Korea cont.
I’m still jetlagged, but every day I’m sleeping in a little bit longer, and feeling a little bit less tired throughout the day. Wednesday morning I met my school liason outside my apartment and she took me for my health check at the local hospital. The check is a bit like a scavenger hunt. First, you have to park and find your way to the first reception. You give them your forms, and then they think about things for a few minutes, notice the coffee in your hands and inform you then that you were supposed to be fasting for the past 12 hours. Hoping that my small breakfast won’t affect my blood sugar too much, we then go back upstairs, around a few corners, straight to the front of the line, get another form, then go back downstairs, go to a new room, change to a robe, get an X-ray done in 10 seconds, put top back on, find your way back to the first room, pee in a cup, get your blood taken, your height, weight, blood pressure and vision measured. Alright, that sounds a little simpler when I type it, but imagine all signs being in an alphabet you can’t read, and the translating always seeming to be way shorter than the actual conversation.
Anyways, I survived that, and went with my liason back to the school where I’m going to work. The school is on the 2nd through 5th floors of a building about a 20 minute walk from my apartment. At first I was concerned, because all the teachers I seemed to meet where Korean - Americans… aka, they could talk korean with eachother, read the bus signs and even drive! But, I met some other nice foreigners and they invited me to a free Korean lesson the next day at a papa john’s pizza place right across from our school. Then my liason drove me back to my apartment, and I finished reading the last Harry Potter book, again.
For dinner I wandered my way back down to La Festa, found a street vendor selling hot dogs, and a nice café with free internet. Unfortnately, It was 3am in Alberta, so event though I was online and felt like chatting, there was no one at home to talk to. Eventually I wandered back to place, and had another early night.
Today (Thursday) has been a little more interesting. I woke up early, but lounged around all morning until it was time to walk to my Korean lesson. There, along with 3 other teachers, I learned basic korean vowels and consonants. We even have our own workbooks, (all free!) where I’ve been practicing writing. Next week we’ll learn how to combine consonants and vowels and begin to make syllables! I feel as though my choir training of pronouncing strange vowels and enunciating letters with spit will be helpful.
That afternoon I observed my first 6 hours of classes. I’m proud to announce I got 5 out of 5 on my first grade 1 spelling test. The school uses a special curriculum guided by American materials. Honestly, the courses pretty much teach themselves. What we seem to be there for is to present the topic to the class, assign the work, check the homework and try to find a way to relate the language to the children’s lives. This can seem especially difficult when trying to teach Korean children about American States and state holidays. In a lot of ways though, this is the education that parents want, and we will prepare the kids to go to school in America. Even the classrooms all have names of Ivy league colleges. I’m excited to wear my Cornell sweatshirt into the staffroom of the same name.
Overall, I’m looking forward to starting to teach. The content is going to be so much easier than the high school level science I’m trained to teach, which will leave me lots of room to experiment with teaching method and medium. The only thing that really intimidates me is the teaching schedule. There are 8 blocks a day, and roughly 2 blocs per grade level. Each day of the week is slightly different, and we’re assigned different pages to read, assign, and mark. I’m still confused by the schedule, but I’m happy that’s the least of my worries.
After classes, a group walked back together. We all live pretty near each other, so it was a nice chance to debrief on the day. I’m feeling glad about my choice to work at a Hokwan with other foreigners, and I’m finally feeling excited to be here.
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