It's Daejeon! The return (Day 2) [repost/edit]

Get ready for picture heavy post...

[fixed errors--Feb 2017]

Breakfast at hotel

The hotel had a decent continental breakfast spread of scrambled eggs, cocktail weenies, bread, lettuce, and tomatoes. For drinks, it had (weak) coffee, OJ, and milk. I'm more of an oatmeal man than a scrambled egg man, but the eggs tasted okay and they helped power me through Tuesday's activities. Here's what happened in the morning rains and the afternoon heat:

EXPO Science Park

At long last, I made it. Getting there proved easier than last year. And yes indeed, doing stuff on weekday mornings is enjoyable: I was one of less than 10 non-employees on the grounds. It was almost as though the place was closed, but the lady in the ticket booth waved me in. I found out that the park's more of a pay-as-you go place. It's expansive and clearly designed to accommodate large crowds, so the place felt ghostly with no one occupying the space.

I went to two of the attractions: the giant IMAX dome theater and the LG Technopia Turbo Theater. The dome's screen is massive and immersive. It was too bad that the film being shown, "Journey to the Planets" had dated animation of kiddie-style space aliens riding around in a space ship looking at our universe. The actual pictures of the planets were great, but the 70s-esque animations made the film hard to take seriously. At least there was some footage of astronauts working on the International Spae Station. Still, for 2,500won and being the only one there, it could've been worse.

The Turbo Theater? Impressive setup, meh film. I liked the huge dark corridors. Very mysterious. The roller coaster-esque seats you strap yourself into we're cool though. I saw "Journey to the Center of the Earth," one of Brendan Fraser's lesser films. Again, I was the only one there. Both the Theater and the IMAX had two college age women at the front counter. I wondered if perhaps the place was overstuffed for the time of day.

I figured two things were enough, so I went back into the drizzle and humidity and crossed the street to go to the...

National Science Museum/Lunch

...and didn't stay long. There lots of kids and school groups by now (noon). The campus looked like it was geared toward kids; i wasn't feeling like a 10-year old, so i ended up buying a ticket to a snow I didn't see because it started in the afternoon. Oh well. I only went because it was there. The gift shop had Dokdo t shirts for 20,000won. I walked out and caught the first bus I saw and ended up in the Yuseong Station area. By now the sun was up and the energy levels were flagging, so lunch came in the form of bibimbap (the go-to Korean meal) at Kimbap Nara. While there, I remembered that the Currency Museum close to the Science Museum and EXPO Park, so back on the road I went. 

Sometimes little mishaps bring pleasant surprises, for while waiting at the bus stop, I met a Tanzanian fellow named Albert who's studying in Daejeon. We got to talking and took a quick rise together. He talked of his studies and how he had to reach level three on the TOPIK exam to graduate. He also mentioned that until he'd met a girl from Lousiana, he thought that all Americans had seen snow. Evidently, that's what Africans learn in school. Interesting stuff, especially when yours truly has never gone a year without seeing snow. 

The bus ride took us back to the EXPO area, so we said farewell and I got back on the street. Around 20 minutes and a bus ride later, I was following the signs to the Currency Museum--Not the easiest place to find! It's set back in what must be an office park, but I soon found out why: It's next door to one of Korea's money printing agencies.

The Currency Museum

Cool place! I mean that literally and figuratively: the air conditioning felt great and I enjoyed seeing coins and bills from Korea' history as well as paper money from around the world. Korea's money used to be called 환 before the name got changed to 원 in 1962. The change happened as a part of currency revaluation project.* Learning about that was interesting, but what's perhaps more insightful is this: The biggest Korean bill in '62 was 500 won. Now? 50,000 won. Those two facts illustrate how much the country's economy has grown since the 6.25 War ended 60 years ago. What's more, the 50,000 won bill was only recently introduced in 2009. It's strange to think about new bills being introduced because America has been using the 100 dollar bill for ages now. We've had bigger bills, to be sure, but they were only for official purposes and not for general use.

Korea's money and how it's changed over time.

The Currency Museum also had a room dedicated to paper money from around the world. Gazing at these bills was one of the day's highlights:

Uganda's colorful and eye-catching money makes the US's look drab by comparison. After looking at all of the bills on display, I noticed that America's paper money is all the same size and virtually every other country's money isn't. Also: sorry R, but there was any Jamaican money on display. 

