My evolution as a teacher

Sometimes simplicity brings the sweetest results. Removing one bored and unchallenged student from a class can open up other students to learning in ways one never thought possible. Good ole flash cards can be more effective than any fancy online vocabulary system.

I realized about one month ago that a couple of my students were simply not absorbing any of the vocabulary words they were learning. After a couple of disappointing review sessions, I resolved to maintain a set of flash cards for all of their vocabulary words--a habit I forfeited after realizing how tedious it was to keep up cards for a dozen different classes. But JiSu and Guen Woo needed it! I also started to crackdown on the unfinished homework problem.

I'm pleased to say these simple efforts bred spectacular results. At first, the vocab quizzing cost us nearly twenty minutes of class time. I started setting aside difficult cards for second reviews, but gradually the second review pile receded. Then tonight, JiSu whizzed through her flash cards, and I couldn't contain my happiness. I ran around the desks and gave her a good shoulder squeeze, telling her how proud I was.

Recent wedding plans have forced me into forward-thinking, but when I leave work these days, I wish I didn't have to give up teaching my students. My evolution as a teacher is something that makes me laugh and smile. It's sort of this comic strip in my head.

In the first box, I am a scared and lonely cartoon. My inner monologue says something like "Please like me, kids. I'm nervous and alone!" During this phase, I acted pretty weak as a teacher because I felt pretty powerless in general. I prayed just to get through each day of classes.

In the second box, I'm sort of an entertainer--like the ringleader of a circus or a magician pulling new tricks out of her hat to wow kiddy eyes. My thought bubble in this box says: "You thought yesterday was fun. Wait until you see what we're going to do today!"

3rd box: I'm noticing that their amazement should be no substitute for a lack of learning. Plus, I'm running out of ideas. I waver back and forth between carrots and sticks, but decide carrots are easier and tear-proof. My speech bubble: "I'll give you one piece of candy if you do your homework, two pieces if you answer this question, and heck, if you're a good little boy, then we can eat the whole bag and play UNO for twenty minutes of class." (I'm hyperbolizing, but you get the idea.)

4th box: My class room is a zoo because of my easygoingness, and I'm a bit dumbfounded. "How did they become such monsters?" Thought bubble to follow: "O...I made them that way."

5th box: I decide it's time to be a disciplinary, even if some kids hate me. Speech bubble: "This is English class. If you're not here to learn, then 'na ga!'" That's Korean for "Get out!"

6th box: I'm finally comfortable being a disciplinary unapologetically. I've figured out a few things about rowdy boys and whiny girls, and more importantly, I've learned that planning a successful lesson is different from teaching successfully. Patrick informs me that I should test the students at least once per month to make sure they're really learning. Funny, it should take so long for someone to mention tests to me. I start initiating flashcards and regular quizzes. My classroom games change from UNO and Go Fish to jeopardy review. I guess this is the box I'm currently in. I had a few teaching moments today.

I tried to explain to SuJung the differences between see, look and watch. See is the general ability of the eyes, look is directed toward one object or person, and watch is directed toward a moving object. We watch TV and baseball games. We say "Look at me!" but "Watch me dance!" We looked out the classroom window, and I told her that I could see the market, the street, the fence, the cars--all in my peripheral vision--but that I was looking at the tree.

In another class, teaching was more of a chore. I got frustrated when a couple students couldn't remember to conjugate for he and she in the simple present tense. It seemed as if they were just slapping a sentence in their notebook without much thought. I ditched my lesson plan and drew a giant chart on the board with I, You, He, She, We and They on the left side and six different verbs written across the top. One by one, the students rolled dice to determine the pronoun and the verb, and then wrote the correct form for each on the grid. Anytime they conjugated for he/she, for example, "she studies," I asked them to color in the box if the verb contained an "s" at the ending. My hope is the long repetitive task will drill into their brain--I play, and you play, and he plays the piano. Tune in next week to see if it works!

For a different class, I've asked students to answer the question, "Why do we study English?" for homework. We made a list of English-speaking countries. Then I asked them to come up with three famous Korean people who use English in everyday life.

