's the noise you don't want to hear, etc. I'd also been given plenty of advice from friends and family, so I felt...entirely unprepared and marginally terrified. 

After posting about my learning attempts, I got a few interesting comments that kinda got me thinking. Wayne mentioned that he"can drive stick, but only in theory. I read a book. watched a how-to, and then had a friend explain it. I can explain it using a ski-hill analogy. But I feel I'm not ready to get behind the wheel yet..." which led to Harry's counter that "Reading the theory of motoring skill is like reading the theory of how to walk like a human. It's very hard in theory you know". 

This got me thinking. Yes, learning to drive stick is tricky, but since I'm already comfortable with the fundamentals of driving (turning, braking, signaling, running down annoying pedestrians, changing lanes, etc) it's not nearly as stressful or difficult as it would be if I were learning how to shift and use the clutch on top of literally everything else it takes to make a car (safely) go forward and backward.

Then, not unlike a car in neutral on a gentle slope, my thinking kept rolling forward until it bumped into something that I didn't expect to connect with: language learning.

Okay, stay with me here. We've got a pretty long extended metaphor coming up. Learning a language is like learning how to drive a car. There are a few different ways to start, everyone learns at a different time and at a different pace, and if you do it wrong you can kill hundreds of people. Wait, I think one of those only applies to driving...

We just hit 3 children!

There are two main ways to start learning to drive. On the one hand, you can start out by learning the theory. You can study the way an engine works, memorize every road sign and traffic law, Hell, maybe by the end of this surprisingly intensive theoretical driving class you'll be able to take a car apart and put it back together. But what you can't do is drive.

On the other hand, you can go about driving instruction in the style of my dad, by which I mean, force your daughter to drive a scary old van with a malfunctioning speedometer on a winding road over a mountain pass in the thick fog. That was one of the first times I drove. I later went on to take a class that taught me the theory, but I know plenty of people who never took a class and just learned by doing. 

Isn't language learning the same? There are two main learner types: the "I have to learn this crap in school" and "Oh crap I'm in a foreign country help". 

Too many, and by too many I mean nearly all of my students, fall into that first category. I've seen middle school English word lists with stuff like "incomprehensible" and "pretentious" on them, while the students memorizing those words can barely put together a full spoken sentence. They know grammar better than I do, but even a simple question posed, "What did you do yesterday?", poses a serious challenge. They know how a combustion engine works but they're stalling the car every 5 seconds. They know the rules of the road but they're too afraid to start the engine. You get the idea.

On the other hand, you have learners like, well...me. Before coming to Korea I knew a few basic phrases and the alphabet, but I mostly learned by doing. If I wanted to eat, go places, make friends, I had to speak Korean. I made a lot of mistakes, I still make a lot of mistakes. But slowly I'm learning the theory that corrals my Korean into a safer version of the chaos I started with. Even if you learn by doing, eventually you have to learn the rules, at least if you plan to drive and/or talk with other people.

I can't say if one way or the other is better, since grammar is important and so is speaking; hopefully both paths will eventually lead to a balance. Knowing the rules of the road is just as important as knowing how to start and stop a car.




Before I wrap this up I want to circle back to what originally got me started on this train of thought. As you know, I'm learning to drive stick after a few years of experience driving only automatic. Before getting in the car, the whole thing sounded scary and complicated and horrible. However, once I got going, it was...surprisingly easy. Sure, it's a new set of things to think about and muscle memory that I don't yet have, but since I already know how to juggle the basics of driving, adding one more ball wasn't the disaster I'd predicted it would be.

I had to find someone worse at changing gears than me.

I know a shower is the traditional place for sudden realizations and epiphanies (wait, it's not?), but this one hit me on the way to the bank: this is the exact situation my students are in. Stay with me here. I'm coming into a classroom and trying to teach them how to drive stick, but I have no idea how much previous driving experience they have.

For example, let's say that stick shift is the equivalent of a new sentence structure; let's use "Have you___?" as our sample sentence. For the students who already have some driving experience, aka they can form sentences and know the alphabet and a decent collection of useful vocab, adding this new form onto that, while tricky, shouldn't be too awfully difficult. They know the verb "to eat" so learning "have eaten" is manageable. On the other hand, if this is the first time they're sitting in a car, well...things aren't gonna go so well. Trying to explain "eat" vs "eaten" to someone who only knows half of the alphabet is an uphill battle. Can you imagine someone trying to teach you how to shift when you don't even know what a steering wheel does?

I wish I was exaggerating, but I've had 2nd and 3rd year middle school students who don't know the alphabet, sitting next to students who lived abroad and probably speak English better than I do. So I guess this big revelation reminded me to pay attention to where my students are, to remember that it's pointless trying to force them to learn the complicated stuff before they know the foundation. It's hard to manage in 45 minutes with classes of 35 students, but I don't think that's an excuse to not try.

If you have any tips, I'm always open to help. Unless it's backseat driving, or you want to change my music. If you want to play your own music, buy your own car!

Teaching Language Means Teaching Culture; Or, Teaching Away from a Pudding-Normative Society

Brief note: Back in 2012, during my final year of university, I took a class on literacy in the US that really broadened my mind. For my final project I researched the ways that language and culture interact in the ELL classroom, and since I feel like I actually made some good points, here it is, slightly edited for your reading pleasure.

While helping a student with his science homework in the afterschool ELL program at a high school near Seattle, we came across the type of atomic model that is usually called the “plum pudding” model, because it resembles a pudding with plums scattered throughout. 

Is this helping?