After satisfying the thirst for monetary history, I moved on and wound up getting a ride back downtown thanks to a generous mom who'd visited the museum with her two children. Once again, I couldn't believe the good fortune. Koreans are some amazingly kind people. She'd pulled up as I was leaving the parking lot and said what sounded like , "Where are you going? Get in," in rapid Korean. I'd picked up the gist of what she said** and got in. She asked again, and I said "시내가세요" which means "I'm going downtown." She asked where exactly and I saw Daejeon station because it was the first one that came to mind and because the Education Museum stood nearby.

She ended up dropping me off at Seodaejeon Station, but that a trifling matter compared to the fun Korean/English conversation the four of us enjoyed together. Her elder son was practicing his English, and the mom, while she didn't speak much English, understood everything I said. The son was eager to know what I thought of Korea and I said accordingly, "우리 나라 사랑해요," or "I love our country."*** It's hard not to love The Land of the Morning Calm when the people are friendly and the food is good! When strangers go out of their way to help you find your way back downtown and act as though you've made their day because they can belp you, it's an amazing thing. 

Once at Seodaejeon Station, I got my bearings and caught another bus, got off, and walked to...

The Hanbat Museum of Education

I was gambling on getting there before closing time and while yes, that happened, it wasn't quite enough time to see the place, so told the woman at the front desk that I'd return the next day. The Daejeon trip would not pass without a trip to a museum about school and schooling. There was no rush to leave early anyway.

I'll add the next day's return trip here for purposes of brevity. The Musuem of Education had exhibits stretching from the '90s all the way back to the old Joseon dynasty days. Inside the class cases of its wood paneled rooms laid all number of textbooks and artifacts from school days past. The first exhibit is a replica of a classroom from the 1960s:

Roughly, "Daily school life from 1960-1970."

Note the heater in the middle of the room and the piano in the foreground. Some of the desks were double and some were single. Apart from those things, not much separates this classroom from its modern counterpart.

Middle school English textbooks from the '90s.

School life during the Korean War.

The lottery wheel used for determining which middle school students would advance to high school in lieu of written exams.

For my mother, who maintains that penmanship among US elementary school kids is lacking these days: the Koreans were there decades ago!

Photos from the Japanese occupation. Note the use of child labor in service of the State. Also note that group work or "pod" seating is nothing new.

More child labor for the imperialist State.

Hyundai world map, circa 1920s. I included this picture because it has Korea as being part of Japan thanks to the Occupation.

The caption speaks for itself. The Japanese were evidently equal-opportunity when it came to making their subjects ready to fight for them.

Old time desks and writing tables. In the background: a scholar holds court.

And finally...wearing the black and white robe of a Joseon-era university teacher. It was comfy. Maybe I should procure one of these and start wearing it to school? It would make a good Halloween costume, eh? Special thanks to Mrs. Choi the Musuem representative for giving me this unique opportunity! She guided me around the place and commented on the exhibits. Despite her self-criticism, her English sounded perfectly fine. Wandering the Education Museum provided the perfect end to the trip.

I'll have another post about reflecting on the trip up soon.

Miscellaneous pictures from Day 2:

The Gab Stream [갑천]

For Dick in WI: I figured you'd appreciate a place like this. The Currency Museum was nearby.

--Written in the hotel room and the Daejeon train station as well as the train to Seoul.

*Time to study more Korean history!

*** In Korean culture, "our" takes precedence over "your." Instead of saying "my country," "my house," or "my father," Koreans will say "our country," "our house," and "our father." 

우리 means "our" or "us," depending on context.

Belated post about Record Store Day 2014

Record Store Day 2015 has come and gone again. I missed it this year, but I did go to a few shops last year and didn't realize I did it on Record Store Day until later. Being abroad can do that sometimes. I meant to post something, but forgot about it. Being abroad does that, too.

What I meant to say last year at this time:

19 April: Record Store Day in the US and UK. And another Saturday for me. R and I had fled the country and gone into Seoul for one of our day trips. As I recall, we spent most of the day in the shopping maelstrom of Myeongdong. We might have seen a movie. At one point we split up so she could see a few cosmetics stores. I went into the Kpop emporium that is Music Korea. Kai in Korea wrote about going there:

I didn’t want to take any photos inside the store, I didn’t know if that was allowed, but it was so amazing…walking into a store and seeing Kpop CDs was really weird, but really great. All the MBLAQ things they had I already owned, so I bought Two-X’s debut mini album and TaeTiSo’s Twinkle album for myself and picked up Beast’s new album “Midnight Sun” for Kirtie and Ukiss’ “Neverland” album for Ali! I hope you guys like them! 