If my current comic box had a speech bubble, it might say something like: "English matters. So learn it!"

Little kid fun, Big kid fun

Last night, I had a dream that I was asked to teach a journalism course at UNI. I was given a topic, but I had to invent the curriculum for myself, so I printed a bunch of journalistic photos off the internet and came up with discussion questions for the events in each picture. And it worked out for the first class...then I was back to square one.

That's sort of how the science/conversation class for winter "break" has been--the class with the two brothers and JiWoo. When I told them on Wednesday that Friday was our

last class, they were visibly and audibly disappointed, which made me feel that maybe my ramshackle efforts paid off. On Friday, I had them write letters to their parents about what they learned in English class, then we went outside and played a version of tag where "it" can only step on certain playground colors. (We've had fairly nice weather here this week.) The game had been taught to me by other students: twin girls, You Rim and You Jin, their third

muskateer, Hajin, and little miss English genius, Anna.

I also took these four outside this week upon the order of Mrs. Joe, who hopes the people of Jilyang will see me playing in English and sign their children up to study with "Sally teacher." When she told me the plan, the thought of entertaining four eleven-year-olds in a small town with my limited Korean was unfavorable. Fortunately, the kids had a few ideas about what we should do. First, we ate kimbob and dukbooki and a small Korean diner, then we went to "Bang! Bang!"--a giant trampoline inside a carnival tent with balls and children bouncing everywhere. Dangerous, but fun anyway. We played a few dodgeball variations and duck, duck, goose, and in general, had a good time. As a post 40-minute workout refreshment, the girls insisted that we go to the market for ice cream. Finally, we went to the craft shop to buy supplies for a class project. It was a little girl afternoon.

Last weekend, Raeann and Jong, friends from my Snow Mountain Ranch summer of 2006, met up with me in Seoul. Raeann and I stayed up until 3 a.m., catching up on every major life event during the last four years. On Sunday, the three of us plus Raeann's brand new, fresh-off-the-plane, Canadian coworker drove around Seoul in Jong's car, listening to N'Sync and looking for a Dr. Fish spa to no avail. Instead, we ate a late Korean lunch and went to N'Seoul tower. We parked at the base of the mountain and hiked up the steep 20-minute stretch to the landmark. An orange and pink Seoul sunset backdropped the city landscape from at 1,574 feet above sea level. It's actually the shortest among major towers in the world. It's kind of strange, but they were practically advertising this fact. Quite a few tourists circled the observation deck and several attractions at the top, including a photo booth, tarot card readings, and a press-a-penny machine, only for Korean won obviously.

At the bottom of the tower, there was a big porch covered in padlocks of different colors, shapes and styles. Jong told us people select a padlock with their love, lock it around the fence and throw the key off the mountain to symbolically vow everlasting love. He did it once with his ex-girlfriend. Even more ironic, there's a sign that says, "Don't throw away your key!" on the fence.

The twenty minute hike down in the dark got us lost, so we had to take a taxi back to our car. It was pretty funny. We were all exhausted, but Raeann's new coworker, Rebecca, hadn't slept since the plane ride, hoping to hoodwink jet lag in order to regulate her schedule. I kept making jokes about Canadians being super laid-back, and Rebecca was a good example of that. Poor girl. After a long day, we decided a little American food would hit the spot. We bought a Papa John's pizza and ate until our stomach's were satisfied.

I know it's been a little while since I've written about my adventures in Korea. I sort of ran out of things to say for a while...also, I've spent too much time looking at a computer screen lately, and my eyes are suffering for it. So I need to take a couple of days away and look for entertainment elsewhere. Thank you for reading this now! I'll try to keep you updated.

January 12, 2010

It's January 12, 2010. 5 months away from my wedding day. About 2 and a half months until I go home. The weather is chilly but pleasant in comparison to treacherous Iowa winters. No more snow since the first one last week.