Compared to the other atomic models, this one was difficult for me to explain to him, not because it was intrinsically more complicated that any of the others, but because he had no idea what pudding was; the writers of the textbook assumed that the metaphor would be useful for students, that by imagining a pudding they would remember the structure of the atom more easily, but that assumption is based on a very one-sided and Eurocentric expectation of pudding-knowledge. “Teachers do not seem to understand how schools divest ESL students of their human and social capital through curricula and pedagogical practices designed to assimilate them into the mainstream American culture rather than promote learning in terms valued by the learners’ communities” (Ajayi).

Teaching English as a second language, really, teaching any language as a second language, is not just about grammar and vocab and communication: it’s about culture. Language is the medium through which we know and understand culture, and so it should come as no surprise that cultural differences are one of the biggest challenges in learning or teaching a language. Words don't always translate perfectly, making the more complicated concepts all the more difficult to explain. In her article "How ESL Teachers' Sociocultural Identities Mediate Their Teacher Role Identities in a Diverse Urban School Setting,” Lasisi Ajayi quotes a teacher who says that her “lessons always start from what my students bring from their community and I then build the new knowledge on this structure… I don’t want them to feel like they are being asked to abandon their heritage in order to fit into the mono-cultural majority (Ajayi). In the rush to bring ELL students up to par in their new language, cultural differences can easily fall by the wayside, but culture will not disappear just because you aren’t looking at it directly. “Americans have always held tightly to the idea that ethnic cultures would melt or vanish” (Banks), but clearly that is not the case.

Culture, like identity, is an enormously complicated and tangled thing to define, based on more factors than there are stars in the sky. However, just because it’s difficult to figure out doesn’t mean we should just discount it. “Cultures are built on deeply-embedded sets of values, norms, assumptions and beliefs. It can be surprising and sometimes distressing to find that people do not share some of your most deeply held ideas, as most of us take our core values and beliefs for granted and assume they are universally held” (Culture Shock). As many of the teachers from my sources have noted, having a shared culture with their minority or ELL students was helpful, but does that necessarily mean that without a shared background there will be an insurmountable barrier? Mrs. Laban, an ELL teacher in a Seattle high school, mentioned to me that for her to “tell them [her] story is inspiring to them [the students],” since her parents came to America from the Phillipines and she had to learn how to fit in to a new culture just as they did.

             There is no question that there is a big gap between the average teacher and the average student, not even taking ELL classrooms into account. “Nine out of 10 teachers in the United States are white” and “four out of every 10 students are not white” (Aguilar). Those statistics are not reassuring. However, the same article goes on to assert that:

"...it is the teacher’s responsibility to bridge this cultural chasm. We cannot eliminate the differences but we can learn to communicate effectively with each other."

While I am not sure what the statistics are concerning how many teachers there are who learned English as a second language, I can only assume that they are equally concerning, making the need to bridge this gap between teachers and their ELL students even more of an important priority.

Something that a girl in the afterschool ELL program said to me has been stuck in my head ever since I heard it. I was helping her with geometry; she had trouble with the instructions, though her grasp of geometry was much better than mine, even though I could read the instructions easily—between the two of us we were able to work it out somehow. However, even though she was great at math, every time she had an issue with reading the instructions written in English, she would complain that she was stupid. “Gah, I’m so dumb” was a refrain I kept trying to discourage.

By valuing not only what students can do in the classroom but what they each bring to the classroom from their own lives, this attitude could be cured.

“In the past, in their singular quest for modernity and a technocratic society, the Western nation-states tried to eradicate traditional cultures and thus alienated individuals and groups from their first cultures and languages” (Banks). 

As Mark, a teacher and fellow after school tutor told me in an interview, “we need to let them [the students] know the importance of their native language.” Mrs. Laban also noted that she regretted not keeping her own native language, the language of her immigrant parents, alive.

Creating a classroom setting in which everyone’s unique perspective is valuable also creates a setting where students might be less resistant to learning English, as “listening and speaking in a new language is tiring” and students may “feel embarrassed” when they struggle with something or need to ask someone to repeat something (Culture Shock). While English is my first language, I have also been studying both Japanese and Korean for a number of years, so I know that feeling, when you’re just so tired of trying to force your mouth around unfamiliar syllables and your brain around strange grammar formations that instead of asking a question, you just nod and smile and pretend to understand, especially if you feel like you are the only one struggling. By respecting the differing social and cultural backgrounds and knowledge of each student, it is possible to keep them from feeling such a level of self-doubt.

I saw this in action while tutoring three girls from Pakistan at Shorecrest High School; I noticed that their resistance to my help seemed to grow the more they struggled with remembering the names of the colors (what we were working on at the time). However, after spending a few minutes asking them to tell me the names of the colors in Urdu, they cheered up, laughing as I mangled the pronunciation of their language. I still remember one of the words they taught me; turquoise in Urdu is pronounced just like ‘zinc’, but I have zero clue as to the proper spelling

.

When a teacher comes from a similar background as the students in class, it seems like it would be easier to build a connection to said students, and “findings indicate that while multilingual teachers use their own experiences as former ESL students as a resource in classrooms, monolingual teachers lack experiential knowledge that could complement and enrich what they learn from their language education courses.” (Ajayi) Because a multilingual teacher whose native language is not English had to struggle through a lot of the same things his or her students are struggling with, they better know how to make those struggles into less of an issue in the classroom. During his interview Mark agreed with this sentiment; he spent a number of years living in Japan, and said that “living in another culture...helps me relate to what they’re going through. All the things they are struggling with, if you have struggled too, then you can relate to them and share experiences.”