I don't know what's weird about seeing all of the Kpop, because that's the kind of store it is. Music Korea caters to Kpoppers. I was glad to be there because Korea doesn't have too many record stores. Most people download the stuff or watch the videos on Youtube. But as I may or may not have mentioned, I like to have the real thing.

But despite Music Korea's predilection toward the new and shiny, the shop does sell plenty of other music by Korean artists. (I recall an aisle of classical music as well.) I happened to be looking for Kim Kwang-seok, a famous singer-songwriter because coteacher had recommended him. She's less about the rock and more about warm melodies. That, and evidently Kim's short career made its mark on Korean music. I found Kim's 2-CD Best Of  and bought it.

And yep, it's mellow. Good change of pace.

김광석 - 서른즈음에: Here's Kim doing a famous song of his about getting close to age 30.

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Record Store Day never entered my mind until I saw an email from ATO Records in the inbox later that weekend.

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Also...

Lanie in Korea writes about Kpop Mall in Seoul - Another Kpop shop. It's smaller  than Music Korea, but perhaps just as good.

'Round three weeks ago

I left Korea three weeks ago and went on the road. I didn't properly close the blog down, but then maybe it can't really be closed down. There are still a few more stories to be told on here. Not only that, but at present I've no plans to delete anything here since it might help anyone in Korea or thinking of going to Korea.

Living and teaching in Korea was a wonderful time. It may not have been so apparent from the last few posts on here, but I did enjoy being part of EPIK. The problem was that it came time to move on from EPIK. It happens. I still enjoy teaching, be it language arts or EFL. 

For those who have read and commented here, thank you. I had no idea this blog would be read as often as it is.

My new blog called http://ramblingbadger.wordpress.com.

More posts to come whenever I get around to them...

K-pop and K-rock timeline / A brief look at 3.5 years of Korean music

I bought plenty of music while living in Korea - something like 100 albums of Korean rock and pop. All of which has been shipped back by now. Packing the big Kpop albums into the EMS boxes brought forth memory after memory. I never danced to Kpop in any clubs, but the sounds blasted out of the stereo and the headphones often enough in the early days here. Those incessant beats and hooks still grab me. The Wasu apartment had posters from the Wonder Girls, KARA, and Secret on the walls. A friend once (correctly) called it a "teenybopper's room." And though I felt a twinge of embarrassment at being called a 26 year old teenybopper, the posters evoked the same sense of home that I had in the US when posters of The Ramones and The Who graced the walls.

Kpop gave way to Krock in the end because A) I've always liked rock more and B) Kpop's candied sounds get annoying after 40 minutes. The rock allowed me to indulge my inner historian and go on a journey through Korea's past. I did find plenty of pop in there, but it was pop of a different sort, for it had real people playing real instruments and only one vocalist at a time. The rock and pop mingled together in the late 60s and early 70s anyway. Shin Joong-hyun played on many of those records and he always threw in some tasteful solos. Sometimes the two genres merged in format: Sanulrim who started out playing '60s garage pop at '70s song lengths in 1978. See some more stuff about the group and their debut LP here.

It's end of the working day here. Apologies for cutting it short.

The timeline of music posts here:

16 February 2015 - Sanulrim's 1st LP.
4 June 2014 - Guitar Fridays [Sanulrim's "Reflection"]

• Mostly about playing guitar with the students. Included for Sanulrim's song.

8 Jan 2014 - Classic Korean Pop Music Archive: Deulgukhwa / Deulgukhwa 1st Album (1985)

• A reblog from Classic Korean Pop Music Archive that has a short biography and review of the group and their 1st album. Special thanks to a friend of R's for recommending Deulgukhwa.

11 August 2013 - Review of Crying Nut's Flaming Nuts

8 July 2013 - Catch up on Kpop?

19 April 2013 - Kpop playlist #2 [Investing in Polyurethane Discs]
21 February 2013 - Krock 4: Jang Ki-ha and the Faces
20 February 2013 - Krock: Shin Joong-hyun and Yup Juns - Volume 2
20 February 2013 - Krock: Shin Joong-hyun and the Yup Juns - Volume 1
25 Jan 2013 - Classic rocker Shin Joong-hyun
25 December 2012 - A semi-white Christmas in Wasu

• Featuring music from J-Rabbit. Their Christmas album's soothing. It also has a cover of "All You Need is Love."

21 November 2012 - Ga-in's "Bloom" vs. Miss A's "I Don't Need a Man"

• Comparison piece between two Kpop songs.