My work schedule has picked up a bit. I actually felt like full-time employee last week somehow. On Thursdays, I teach in Hayang, where JiMin is one of my students in a lively class of middle schoolers. I'm also giving private lessons to Mrs. Joe's daughter, Su Jung, who has taken over some of Justin's with recruiting tasks. Su Jung is my age, and while she seems to understand most everything I say, she needs to work on putting together coherent sentences that follow the correct subject-verb-object word order. Last week, I asked SuJung if she would accompany me on a makeup shopping trip. And she agreed. But when Saturday came, I found the thought of a somewhat awkward shopping trip to be less than appealing. My internal dialogue went something like this:

Me: Ugh! I don't want to go shopping tonight.

My conscience: Why not?

Me: Well, I just don't want to feel like I'm working on a Saturday night. I don't want to have to use my patient English mode all afternoon and then all night, too.

My conscience: Well, that sounds kind of selfish. You never seemed to mind that when you worked for CIEP.

Me: Well, yea, but with my job now, I have to be in that mode all day.

My conscience: Look, you can't just blow off SuJung. Do you remember how you excused yourself from hanging out with Jimin at WooBang Land a few months ago because you wanted to go to Jeju Island with your friends? And how you felt you'd let her down? You just can't be this way with people. You have to follow through.

So, I went anyway, and I was very glad I did. We shared a few laughs, made a few purchases, and she bought me dinner at a great Western restaurant. (SuJung studied cooking in college and knows what's what when it comes to finding a good restaurant. Also, it was pretty cute watching her goggle at some pretty and decadent cupcakes in a bakery window downtown. Once past the language barrier, SuJung is a great candidate to be my Korean friend.)

I tend to be skeptical when it comes to trying new products and have become pretty committed to Bare Minerals, which my friend Brittany got me hooked on a few years ago, but I quickly realized I wasn't going to have the luxury of being that picky. So I bought a few things at a Nature Republic--the only cosmetics store I've ever seen that uses a male celebrity to advertise it's products. The clerk at Nature Republic put my purchases as well as a dozen other samples (a defining quality of Korean face/body shops) into a bag with Rain's black-and-white photo. It strikes me as odd that they'd choose Rain to advertise such a feminine product. Then again, Rain's face is everywhere. The Korean superstar also advertises bakery items via Tous Les Jours, "hand phones" via SK Telecom, Lotte duty-free items, Pepsi in China, Clear shampoo in the Philippines, and various other products across Asia.

I've recently become keenly aware of time's passing. And I've realized that if there are things that I'm going to do in Korea, then now is not the time for stalling. This is exactly why I've decided to go to Seoul next weekend to see my friend Raeann from Colorado, who just arrived in Korea one week ago and based on our short conversation, is about as uncertain as I was one week in. I was going to wait for a more convenient weekend, but again, my weekends are numbered now, so what the heck! Also, I asked my boss to let me take my final vacation days at the end of my contract in March, so that I can go to Japan on my way out of Asia! I'm currently looking for a ticket to Japan on March 25 or 26th.

Mother May I finally made it into my menu of classroom games, and it's a real hit! I never realized how funny it could be to call a classmate "mother" or "father" in such a hierarchical culture, but some of my students got a real kick out of it! I overheard one winner giving another a hard time about using informal Korean because, he joked, "I am father!"

Wanted: Your culinary creativity

Several weeks ago, Hyunsuk asked me what kind of groceries I wanted before making a trip to Costco. One of my friends commented the other day that Koreans really do their own food better than any other country's food, which is why my list of items to buy at the store has become shorter and shorter. It's better to eat a delicious Korean meal than an American style meal that tastes crappy. The memo I wrote had about four items on it: spaghetti sauce, bread (with a decent fiber amount,) chicken nuggets, and canned soup. I told Hyunsuk that sometimes in the winter I liked to eat a simple soup with crackers. Remembering the breakfast chowder a few months ago, I thought surely Campbell's had an adequate variety of soups, and I left it that.

My host mom came home with about a 24-unit box of Cream of Mushroom. Not exactly what I had in mind. But an innocent mistake.

I tried to explain that Cream of Mushroom soup was actually more of an ingredient for cooking casseroles and dishes in the states, but not usually eaten on it's own. Still, I had to try it, right? She bought so much of it. And surely, somewhere along the line, someone thought Cream of Mushroom soup was a good idea on it's own. Maybe some of you who are reading even enjoy it. I don't know. Needless to say, it wasn't my thing. It felt dipping saltine crackers in an even more salty gravy.