While there certainly are some teachers who have had life experiences that give them an easier path toward understanding the struggles that their students go through on a daily basis, it seems likely that there are some teachers who approach their ELL classrooms with the attitude that Banks mentions, that ethnic differences would vanish, or as Tatum puts it, they worry that acknowledging racial, cultural, or ethnic differences is “wrong...a sign perhaps of bigotry or prejudicial thinking” (Tatum). There are even teachers with a wholly different issue, that approach their classrooms without even considering the differences; their cultural assumptions are so deeply rooted that they do not realize what they are or are not doing. I believe that every teacher, not just teachers of ELL students, should have these issues brought to their attention, and I have come up with at least a very small activity that could help in that effort.

First I would find a story, a folktale or the like, that is incredibly well-known in a foreign country, such as the story of Momotaro from Japan, a cute little folktale about a boy who is born out of a peach and makes various animal friends during a quest to defeat a band of roguish demons. While it is likely that pretty much any student in a Japanese school would know this story, it seems unlikely that a room full of teachers in the US would include someone who did. After choosing the story, I would write it out, and then translate various words in the story, some important words and some basic words, into a foreign language. I would do this with several different languages, causing the story to be rather difficult to understand. Once in class, I would split the teachers up into groups of three or four, and give each group a version of the story with words translated, some into Japanese, some into Spanish, French, Tagalog, whatever languages I or the people around me knew.

Each group would have a set of questions to try to answer after they had puzzled through the story, and after they had all had a decent amount of time to work, I would bring the class together and discuss their feelings about how difficult the assignment was. I hope that after doing such a project, everyone would realize the kind of challenges that face students of English as a second language, especially when we expect them to get cultural cues. Just as a teacher might give students a book of illustrated fairy tales in order to help them work on their reading, assuming that the familiar storylines and helpful pictures would make it easier for them to tease out the meaning when in actuality they may not know Snow White from Marilyn Monroe, using a folktale from a different culture creates the same confusion for the teachers in this hypothetical classroom. While it is not a huge contribution to the solution to many of the issues brought up in this paper, I feel that this small activity could be very effective.

As a younger tutor coming in who is not quite a teacher but not quite an adult either, I feel that I have a leg up as far as connecting with the students goes. Maybe they do not see me as a peer exactly, but even though English is my first language and I am not from any ethnic minority at all, I know what it’s like to be confused and to struggle, and sometimes I think a connection on even that kind of level can make all the difference. On my first day of tutoring, there was a substitute, so I was thrown to the proverbial wolves and sent to the library to help the three new Pakistani girls. As I wrote later that day in my tutoring log, “they were very patient with me, my long pauses as I tried to think of what to do, my nervous laughter--and after a while we all sort of bonded over how unfamiliar we all were with what was going on. I knew English, but had no idea how to teach them, and they didn’t know English, but somehow we found a place in the middle to meet”. Cultural differences will never go away—at least that is what I believe—but if we can all work to find middle grounds on which to meet, it will make for a more positive outcome for everyone.

Weekly Quote Collection 2: Questionable Advice

While teaching advice, we had a few gems.

Problem: I don't have any friends.

Suggestions:

"You should make boyfriend!"

"Well, how can I meet him?"

"PC bang!"

Okay kids. I'll just hang around the PC bangs until I meet my Prince Charming.

Problem: I'm going to meet SHINee.

"You should bring your soul."

"You shouldn't say ugly. You should say handsome!"

These ones I actually quite liked. How could I not bring my soul if I were to meet SHINee?

The other thing I'm teaching this week is "which do you prefer" and after one day it's already been great.

"Which do you prefer, eating or sleeping?"

"I prefer eating, because my mouth wants."

Then I asked the same student again: "Which do you prefer, singing or dancing?"

"I prefer singing, because...my mouth wants."

I love it when they manage to make jokes.

One Year Later

The traditional gift for a first anniversary is paper, so I guess after I write this I'll print a copy and frame it. What I'm trying to say is, a little over one year ago, I arrived in Korea. The modern first anniversary gift is a clock, which seems apt as the time has passed faster than I realized. A year already? Are you sure?

I've been looking back through old posts, and it's a relief to see that my feelings about the country haven't changed that much:

"This is where I’ll be living for the next year, maybe more, and there is nothing I want more in life right now. I’ve never been the sort to follow my dreams; I’ve stuck to what I know I can accomplish, and that’s been fine, but finally I’m taking a chance at something I’ve wanted since I met those Jet teachers in Japan almost six years ago." 

I know, I know, it's disgustingly...shmoopy and emotional, but the sentiment was, and is, 100% real. I needed a change, a new life, a new chance. While I'm not quite ready to go public with everything that was going wrong in my life before I moved to Korea, suffice it to say that things were...bad. Not good. Things felt pretty hopeless, like my life was on hold. It doesn't help that the weather in Seattle shares most of its characteristics with a damp sock. Even when things are going well in your life, unless you really enjoy overcast gray weather, it's hard to stay positive during the interminably long Seattle winters. And springs. And falls. And sometimes it stays cloudy even though summer, because the other 9 months just weren't enough!

During the 12 hour flight from Seattle to Korea, I made a decision to use this move as a chance to really change my life. Instead of bringing all my bad habits and worries along in my carry on, I wanted to do my best to leave them all back in Seattle. New country, new me.

At my Epik orientation, I had a great chance to really focus in on what I wanted to change in my life. One of the activities during the week was an introductory taekwondo class. They had us write our goals for the coming year on a board and then break it. To me, it felt as if I was putting all my fears, my worries, my problems into that board, and in the act of breaking it, I was sending them out of my life. As you can see in the photo, I had three main goals. "Don't be afraid. Learn Korean. Be happy." It's one year later. How did I do?

1. Don't Be Afraid

This is a big one. It seems a bit silly, but trust me, it really is an important issue in my life. I'm anxious a lot of the time, and a bit shy, and nervous in unfamiliar situations. I've missed out on opportunities because I was too worried about dumb stuff to take advantage of them. I didn't want that to happen here. Moving to a new country, starting a new job, meeting so many new people...it's been one unfamiliar situation after another.