21 August 2012 -  Krock 3: Busker Busker and more from Lowdown 30
21 August 2012 - Krock 2: The Black Skirts
31 July 2012 - 11 months in music...Kpop edition
31 July 2012 - 2NE1 and to everyone who loves to grooving Kpop

• R and I attended their concert in Seoul in summer of 2012. Quality show.

K-rock review: Sanulrim Vol. 1

Sanulrim's 1st LP (1978)

Sanulrim should've been written about sooner because I've played them more than any other Korean rock group as of late. Their swirling organs and fuzz guitar make an excellent combo. And what's above is true: Play track 1 side 1 of their 1st album, "Ah! Already?" below and hear for yourself:

The groove and melody attack immediately, eh? To me, the groups genius lies in how they took what would have been two-and-a-half minute singles and stretched them into longer '70s-style jams. What sounds like senseless indulgence and repetition isn't: The songs breathe. Maybe the band felt the same way because all of the songs on their debut run past the three minute mark. The tempos vary between ballad and uptempo, but the organs prevail.

Anyone who likes older pop and rock would enjoy these guys. Their first three albums got reissued as a combo package of CDs and SACDs recently, but I think it's gone out of print because it was a limited edition. Youtube has many of their songs though.

Despite the 1978 recording date, the production veers closer to 1966 due to the limitations of Korea's recording studios at the time. It sounds out of time because of

My Korean isn't good enough to understand everything in the lyrics, but most songs deal with pop topic mainstays like summer romances and unrequited love.

The blog Ghost Capital wrote about the group here.
A biography and review of their albums here.

Scheduling fun / Scrabble, revisited

Not so fun Friday: Out sick again thanks to knots in the stomach and a pain in the neck. 

School's "begun" in the sense of teachers and students returning to the school for classes, but I can't ascertain what, if anything, we're supposed to be doing these days. I wish I was making this up. The scheme so far has been that the students go to classes for a half a day and the teachers stay the whole day. I've overheard teachers talking about the students calling one movie shown in class "not interesting." None of my teachers have said anything about what to do in classes. Some don't even know if we have classes together. I find this strange: How is this possible that teachers don't know if there will be classes?

Or this one: One coteacher was out on a business trip and didn't tell me until an hour before we had class. This was Tuesday. I was at school all day on Monday and could have been informed in advance, but, like a lot of things over here, it didn't happen for whatever reason. Things like this have happened so often that I'm numb to the annoyance. Maybe this coteacher didn't know she had to teach? It's entirely possible.

What's been going on in the absence of lesson advice: I've been carrying on with bringing in sets of Scrabble and showing the students how to play it. So far so good!

For prospective EPIK teachers--I can't stress this enough: Get used to living with uncertainty.

Dispatch from an empty office in Cheorberia

3:55pm: 35 minutes until I can leave. It's my eighth and final day of desk warming in the vacated office upstairs at the middle school. Maybe four or five other people are at school or have been at school. The principal's been here at times because I've seen the light on in his office. He's held some meetings. My excitement because when the teacher of Korean that I talk to about novels came by to pick up a package.

Otherwise, it's been a solitary, lonely, and downright cold time here. I tracked the temperature changes over time today: The thermostat said 3.6C when I arrived at 8:30am. The overhead heater's efforts brought the temperature to 19.5C, which is hospitable, but it's only been above 15C since noon today. I've survived the cold by layering, but it's still difficult to type with gloves on. Going to the bathroom means putting on the overcoat and walking downstairs to the staff bathroom. It's not exactly convenient.  That's how it goes for those who desk warm. I've passed the time by reading novels, writing emails, and planning my exit trip.

On another note: I've often been asked about how Cheorwon or Korea's weather compares to my home state of Wisconsin. The answer usually goes something like this: "Wisconsin gets more snow and lower temperatures, so Cheorwon isn't so bad." What I leave unsaid--and this is something I didn't fully comprehend until this winter--is how the cold in Korea pervades everything. The temperatures may not dip as low as Wisconsin, but the place certainly feels colder more of the time thanks to the lack of central heat, the bad/nonexistent insulation, and the drafts in buildings in Korea. Even now, it's 19C but it feels chillier thanks to draft currents. Oh well. It's nearly time to leave. And not just leave for today--I've less than four weeks to go before this job concludes. 

*Anyone considering teaching in Korea should bring long underwear and thick socks.