One thing I really appreciate about my host mom is she doesn't like to waste food. She even made use of the less than tasty, over-preserved Costco colby jack cheese by coupling it with other ingredients for kimbob rolls. Now, she wants to find a solution for the soup.

So this post isn't about the story per se as much as it is a request for your creative cooking concoctions. Here's the catch: we don't have an oven...which pretty much rules out 80 percent of the recipes that call for cream of mushroom soup. But you're a smart bunch out there. (Aunt Janet, maybe you have some ideas.) What might we do with all this Cream of Mushroom soup?

Fish and kids

On the first day of 2010, Eli and her brother and sister, who came to visit for two weeks, let me chill with them for a while. We laid around for most of the day, which was fun, because usually, when I'm at Eli's, we're always getting ready to go out or have Bible study or something. Then in the late afternoon, we headed downtown to a little cafe that translated as something like Tree Swing Cafe. Customers could pay 4,000 won (about $4) for bread and coffee refreshment bar, then a little more to experience a little spa treatment called "Dr. Fish." Takers wade their feet in a small pool full of mini fish who swim around and feast off their dead skin. The fish seemed to enjoy a particularly dry patch I've had on my ankle for the past year or so.

Does it tickle? Yes, a little. Is it weird? Yes! Particularly when the fish nibble between your toes. Is it a cultural experience? Yes! Eli's brother Sam couldn't stand to keep his foot underwater for more than 30 seconds at a time without dying of laughter. (We bought 25 minutes of Dr. Fish!) The fish seemed to enjoy a particularly dry patch I've had on my ankle for the past year or so. They left the spot with a baby soft finish! It's so fun to experience something new for the new year!

One of the best things about being overseas is the international community. Not only have I met Koreans, but at different times, I've met Korean-Americans, South Africans, New Zealandites, Australians, Germans, Phillipinos, Canadians, etc. One couple from our church is from New Zealand, and they have two little girls with bright red hair: Grace and Lily. Norina, their mother, told me once that the girls both speak Korean and are more than willing to translate for their parents.

Yesterday, Grace took the initiative to introduce herself and to ask me, "Do you like my hair?"

I replied honestly, "Yes, I do."

"Do you want it?" she asked. Her forward, I-know-I'm-cute attitude shouldn't have surprised me. Kids say the darnest things, but still, I was surprised. "Yes, I do!" I replied enthusiastically and truthfully.

Later, Grace drew a tooth bracelet and a tooth ring on my hand and said I was the tooth fairy. She wanted me to return the favor. Trying to keep her excitement at bay and away from distracting others, I complied and she said I was good at drawing teeth. I was flattered. I always thought little girls with red hair were the cutest! Maybe someday Nick and I will create a little girl, but I don't think red hair is in our gene pool. Ahh...well...se la vie.

Two things today made me feel at home:

1. A sibling rivalry between two little boys in my science/conversation class. It started when Ji Yoon hit Tae Yoon with a snowball, pushing him to the ground, on the way to class. Ji Yoon came in first, panting as he explained the story. Then Tae Yoon came in a few minutes later with another snowball. I sympathized with Tae Yoon's need for revenge, but asked him to take it outside anyway. I didn't want to clean up melted snowball. For the remainder of the class, they were neck-in-neck competitive. Ji Yoon gets really upset when his younger brother interrupts him with the correct answer. By game time, Tae Yoon pouted over a game of Sally Says. Anyway, it reminded me of playing peacemaker between Brett and Jon years ago. The underdog, the younger one, tends to win my favor, which isn't always fair, but it's an attempt to even the playing field anyway.

2. Snow! I guess the previous story gave it away. Many people told me there wouldn't be much snow in Daegu, but it really snowed today. I couldn't believe my eyes. I even had to shuffle like a penguin along icy sidewalks--an unfortunate hallmark of winters in Cedar Falls.

Laura, in response to your comment, I have not read any Amy Tan stories. Should I look into this? Maybe I will the next time I'm looking for something to do on the internet.