What this first goal means to me is just...don't miss out. Don't stay home because you're worried you won't know anyone at the party. Don't keep your mouth shut because you're not sure what to say. Don't overthink it. As those Nike shirts say, just do it.

While I don't feel that I've completely accomplished this goal, I know I've made progress. I volunteered as class leader during my orientation and managed to make a speech in front of the entire orientation without fainting. I took a vacation entirely by myself, from Sokcho to Seoul. I've befriended people in my office even through a severe language barrier. Instead of saying no and staying on the sidelines, I'm saying yes and making a fool of myself but having fun.

2. Learn Korean

This has been a bit on again off again. When I first started studying Korean seriously, it was fantastic, because I was learning at a breakneck speed. I've written about this before, how the first few months were so exciting, because every grammar point opened vast expanses of understanding. However, as with anything, the honeymoon had to end. Now that I actually have to work pretty hard to learn new things, it's easier to get frustrated. I often feel like I'm not improving at all. My vocabulary is tiny, my grammar sucks, and no matter how much or little I study, nothing seems to change.

However, while I don't really feel as if I've improved, when I take a step back, I realize that that's crazy talk. A friend recently reminded me that when I left for Korea, I knew about two phrases, plus I could read and write very, very slowly. I think back to those first few work dinners, how I sat in a corner, unable to understand most of what was going on around me. And actually talking to someone? No way.

Inexplicably, I left a note to my family in Korean. SECRET MESSAGES.

Now I can have conversations, albeit very simple ones. I can ask for directions and halfway understand what I'm told. I can befriend taxi drivers, make jokes in the office, and be the occasional living dictionary for my students. While I'm certainly not anywhere near fluent, I have improved. I hope this coming year will be my chance to improve even further.

3. Be Happy

I guess this one is obvious, huh? Deceptively simple, in a way. But of all my goals, this is the one that I feel I've been most successful at. Not to say I've become Pollyanna-ish; I certainly have my share of bad days, but since I moved to Korea they're at least fewer and farther between. When I start to get down, I'm able to get back up a lot faster. Maybe it's the weather.

Oddly enough, I feel at home here. I'm not at all sure why, but Korea just really seems to suit me. Time and time again people tease me about my "Korean heart" or say that even if I look like an American, I'm secretly Korean. Frankly I think they're exaggerating, but it warms my heart every time. 

A big part of this as well is the feeling of having purpose. Instead of a repetitive job that never seems to affect anything, I have a job where I actually feel like I'm improving and changing lives, at least in small ways. Instead of a job, I have what feels like the beginning of a career. For every rough class there is an amazing class. Seeing that "aha!" moment when I student learns something new or gets inspired because of something in my class...that is what makes me happy. 

How could that face NOT make you happy?

All in all, it's been a good year. I finally feel like I have my feet under me. I've got my sealegs. Things are coming together, and I'm not even 25 yet! For the folks keeping score, looks like I managed a 3/3. Granted, my goals were simple and open-ended, but where I'm looking from, I call it a victory. Does this mean it's time to make a new set of goals?

Guess I'd better find a board and a permanent marker~!

Spaghetti Alphabet?

I recently realized that I am a complete hypocrite. Well, in all honesty I've known this for a while, especially when it comes to giving advice, but I had the fact practically thrown in my face the other night. As a teacher of a foreign language, I'm constantly trying to stress communication over perfection. By which I mean, it is more important that you can talk to someone, get your point across, even if your grammar is barely grammar and you're speaking mainly in nouns and hand gestures. Were you able to buy the coffee you wanted? Did they answer your question? Laugh at your joke? A+

My students, and I think most language students, struggle with the desire to be perfect. Often, when I ask my older students a simple question that I know they understand, I'm still met with...silence. Averted eyes. Maybe if we don't move she can't see us.

While of course I would love to only get answers like "My favorite food is pizza" or "I saw you at the store yesterday. You were wearing red pants", I'm entirely satisfied with "Pizza very very like" and "Teacher! At the store...I saw you! Red pants!" because hey, at least we're communicating. Depending on what we're studying, I'll either correct them or let it slide. Some of the mistakes are even a bit wonderful. "Teacher! Spaghetti...uh...alphabet?" I allow myself to imagine an alphabet of spaghetti before realizing that all they need is some help spelling the word.

Technically not spaghetti.

When school lets out, the teacher becomes the student. I may spend  8 or 9 hours a day trying to shove some English into their poor brains, but once I go out into the world. I'm the one trying to shove Korean into my own brain, with varying degrees of success.

The first few months of studying were fantastic. When you're starting from the bare minimum, if you put in a little effort, it's easy to progress pretty quickly. At least, that's what happened to me. Studying was exciting, because every new grammar point opened up whole worlds of communication previously closed to me, the uninitiated. I'd gleefully get into conversations with anyone who put up with me, not unlike a toddler who will talk to anyone about horses or ice cream or whatever they're super into at the time. I didn't know enough to know if I was making mistakes. I was Eve before the apple. It was glorious.

But, like shows directed by Joss Whedon, the easy part of language learning was doomed to end before it even had a chance. Like some kind of language junkie, it took me more and more studying to get my fix, and I was afraid to use my newly learned conjugations for fear of making a dumb mistake. When faced with a question I knew I could answer, I would freeze, avoiding eye contact, hoping that if I didn't move, the questioner wouldn't see me. Because I knew that I was capable of saying something correctly, I was no longer comfortable spouting out my usual combination of mangled sentences and charades. At the time I was totally unaware of the irony of that attitude. Or if I was, I avoided thinking about it too much.