#ELTworkplaces in Cheorwon County, Gangwon Province, South Korea

Happy Friday everyone! I've about a month to go before I leave South Korea, so it's time to get those last Dispatches out. One of them concerns a pictures of where we English teachers teach. I'll join the fray! The photos below are some of the classrooms I taught in while in South Korea.

August 2011 to August 2014: Gimhwa High School

I started out at this desk on the second floor of the high school.

The high school classroom. You can't see the windows, but they looked east, so the blinds had to stay down for the afternoon classes because the light caused too much glare on the screen. I'd usually have to have one set of lights turned off. The lack of light caused many students to get sleepy.

2011-2014: Gimhwa Girls Middle School

The "English Zone" classroom at the Girls Middle School. The room was too big most of the time, but the extra space really helped for the "visual puns" lesson and anything else that necessitated movement. I also conducted my teachers classes at the rectangular table. I'd usually sit at the head with a rolling whiteboard behind my chair so I could turn and write stuff on it as needed.

Another quirk of the room: The computer that connected to the smartboard was set up inside a small office in the room. Its awkward placement precluded doing anything with the keyboard or mouse during class.

August 2014 - February 2015: Sincheorwon Middle School and High School

The high school classroom on the first day of the fall semester.

This may be stretching the definition of workplace, but I figure it counts since I did plenty of thinking while walking on the streets and on the track outside the school.

The park near the school. I did a lot of thinking here this semester.

*I might return. It's been good.

Reblog: westwoods travels: Temperature Tantrums

She says it well. A former Cheorwon teacher explains why Korean builders are bloody cold in the winter...

westwoods travels: Temperature Tantrums: Emart sells bubble wrap with cute little designs on it. This is not so you can skip the wrapping paper. This is so when you put bubble wrap...

Fourth and final Christmas on the DMZ / Final posts ahead

Two posts in one day. The post about McCourt and storytelling had been sitting in the drafts folder and this is another one that should go out along with it. This one's more personal and that one's more professional...
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Let's begin with two quotes. Here's one from John Lennon:

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

"Happy Christmas (War is Over)"

Fellow Cheorwon Trooper DMZ Jazz recently wrote on his blog:

I guess it's been a minute.  The reason I haven't updated has been a series of immensely stressful, physically and emotionally painful, life-changing, but ultimately- positive changes. 

Same here. A quick look at the sidebar of Dispatches shows that a fraction of posts have gone up this year compared to 2012 and 2013. There are reasons for that.A major relationship has concluded and I've chosen to resign from EPIK at the end of this semester. These two things go together, and yet they don't.

I'm going to be leaving in February of 2015. The easiest explanation would be that I've been feeling homesick and especially out of place in the past month or two. Wait--that's not all of it. I've just been unhappy with being an EPIK teacher for a while. It's hard to figure out when it started, but it's been going for a year. Teaching English as a Foreign Language has been fun and challenging, but it's not where my passion lies. Joining NCTE in November and reading about unit plans for The Great Gatsby reminded me of how much I miss teaching literature and language arts. EFL has plenty of language arts in it, but it's not where EPIK (and my school) seems to care about now. Therefore, moving on would be best for all parties concerned. Making this choice wasn't easy, but I do feel better now.

Making this choice wasn't easy, but it's best thing for me to do. The past year has been fraught with stress at school over the direction of lessons, teaching philosophy, and administrative issues. No single person's to blame. It was my choice to renew for this fourth year and switch schools and it's not working out for anyone. This is not to contradict the Thanksgiving post below, for the coteachers have been helpful and have done things to the best of their abilities. We only played the cards we were dealt. I just don't think I'm the right man for this position anymore.

Why not?  This might further explain why: I finally got around to watching Dead Poets Society this September. The movie focuses on Mr. Keating, the magnetic, maverick English teacher who shakes things up at a prestigious prep school. His youthful and unorthodox style puts him immediately at odds with his colleagues because he teaches differently than the rest of the faculty does. I found the film heartbreaking on one hand and a moving portrait of inspired teaching on the other. It also made me consider my place as a teacher within EPIK. Was I like him? I certainly harbor different views on teaching and, let's face it, I'm a stranger in a strange land. Keating was a former student of the school; I'm an outsider in most every way.

No, I never set out to become a Mr. Keating and change the world. Far from it: I boarded that plane excited to learn about Korea and have a full-time teaching job. And that's what it was for a long time: Learning about Korea and transitioning from an English Language Arts teacher to an English as a Foreign Language teacher. And, let's not forget, working with a plethora of coteachers and all the attendant issues that that entailed.* What a time. Like the ZZ Top lyric, "I've been up/I've been down/Take my word, I've been 'round."

