Every morning I sit in a gigantic classroom with 11 other Fulbright ETAs as a very thin, kind, enthusiastic, and incredibly patient Korean woman attempts to teach us how to pronounce, write, and converse in Korean. Every one of us is bleary eyed from staying up late in a dormitory that never seems to call it a night. Perhaps it's that I have been out of college for a few years, and most of the other ETAs just graduated, but I have been running on less sleep than I'm used to at the age of 25. For some reason it is not quite possible for me to find coherent meaning in the words that are being slung at me in this classroom at 9 am, but unfortunately, the woman who is slinging them, is more persistent than anyone I've ever seen. Although this woman's name is not known to me or the rest of my class; she is our Sang Sehng Neem (teacher) and we call her by that name. I think that we are being put through this intensive language course for more than one reason. Reason one is to learn Korean, but reason two is to see what it's like to be so far from fluent in a foreign language and watch as our teacher never gives up on us, no matter how many blank stares we offer her day in and day out as she attempts to engage us in some sort of dialogue. For the first few days all we did was repeat after her, so now when she says "repeat" (dada haseyo) in Korean or asks us to please open our books to page 22, she often can't hold in a giggle as we repeat every word that leaves her mouth right back to her, including when she is instructing us to do something. In many ways the class reminds me of what I can remember from Kindergarten. For example, San Sehng Neem used bright colored plastic letters on a magnetic board to teach us the alphabet, she brings cookies to class, and rewards us for the ever so tiny improvements that happen every few days. Monday was our first quiz which consisted of a ten question (six multiple choice, two spelling, and two conjugating vowels questions) that only one of the girls in my class scored a 100% on. When she passed out the test, San Sehng Neem watched as most of us rejoiced when we saw we had gotten somewhere between an 60%-80% range. Then she said something in Korean, and as usual we began to shout out guesses of what she might have said in English. She shook her head as we shouted: "Good job?!" "Well done?!" and finally she said... "Need to study more better." As we were leaving class I made the mistake of turning to another ETA and saying, "All I have to say is, I'm sure glad I don't have her job," to which she responded: "You do."
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Korean Language Class
Every morning I sit in a gigantic classroom with 11 other Fulbright ETAs as a very thin, kind, enthusiastic, and incredibly patient Korean woman attempts to teach us how to pronounce, write, and converse in Korean. Every one of us is bleary eyed from staying up late in a dormitory that never seems to call it a night. Perhaps it's that I have been out of college for a few years, and most of the other ETAs just graduated, but I have been running on less sleep than I'm used to at the age of 25. For some reason it is not quite possible for me to find coherent meaning in the words that are being slung at me in this classroom at 9 am, but unfortunately, the woman who is slinging them, is more persistent than anyone I've ever seen. Although this woman's name is not known to me or the rest of my class; she is our Sang Sehng Neem (teacher) and we call her by that name. I think that we are being put through this intensive language course for more than one reason. Reason one is to learn Korean, but reason two is to see what it's like to be so far from fluent in a foreign language and watch as our teacher never gives up on us, no matter how many blank stares we offer her day in and day out as she attempts to engage us in some sort of dialogue. For the first few days all we did was repeat after her, so now when she says "repeat" (dada haseyo) in Korean or asks us to please open our books to page 22, she often can't hold in a giggle as we repeat every word that leaves her mouth right back to her, including when she is instructing us to do something. In many ways the class reminds me of what I can remember from Kindergarten. For example, San Sehng Neem used bright colored plastic letters on a magnetic board to teach us the alphabet, she brings cookies to class, and rewards us for the ever so tiny improvements that happen every few days. Monday was our first quiz which consisted of a ten question (six multiple choice, two spelling, and two conjugating vowels questions) that only one of the girls in my class scored a 100% on. When she passed out the test, San Sehng Neem watched as most of us rejoiced when we saw we had gotten somewhere between an 60%-80% range. Then she said something in Korean, and as usual we began to shout out guesses of what she might have said in English. She shook her head as we shouted: "Good job?!" "Well done?!" and finally she said... "Need to study more better." As we were leaving class I made the mistake of turning to another ETA and saying, "All I have to say is, I'm sure glad I don't have her job," to which she responded: "You do."
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