All this leads me to last Thursday. I'm preparing for a violin/saxophone duet in an upcoming festival (that's a whole other story I'll have to narrate here), so I met...let's call him Music Teacher after school to work on our song. He barely speaks any English, though he can understand a bit, so any time we spend together is a big challenge for me. Also, he mumbles, which is an absolute nightmare for my comprehension. Fortunately he's also entirely willing to repeat stuff in different ways until I figure it out or we have to go to the dictionary.

Anyways, after practice he took me out for dinner and we talked for the better part of an hour, about music and teaching and things we've been up to. More than once my Korean completely fell apart, but since A) I didn't really have a choice and B) I managed to get my point across when I needed to, I didn't let my mistakes get to me.

On the way home, somehow our conversation turned to how much my Korean had improved since the last time he saw me. I responded with my usual "No, I'm not very good..." (of course imagine all this is in Korean), but he continued to try and convince me.

"I'm okay but...I want to be better. I want to be able to speak well now. I don't have any patience."

"But we're communicating already! So it's okay." 

That was the moment when I realized how much of a hypocrite I'd become. Here I was discouraging my students from beating themselves up over mistakes, encouraging them to do their best even if it wasn't perfect, while at the same time beating myself up over mistakes and not daring to try if I didn't know the best way to say something. I guess the whole point of writing this is to be a reminder to myself, and to anyone learning a language, to anyone learning, well anything; don't be afraid to make mistakes. Keep your spaghetti alphabet at hand, and you're sure to find success.

As my dance instructor Ling Hui used to say, "Try as you could."

"We have to pretend to be a couple.": Weekend Adventure Part 2

So let's see...where did I leave off? Ah yes. Bubble tea. Myeongdong. I had plans to meet Yun around 2, so I settled down on a rock...bench...thing in front of the art museum to wait, splitting my time between people watching and reading. The only problem with the choice to read a book is that when he showed up, he was able to scare the living daylights out of me. I now only possess dead daylights. It's a modern tragedy.

The view from my seat.

I haven't known Yun for long, or at least, we haven't spent much time together, but I feel remarkably...relaxed and comfortable around him. Sure, he scolds me if I speak too much English and teases me when I speak Korean like an old lady, but it's in an undeniably friendly, light-hearted way. We escaped the heat in Cafe Pascucci, and eventually decided to track down a noraebang to hide in during the worst of the hot afternoon, then adventure over to the Hanok village area. I don't know what it is about Korean guys, but I feel like they either want to take you drinking, or take you to culture landmarks. Or both. I mean, I don't mind, but it's almost a sure bet that you'll end up in a bar or a palace.

I'd never been to noraebang before either A) during the day or B) while sober, so I have to admit I was a little nervous. I suppose we could have bought some beer, but Yun had a cold and didn't want any, and I didn't want to be the awkward person drinking alone. Luckily for me, for both of us I guess, everything turned out just fine! Also, may I just say, he has a surprisingly good singing voice. No offense to most of the people I go to noraebang with, but I'm used to singing with people make up in enthusiasm what they lack in skill. That's all well and good, but to sing Maroon 5 and 2ne1 with someone who appreciates my harmonies and can even call me out when I make a mistake? Glorious.

Love is the MOMEEEEEENT

I'd been to the Hanok village before, but I didn't have the heart to nay-say his suggestion, since I'd already shot down seeing Transformers. One time seeing that hot mess was quite enough, thank you very much. And really, it did seem kinda fun to see the Hanok village again, if only to compare how it looked back in freezing January. It's nice to wander around Seoul with someone who actually knows where he's going, too. Tara, if you're reading this, I'd like to repeat that it was the SCENIC TOUR and we TOTALLY WEREN'T LOST.

Ahem.

We wandered past a group of performers doing the traditional song and dance, and joked around together about joining them. It got even worse, the joking I mean, when we went inside the first house, serendipitously named "Yun's Family House". I started us off by thanking him for inviting me to his house, and from then on we were...just...really dumb. When we came to a room we weren't allowed to go into, he'd mention his mom was very strict. At a bedroom he assured me I'd could stay there the next time I was in Seoul. A palanquin was offered up at my new car. I don't know if it was the heat, my own dumb sense of humor, or what, but I promise it was hilarious at the time. Really. Stop looking at me like that.

This was frozen the last time I went!

Dinner was a bit of an adventure, but after some criss-crossing we managed to find a place that was both acceptably delicious and not closed. Over steaming bowls of stone pot bibimbap, our conversation moved from favorite actors to what kind of people we want to date, from favorite Korean foods to the funny questions taxi drivers ask. He even scolded me for not trying to speak Korean more, which I actually really appreciated. It's easy for me to get lazy when I'm spending time with people who have a high level of English, but that's no excuse!

Delicious.

As it turns out, Yun has this magical app/car service that allows him to use cars that are all over the city. It's seriously amazing. You open the app, it tells you where all the available cars are in your area, and you unlock it straight from the app. I think you even pay for it through the app. Anyways, I bring this up because after eating, we tracked down one of said cars and headed out for what would turn into a fun and one might even say romantic tour of Seoul in the evening.

I rarely drive in Seoul, usually spending my time either walking or down in the subway, so to relax in the passenger seat and watch the city go by was novel and quite enjoyable. I'm not sure I'll ever want to drive in Seoul, though...the traffic was pretty intense and scary, but with a confident driver at the wheel, I felt totally safe. We hit a few of the big sights, past Seoul Station and the palace and the big statue of Sejong the Great and who know what else. Eventually we turned onto what was, to me, an unfamiliar side street that took us winding up a tree-lined road, slowly rising higher and higher above the city as the sun moved lower and lower in the sky, slanting warm and golden through our rolled down windows.