I found I couldn't reconcile who the teacher I'd like to be with the teacher my school wanted me to be. Combine that with a rampant strain of homesickness and equals "it's time to go." Korea's been great. No other word comes to mind. What a thrill, to get to spend some time here and have all of these experiences.

So...happy holidays, everyone. This is the first of the last Dispatches from Gangwon. We're caught in that No Man's Land between Christmas and New Year's Day. I'm still carrying on with a vacation to the States to visit family and friends. For a a while, I'd thought that the trip would provide the refresher necessary to charge through another semester here, but no, it won't. It's best to move on come the end February.

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Enjoy some music:

Ah...J Rabbit. Cool duo. Here they are covering "Winter Wonderland" and having a fun time doing it. I should get some more posts out about Korean music; there are some good groups here.

Here's Chuck Berry doing "Merry Christmas Baby," a song I never knew about until this year.

The Beatles and their Let It Be gem "I've Got A Feeling," which may not be about Christmas, but it's about the peaks and valleys we experience in any given year.

My Morning Jacket - Moving Away. A good slow groover. I cannot thank a certain aunt enough for giving me this album.

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*If memory serves, I've worked with around 25 coteachers in the past 3.5 years.

Frank McCourt's "Teacher Man" / Reflections on storytelling in class

A persistent question in ELT is teacher talk time. Many teachers worry about talking too much for fear of not giving their students enough time to talk. Some, myself included, fear becoming the archetypal “sage on the stage” who monologues his way through the class. All of that teacher talk precludes any time for letting the students talk. And if they aren't talking, then their speaking skills won't be getting any better. I’ve written about the “sage on the stage” stuff before, but it’s time to approach it from another angle.

The quote below shows a case in point. It comes from Frank McCourt’s excellent memoir Teacher Man, where he writes of his early days as a teacher in New York City and how he often told stories in his classes because they held the students’ attention better than the day’s lesson.

I argue with myself, You’re telling stories and you’re supposed to be teaching.  

I am teaching. Storytelling is teaching.  

Storytelling is a waste of time.  

I can’t help it. I’m not good at lecturing. 

You’re a fraud. You’re cheating our children. 

They don’t seem to think so. 

(P.26. Link to e-text at Google Books here)

Though I’ve never kept track of how often it happened, most every class over here has included at least one story or anecdote. Many of them got told on Mondays or Fridays because those days lent themselves to that time honored topic of weekends and what people do on them. Sometimes the stories would relate to the lesson and sometimes it wouldn't. They were fun to tell and the students enjoyed them. At least, it seemed like they did. Unlike McCourt, I had some basis for telling stories because of how EPIK teachers' classes are set up. Many EPIK teachers are encouraged to tell stories from or about our home countries because it lets the students hear real live English from a real live English speaker. The students still don't have much exposure to English speakers and hearing stories and anecdotes allowed them to hone their listening skills. Indeed, sometimes I or a coteacher would stop and quiz the students while I talked, Like the aforementioned quote goes, "storytelling is teaching."

Yet as fun as it was to tell stories, I started wondering about whether it was good to do so when my EFL studies turned to TTT, or teacher talk time. Suddenly I'd think, "Hey! Let them talk!" A lingering memory of a speaker at my EPIK Orientation would come to mind. He'd said, “Your job is not to speak English to the students. Your job is to have the students speak English to each other.” Questions mounted in my mind and I'd end up arguing with myself like McCourt:

• How will the students know what to do if they don’t have any examples?
• What if they know what to say, but they lack the vocabulary for it?
• What about speaking itself? Korean and English have different rhythms and timbres. Shouldn’t I be doing some modeling After all, they would need to hear examples of correct pronunciation.
• What does all this matter if the students are enjoying the story? They're getting vocabulary and syntax, right?

These questions would go on and on until I'd think, Fine, but it was one story that lasted for 5 minutes in a 45 minute class. The kids were engaged. Let it go. And I would. I should remember that stories and anecdotes have their place in the classroom. Storytelling constitutes a form of teaching. One form, anyway. It may be teacher talk, but as long as it doesn't dominate the class, it should be fine.

*ELT = English Language Teaching. It's quite similar to EFL, or English as a Foreign Language and ESL, or English as a Second Language. Or, if you want to go longer and more detailed, TESOL, which is Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.

Related: ELT Rants, Reviews, Reflections: Reducing Teacher Talking Time

Getting sick in the winter

Christmas isn't the time to get sick, but it happened.

