The Language of Opportunity

Before I came to Korea, I didn't know what it would feel like to have a higher net worth simply due to the fact that I am able to speak my native language like a native. It's as if I am being made a huge deal of simply because I can walk or something; I mean, I've been speaking English for 25 years and noone ever commended me on it. Being a native English speaker qualifies me to do many things that fall outside of the bounds that Koreans set for other Korean teachers. I do not have to to be trained in teaching, take any sort of test, or even explain my language in technical terms; all I have to do is speak. It's an interesting phenomenon and many people might say, "Well, duh...that's why you went Korea;" however, the phenomenon I am describing would have been hard to prepare for. I guessed I imagined it would be more like being a "foreign" language teacher, which I am, only English seems to take precedence over Korean. There is almost a sort of desperation surrounding the acquisition of the English language, which has resulted in the trend of foreign English teachers coming to Korea in general (Korea is the highest paying Asian country for ESL teachers.) In the same way that Korean language presents itself to me, English is such a foreign beast for Koreans. The other night I attended an English Festival where there was a sort of Jeopardy competition being conducted with high school students as the contestants. The orator read off English definitions for words like FTA, Greenhouse Effect, and Nobel Peace Prize in English to which the students would respond by holding up a dry erase board with the answer written either in Korean OR English, it was optional. In fact most of the English festival was conducted in Korean, yet the performers performed monologues straight from the classics and there was a flawless production of a Korean version of the Sound of Music! While Jeopardy was going on, the audience tried to guess the answers, and it was very interesting to watch, because to them, this was English, a sort of code that they couldn't quite crack. In many ways it seems like part of the reason that English is so hard for Koreans is that the language itself conflicts with this rote system of learning, which is the way everything is taught in this country. In Korea's educational system, there is very little appreciation for being able to think outside the box, in fact it seems as if the lid to the box has been cemented shut on every side. In my opinion English is a language that cannot be boxed in; it's maleable and fluid. What really struck me was the way the audience, mostly alumni who majored in English, leaned forward as the orator read the definitions, as if he was releasing a mathematical problem whose answer lay at the end of a formula. Men in business suits sat on the edge of their seats, running through the rolodex in their mind, searching for the word that would match up with the definition that the orator was reading. It was strange to me that although I was the native English speaker in the room, I was the one who felt like I didn't belong. It really made me realize why it is that a native English speaker who knows significantly less grammar than a Korean English teacher is such a hot commodity, because we are the keymasters or whatever you want to call it; to them, we hold the secret code that was not present at the English competition. The tone and fluidity that makes English English is mine and it is something that may be impossible to teach apart from a long period of exposure and immersion.