Our destination, and I didn't even know we'd had a destination, was the top of a mountain on the outskirts of the city. Korean mountains, I have to admit, are pretty adorable in comparison to the behemoths I'm used to. I wish I'd taken more pictures, because the place was gorgeous; a big building in the style of a Buddhist temple, trees silhouetted against the setting sun, children and couples everywhere.

Sunset glow.

There was an amazing moment when the sun seemed to sit on a nearby peak, perfectly balanced for a few seconds before sinking below the horizon. It was hard to believe that we hadn't even really left the city. The air was still warm from the sunny day but starting to cool, there was the smallest of breezes to ruffle the trees, and I could feel my stress melting away into the air.

Say cheese.

I didn't get a picture of this, but if you walk around to the other side of the balcony, there's a gorgeous view of the city. There's nothing quite like watching the lights in a city come on as the daylight disappears. I do enjoy living in the countryside, I really do, but there's a part of my heart that will always love the city. The countryside has stars, but the city has neon, and I'm still trying to decide what I like better.

After getting our fill of sunset, we returned to the car for the final leg of our journey: a nighttime drive along the Han river. According to some it's the most beautiful night scenery in the world, and I'll not argue that it's got to be pretty high up on the list. We turned up the radio, rolled down the windows, and I soaked up the scenery. We passed bridge after bridge, some lit up in red or blue or green, some carrying cars, or trains, or subway rails. Neither of us talked, just sank into the comfortable silence of night driving, lost in our own worlds.

Our last stop was the riverside itself, a small park full of people with the same idea as us. Even though there were plenty of people, the whole place had a feeling of quiet, as if everyone was keeping their voices down. Even the raucous laughter of college students drinking beer in the grass felt muted somehow. We joked about there being too many couples, and for a moment Yun put his arm around me with the joke "We have to pretend to be a couple."

It was just...one of those perfect nights, you know? The kind of night that makes you want to say things like "I feel infinite". The kind of night that makes you want to freeze time so you can linger in the warm night air, trying to see past the streetlights and into the stars.

How to Talk to People in Korea

AKA Slow Motion Teacher Talk.

It's a disease.

The first symptom, as you might guess from my subtitle, is slower speaking speed. Unsurprisingly, if you speak quickly to someone in a language they aren't super comfortable with, they won't understand you. It's the same for me with Korean. If someone mumbles or talks too fast, I can't catch anything, but if they slow down for me, suddenly a world of comprehension opens up for me.

When I first started teaching, I was nervous. When I'm nervous, I speak more quickly. I think a lot of people do this. In an ESL classroom, though, fast talking is not gonna fly (though it is great for saying things you don't want your students to hear). That was the first critique I got from my co-teacher: slow down. So I did. Suddenly, a classroom full of unresponsive glassy-eyed students began to understand me. Maybe not everything I said, but finally I was getting through to them on some level.

So began my descent into what I refer to as "teacher English". I find that the changes can be organized into three groups, starting with...

 

Slow Down

Like I said, the first change, for me at least, was speed. When I talk to non-Korean friends, I talk fast. I mean, I don't sound like a conversational auctioneer, but I also didn't inherit my dad's slow southern drawl. If I'm excited I can pass on a record amount of information with a single breath. But since I came to Korea? Well, it's like going from the autobahn to a school zone.

When I'm teaching, I always have to keep a little voice in the back of my head saying "slow down, relax". If you think you're speaking slow enough, try to go a bit slower. If your students start laughing at you, you've probably slowed down too much. Try to find that sweet spot where they can follow what you're saying but you don't sound like a tape player running low on battery power.

Another part of the big slowdown is a sort of...spacing of your sentences. For example, let's say I'm telling a story about my car stalling on a bridge. Normally, I would tell the story like this:

"Last year, I was driving on a bridge, and suddenly my car stopped, right in the middle of the bridge. It was really scary, and I don't know anything about cars, so in my panic I called my dad to help me instead of thinking to call a tow-truck or the police or something."

In class, it would go something like this. "Last year...I was driving on a bridge. In the middle...my car stopped. My car was broken. I don't know...about cars. It was really scary. But...I didn't call 911. I called my dad." (cue laughter)

As you can see, the longer more complex sentences get broken up into shorter statements, and sometimes I'll even take a pause in the middle of sentences to allow people to catch up. I try not to let this happen too much with my higher level students or my friends who are super good at English (gold stars for you all, seriously) because I don't want to teach them weird, unnatural sounding English, but for anyone at a lower level, it really seems to help.

 

Simplify

This shows up in a few ways. Most obviously, it's helpful to cut out all your slang. "You got it?" becomes "Do you understand?" "Wanna grab a cup of coffee?" becomes "Do you want to drink some coffee?" "I'm not feeling up for it" becomes "I'm too tired." Notice the trend? It's gotten to the point where I'm so used to making this change that I had a hard time coming up with examples. If I stay here too long I'm going to lose all my slang and start talking like a textbook. True nightmare scenario right there.

Imagine this said with no inflection, 100 times a day.

It's also good to avoid idioms and cultural references, unless you're ready to explain them. Now, if you're working with students who are a high enough level, this kind of thing might be a piece of cake for them, but with lower levels you don't want to bite off more than you can chew. For example, with my co-teachers I can say "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!" because I know they know the saying, or at least I can explain it easily, but if I said that to my students, I'd probably get blank looks. Things like "piece of cake" are even worse. There's no real logic to that one. Is cake inherently easier to eat than other food? Does deliciousness equal easiness? Inquiring minds want to know!