I went home early today because of a cough and a cold I just can't shake. There weren't any classes, so I felt better about not being there. I told my coteacher, who in turn told the vice principal, and he said I could go home. "Thanks, I will go to the pharmacy," I said to him in broken Korean. He smiled and wished me well. The cough medicine I picked up on the way home is working.

I've only gone out sick one other time: Last Friday I woke up with a lot of stomach pain. Otherwise, I've never taken any sick days in over three years here. A combination of heretofore decent health, dare-I-say good eating habits, and a work culture that doesn't exactly function like the USA's accounted for why I'd lasted so long:

One of the most difficult cultural differences for many Westerners to accept in Korea is how sickness is dealt with in the professional environment.

At home, if you’re sick, you’re usually encouraged by your boss to go home, stop spreading your germs around the work environment, and rest up. You’ll be more productive with a day or two’s rest than you would be if you spent those days half passed out at your desk.

Not so in Korea. While Koreans will go to the doctor as soon as they catch a sniffle, they take the prescribed fistful of medicine (and usually a shot to the “hip”) and suffer through their time at work. It’s considered bad form to call in sick, especially to a school, where it means your co-workers have to scramble to cover your classes. While it’s standard to give 3 days a year sick-leave in a contract, you are encouraged not to make use of them. Some schools will only give you sick time if you are actually in a hospital bed.

 -- From Ulsan Online's " Feeling sick? Too bad! Get to work, lazy!"

 Anyone considering living and teaching in Korea should consider the above. It's not that people can't take sick days, it's that they're frowned upon. Heavily. I would still advise anyone to note that the EPIK contract does allow for sick days and many schools will be fine with a teacher calling in. I called in on Friday because the class load was light and they could easily be made up. Ditto today.

Stay warm and stay healthy, everyone.
Happy holidays!

Link: Dom and Hyo on winter hats

I was going to write a post about the exact same thing when this couple already did it. Their site has an excellent cartoon that can explain this better than words can, but basically, many Koreans don't wear hats in the winter. Many eschew them altogether or some just use their jacket's hood. Either way, the reasons center on not wanting to mess up their hair.

At the same time, winter hats are available everywhere.

And on that note, it's gotten cold here. This is the coldest of the four Decembers I've lived through.

Pop song ELT: MAGIC!'s "Rude"

One of the best lessons of 2014. Originally written in early July 2014.

In my experience with teaching in Korea, virtually anything related to English can be brought into the classroom. As it's the end of the semester and exams have concluded, the students have been in dire need of some refreshing lessons. This particular one has worked well.

The lesson began when a boys middle school CT suggested that we do a pop song in class. I happily agreed to do so, but questions came to mind: Which one? And for what purpose? Things must have a purpose in the classroom. They must have some kind of practical application. As much as I love music, I cannot simply bring in any song without a purpose for using it. And just what pop songs were out there? Despite my affinity for older kinds of music, the students like newer stuff, so I consulted the Billboard Hot 100 and started at the top. If I was going to bring something into class, it might as well be popular in the USA. I knew I had something with #3, MAGIC!'s song "Rude," for it had simple lyrics, a catchy melody, an expository, humorous video. Moreover, it had an interesting topic: A boy wants to marry his sweetheart, but her father says no.

I sent a link to the song to my coteachers, who watched the video and approved it for class. Next, I typed the first verse of the song into a PowerPoint file. The song, the PPT, and the handout below are what I made for class.

Why only the first verse? I'd read in Teaching Unplugged about showing a block of text for one minute, having students copy it, and comparing their versions with the "correct" text on screen. The one minute time would make copying a kind of race, which my boy students enjoy. It would also save me from printing the song's lyrics for everyone. Once the students had the lyrics down, they then had a text to work with.

How the class worked

We walked in, said hello, loaded the PPT, and began. I said we were going to do a class about a pop song. "We'll ask questions, make predictions, and learn some new phrases. We'll also talk about what you would do..." and got to work. I showed the first verse, had the students copy it, and checked their writing against the original.

I and my coteacher then asked checked the students' comprehension of the lyrics, phrase by phrase. Since the verse includes a simile, a line about a suit, and the pronoun you, we had plenty to talk about. What does raced like a jet mean? Who's the you in the song? Who is the narrator? We asked these questions and got the following answers:

• Raced like a jet = Drove fast
• The narrator's a man because he wears a suit. When I pointed out that women can wear suits, the students held fast to their answer/
• You is either the man's wife, mother, company boss, or friend.

