Teaching at a Hogwan

It is a truth universally acknowledged that teaching a classroom full of twelve year olds is like herding cats. 
Meg and I have been teaching for nearly two months and we feel we have finally gotten the hang of it. We now feel comfortable enough with our jobs to share our thoughts.

To begin with we do not teach at a school but at what is called an academy. Students go to public school for about ten hours a day where they learn every subject an American school would teach. Of course the foreign languages are different. Instead of Spanish French, German and Latin they learn English, Japanese and the Chinese languages. After school students go to academies which are privately owned schools that specialize in one subject or another and provide a much more in depth education. Many of my students go to a Math academy before coming to our school. There are academies for music, dance, and strangely enough flight attendants. As a fascinating cultural note, the career of a flight attendant is a highly sought after one. Because Korea has no laws against discrimination all flight attendants are women who are a specific height and a slim figure. They need to be very pretty and many women hoping to become flight attendants often have plastic surgery to meet the Korean concept of beauty.

Meg and I work at a language academy or in Korean “hog-wan” 어학원. We take the bus to work at around 2:45 PM and take a half hour ride from Sang-mu (our part of town) to Suwan (another part of town). If we can find a cab that understands us it is a 10 minute ride. We teach as many as 7 half hour classes a day to as few as 4 depending on the day of the week. When we are not teaching we are expected to correct essays written by our students. If there is nothing to correct our time is our own. Meg and I was occasionally go for coffee or sushi if we have a particularly long break.
Teach can be… taxing. I was under the impression that Korean children would be far more disciplined then their American counterparts. I was very wrong. Kids are kids whatever language they speak. Korean children however have a bit of an excuse. If I had to go to school for 27 hours a day, I would be a little squirrelly too. However they are generally cute and eager to please. 

We primarily teach out of textbooks which are fully of hilarious examples. One reading provided a blow by blow description of the evolution of humanity starting with the breaking of the universe. I assume they meant the big bang. Their language skills vary wildly even in the same classroom. In one class room I have a student who clearly has no idea what I am saying at any given point in time while another student easily converses with me and laughs when I tell jokes. 
The student’s names pose a problem for our American accents. Early on we discovered that anytime we tried to pronounce their names the class erupted in laughter. We, like most other English teachers, gave them all American names which is harder than it sounds. Try it, right now. Give me nine unique boy and girl names right off the top of your head. By the end of the naming day we were scraping the bottom of the barrel. I think I have a few Mortimers or Nigels in my classes. Some kids wanted to pick their names which is why I have a student named Ironman. I never thought I would ever shout “Ironman, stop kicking Alex.” Oh, the lives we lead.
More on teaching to come
- Dan

Going to Church

Attending Catholic mass in Korea created in me a complicated mix of feeling at home and being on an alien world. For those who do not share my faith (or never studied Latin) the word catholic means Universal. For better or for worse the structure of the mass is the same regardless of geography. So, I attend mass in Sri Lanka I would pick up on what was going on even though I didn’t speak a lick of the language. The same holds true in Korea. 

      The only problem is that the music, readings, and homily (sermon for the non-Catholics) are all in Korean. Other than that everything is still the same with one delightful exception. Koreans do not shake hands unless greeting westerners so during the sign of peace everyone bowed to each other. Meg said that she expected this but it threw me off guard.

      An interesting facet of the Korean culture is that the instinct to form a line does not exist. Daily I am pushed out of the way while waiting for the bus. During communion I half expected a mad dash to the Eucharist. Korean Catholics managed to suppress this cultural idiosyncrasy and form the first orderly line I have seen in the country.

        The first time we went to mass the priest asked us to introduce ourselves to the congregation. When we stood it became abundantly obvious that we were the only westerners in the building. Sadly but not surprisingly, the priest had never heard of Omaha, NE. Best I can tell the priest told the congregation to greet us in English if they see us on the street. After the introduction the congregation actually applauded us. Not since eighth grade honor roll had I felt so honored. As we left the church small children approached us, clearly prodded by their parents, and greeted us in staccato English.

All in all, going to mass was a welcoming, if not disorienting, experience.

-Dan