The other aspect of simplifying your language is harder to explain. It means building your sentences out of grammar that's easier to understand, that your students are more likely to know. For instance, I won't usually say that something is "harder" or "easier" or "simpler"; I'll say it's more hard, or more easy, or more simple, just because I know that will be easier for my students to figure out. Instead of saying "This weekend I'm going to study" I might say "This weekend I will study." The more you know about their level, the more you can tailor your langauge to incorporate what they already know, which helps to build confidence, and also helps when teaching new vocab, since you can sandwich it in with stuff that's already kicking around somewhere in their brains. Supposedly.

Sign Language

No matter who I'm talking to, I use my hands. I think it's pretty universal, though some people are more prone to gesticulation than others. However, the longer I spend in middle school classrooms and with my less than fluent Korean friends, the more my life begins to feel like the longest running game of charades in history.

 

 Sometimes I worry that this is becoming too much of a crutch. It also makes me feel a bit like a clown, but frankly, if it helps my students or friends or doctor to understand what I'm trying to say, I'll take it. It also works as a great way to elicit target language without giving too many hints. Want them to say baseball? Mime swinging a bat. Though I think I must suck at this one, because they always guess tennis. I've pretended to be a seal, I've faked a coughing fit, make my fist into the shape of my home state, all to get points across that otherwise would have been impossible.

The most common gestures are those in the classroom. Listen: touch my ear. Write: mime writing. Work together: mime pushing two students together. The list goes on and on. What I've found helps the most in regards to classroom hand gestures in consistency. Whatever you choose to mean listen, or write, or shut the eff up, make sure it's the same every time, because then even the lower level students will be able to follow along, and hopefully it will help them catch up on the basic classroom language.





The worst part about all this is that I can't stop. Now, no matter who I'm talking to, I sound like an English teacher. Fortunately it hasn't seeped into my writing yet, but I fear that day can't be too far off. The other thing I've noticed is that bits of more...shall we say...Korean phrasing have been sneaking into my lexicon. For example, I regularly find myself encouraging people to "Take a rest" if they seem sick or tired. There's nothing inherently wrong with the phrase, grammatically, but I don't recall ever putting those words in that particular order before I moved to Korea. Another common phrase is "Do you know (insert any noun here)?" Instead of asking "Have you heard of the Beatles?" I'd be more likely to ask "Do you know the Beatles?" It's a small change, but it comes directly from the way most people here communicate with me. I know there's more, but somehow they're all slipping out of my brain in this hot weather.

Do you teach ESL? Has it changed the way you talk? Any tips? The comment section is always open.

How To: Get Along With Your Korean Coworkers

Before I write a single word, I want to preface this with my awareness that my advice is based only on my own experience- I am not, by a long shot, the expert on cross-cultural office relations. However, I do get along quite well with everyone in my office, so if that's proof enough for you, please read on!



Step 1: Eat delicious food together.

If you've spent any time at all on waygook.org, you've probably run across plenty of posts about strained NET/CT relationships, chilly behavior of Korean teachers toward foreign teachers in the office, and all manner of difficulties arising out of everything from deep-seated cultural differences to simple miscommunication.

Seeing as I'm lucky enough to consider many of my coworkers (not just coteachers) to be friends, here are my personal tips for getting along with coworkers in Korean public school. As I've never worked in a hagwon, I'm can't say if the same rules apply.

note: this post is targeted more toward coworkers other than coteachers. I'll write a post about getting along with your coteachers next!

1. Your culture, their culture: know the difference!

So here you are, settling into your new job in lovely South Korea. You came from the US, from Ireland, from South Africa, Australia, wherever. Now, my first advice, and something that I admittedly tend to harp on about, is this: South Korea is not your native country. It's not the US, or Ireland, or South Africa, or even Australia. Really. I promise. The sooner you remember this, the happier you and everyone around you will be.

Not to rag on waygook.org again, but the "What Do You Refuse To Do?" thread just illustrates my point so well, I can't avoid mentioning it. Some refusals are reasonable, such as "wear a surgical mask [while sick]" or "eat dog" or even "care about Dokdo." Some complaints, on the other hand, ramp up my crankiness level at a worrying rate. Refusals include "sitting on the floor in restaurants," "learning Korean," going to work dinners, and in another post that I can't find at this moment, a poster complained about students constantly greeting him in the hall and having to respond. Oh the horror. Friendliness. How will you ever survive?

As The Korean wrote in a post about ESL teachers in Korea:

Even when ESL teachers come to Korea with best intentions, they often come strikingly uneducated about Korean history and culture. Korea is a unique place; no other country in the world brought itself out of utter poverty to a leading economic power within a few decades while surviving two devastating wars under two different countries' occupation. Many things about Korea require a radically different mindset from any other country’s mindset to understand properly – which is really what being exposed to a different culture is all about.

This is exactly the point I am constantly trying to make. There is an arrogance that comes with speaking the global lingua franca. In the majority of the world, speaking English will be enough to get by on. Sure, that's fine if you're just vacationing (though personally I believe that even tourists should learn basic greetings in the native language), but living/work and visiting for a week or two are entirely different animals. In the one case, you're merely on the outside looking in- take a few pictures, try some food, then go home. However, living and working in a foreign country entails quite a lot more, as I like to call it, cultural chameleon...ing. I need to work on that one.



Guys am I Korean enough yet??

To circle back around to my point, try to understand the culture you're in. Greet your coworkers in the morning, and when you see them in the hall. Do a bit of research, try to understand where they're coming from. Before you take offense at a comment or action, stop and consider the intention. Plenty of things that would be considered incredibly rude in the US are completely normal in Korea; comments about physical appearance/weight come to mind first. This is not to say that explaining to someone that, in your own country, such and such thing is not done/done differently is a no go. Just remember, before you get all butthurt and rant your feelings on waygook, that not everyone has the same background as you.

On a related note...

2. Learn Korean!

I cannot stress enough how important this is. The amount you want to learn is up to you, but please, please, for the love of...something, learn some Korean.

Maybe it's just greetings. You'd be surprised how far a couple of 안녕하세요's will get you (for the as-of-yet uneducated, 'annyeonghaseyo basically means hello). Kick it up a notch with 잘 먹어습니다 (enjoy your meal) and 반갑습니다 (pleased to meet you) and you'll be in good graces for the rest of eternity, barring some horrible social faux pas.

Also, hangul (the Korean alphabet), is actually super easy to learn. I know, I know, it looks complicated and scary, but it's actually (according to some) one of the most linguistically perfect alphabets in the world. The shapes of the characters are modeled after the shape of your mouth when you say them! Maybe that's only exciting to a linguistics nerd like me, but I stand by my excitement. It's certainly very logical, once you get the hang of it, and believe me, being able to read the menu in a restaurant on the names of bus stops on a map is the most wonderful feeling.



The secrets of this manuscript could be yours for the taking!

It's also pretty fun to buck foreigner stereotypes. If I had a nickel for every time someone responded to my basic Korean with "Omg your Korean is so good! Most foreigners never learn Korean. It's so hard/they're lazy/etc", I could build my own school out of nickels! Maybe. Probably not. My Korean is not good enough to warrant this response, believe me, but it feels good all the same.

Now, learning even the most basic Korean phrases will help with my next piece of advice, which is...

3. Try to Be Involved

If you've read anything about having a job in Korea, it's likely that you've come across the famed work dinners, or 회식. These gatherings usually involve lots of food, drink, and most importantly, a relaxation of social boundaries and a chance to bond outside of the office environment.




Bulgogi marinated in peach sauce, all on the company card.

It may sound like a pain, having to attend a work event outside of normal hours that you don't get paid for, but unless your coworkers are actually straight up mean to you, these things can be pretty fun. Even if you don't drink, it's a great chance to talk to different people and see a more relaxed side of the people you share a stuffy office with every day. Plus, free food.

Beyond the company dinners, always offer to help out with events. Odds are, you'll be assured that no, they don't need any help, but the mere fact that you offered means a lot. For instance, at the end of the school year, right around Christmas, there was a big school festival, with everything from an art show to various dance and music performances by students and teachers. I'd mentioned earlier in the year that I played the violin, but thought nothing of that fact until the music teacher approached me one day with the idea of us playing a duet at the festival. I was flattered, and thanks to his charming smile, I agreed.

The whole experience was really great. Even though the ladies in my office refused to let me help them with the setup, possibly because explaining what needed to be done to the clumsy foreigner was more trouble than it was worth, I still had something that drew me in to the spirit of the event. We practiced constantly, well aware that we had an audience of roughly 900 bored middle school students to impress. Despite my fears, the whole thing went off without a hitch, and 5 months later people still bring up my performance in conversation at lunch.

Anyways, that whole long ramble was just to illustrate my point; get involved! It won't suck, I promise! In fact, it usually ends up being really fun, even if you don't always know exactly what you're agreeing to participate in.

4. Go the extra mile

My explanations are getting shorter as my list gets longer. This one is pretty basic, and probably applies to jobs in any country, but I wanted my list to have 5 points, don't judge me.

If you're working in public school, I'm going to assume you're on a contract like me, which means that technically you only have to be in school from 8:30-4:30, and anything extra is overtime. "That's great!" you think, right? That means I can leave at 4:30 every day and have glorious long evenings all to myself.

Technically, this is true. However, most of your coworkers are likely going to be coming in earlier and/or staying later (whether or not this is a good practice is a debate for another time), and while I don't have any evidence to back this up, I imagine that seeing the young foreigner constantly arriving last and leaving first would not sit well.

So, my advice? Come in early once in a while. Stay a little late on days when you have a bit more to do, organize your classroom, chat over a cup of coffee with the person you sit next to, anything that strikes your fancy. If you're magically on top of your lesson plans, bring your Korean homework and do it at work!

I know this is probably controversial, since this is technically working overtime without getting paid for overtime, but let's be honest, will the odd half hour once or twice a week really kill you?

This also applies to helping out with stuff beyond teaching your classes. I've helped the IT guy understand difficult metaphors in Jason Mraz songs. I once read a speech aloud for a teacher's husband while he recorded me, so he could practice his English pronunciation before a big speech at his company. On a memorable day during Winter break, I teamed up with my office mates to rearrange and clean our entire office, much to the surprise of everyone who came in the next day.

5. Bring Food

Look, this one is really easy. Everyone likes food. Except people on diets maybe? But I'm not counting them because they secretly like food, they're just pretending they don't for the sake of health or beauty whatever. There's a rumor that my office is cursed; stay here long, and you're bound to gain weight, thanks to all the snacks everyone brings in.



The irresistible charm of eggplants.

Guaranteed to make you fat: baked sweet potatoes and rice cakes.

Seeing as I neither own a farm nor have a real kitchen, I usually go for an easier route. Seasonal fruit is always a safe bet. When mandarin oranges were cheap, I would grab a bag of those once a week or so, mostly out of a selfish desire to eat lots of tiny oranges, but it also meant that I had an office of people beholden to me for my generous citrusy benevolence. Honestly, you'd be amazed how far a small gesture can get you.

Guess which one is me?



So there they are, my 5 suggestions for getting along happily with your Korean coworkers. As I said before, I'm not a cultural expert, an expert on how to make friends, an expert on Korean schools...can you see a trend?

What I do know is that I consider many of my fellow teachers to be friends, and some even feel like family, so I must be doing something right.

Do you work in a Korean school? Any more tips for happy office relations? Think my advice is dumb? I'd love to hear from you in the comments~!