Having answered the questions and pondered the verse, the students were now ready to see what happens in the song and whether it matches their predictions. I played the song and cranked it up.

The song:

After the song concluded, we went back and went through the lyrics, line by line, so everyone knew exactly what MAGIC! was singing about. We briefly discussed the idea of the father giving his blessing before setting up the group discussion. We asked the students, "What if you were the man in the song? What would you do? And what if you were the girl?" and handed out the table below. The students got into groups and discussed the problems.

Facimile of handout

Questions: Imagine you are the boy in the song. What would you do? Write four ideas: 1. 2. 3. 4. Best idea? Why?

Imagine you are the girl in the song. What would you do? 1. 2. 3. 4. Best idea? Why? What if you are not so serious about your boyfriend?

We gave the students around 10 minutes to discuss and prepare their answers. Each group presented their papers, often to laughs from everyone. We circulated around the room and helped whenever needed, but overall, the students did a good job of figuring out the writing themselves.

We thought things went well. The students enjoyed the music and many felt good at having figured out a foreign pop song by themselves without any translation. All of us had fun discussing the best and worst courses of action for the narrator.

My CT and I placed no rules on grammar or the kinds of sentences the students should write. The groups were mixed ability, so some wrote more or more in depth than others. Some groups wrote entirely in Korea, which I took as a chance to help them with translating. My Korean's good enough to recognize some words and phrases, so I worked with the lower-level groups and helped them rewrite their notes into English. In doing so, I learned some Korean slang that's since proved fruitful for jokes in class.

As a side note, I also got to do this lesson at the girls middle school with the 3rd graders. Doing so allowed me to compare to boys' answers with the girls', which showed some stark differences. The boys overwhelming favored "Killing the father" if they were the boy. The girls, by contrast, thought "Pleading with the father would be best." It seemed as though the boys and the girls wanted to play up the drama.



Reference:
Scott Thornbury - Teaching Unplugged

Belated Thanksgiving 2014 / Sunday morning reflections

This week's been up and down. Most of it comes from feeling homesick because it's Thanksgiving today. As I explained to the students this week, Thanksgiving is quite like the Korean Chuseok holiday: It's a time for families to gather and enjoy spending time together. It also focuses on being thankful for what you have. And what you have isn't so much what you possess as it is about intangible things like family, love, and friendship.

I got to see Dave Sperling of Dave's ESL Cafe speak in Daejeon yesterday. He said, "You're living the lives you want.  You're in Korea, after all." A wave of happiness went through me when he said that, for it's something that, obvious though it is, I sometimes forget that coming to Korea was about more than taking a job. Coming here meant learning a new culture and leaving home. It meant getting--and using--a passport for the first time. And it meant having to keep an open mind about things.

Sometimes one needs to hear the obvious. Living and teaching here is what I want to do. What other explanation exists for having signed a fourth contract? At another point, Dave said, "If I'd known [doing Dave's ESL Cafe] would be so hard, I wouldn't have done it." Not me. If I had known in August 2011 that the next three years would mean traveling all around this peninsula and Asia, meeting countless wonderful people, feeling better and worse than ever, and becoming a better teacher, then yes, I would've done it. Korea continues to be a wonderful time. Some days go better than others. Living as an expatriate is a full time job. But even so, it's the best I've ever had.

I'd like to give thanks to

• Family. Words fail to express the importance of family. I miss all of you very much.
• Friends. I've met friends from around the world here and that probably wouldn't have happened--not to this extent, anyway--if I hadn't gotten on that plane. You know who you are. Thanks for being here and for all the things you've mentioned about your home countries. 
• The students. The Korean school system pushes them to the limit, but they keep coming back for more. The longer I stay here, the more I feel for them. I often wonder how I feel in their shoes.
• Coteachers. Thanks for all of your help with understanding the school system and teaching our classes.
• Planes, planes, and automobiles. Korea has an excellent transportation system. One can go anywhere at nearly any time.
• Anyone who comes here and reads this blog.

This will be my final Thanksgiving in Korea. It's getting to be time for me to move on, for some educational and work opportunities have come up in the USA. The final Dispatches from Gangwon will come in August of 2015.

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Though I'm not Southern, this song's a favorite for what it says about the USA and how we should try to preserve nature.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - All I Can Do Is Write About It

Actually, though it's about the USA, those lines about "the concrete slowly creeping" apply to Korea as well? Other than Shin Joong-hyun's legendary "Beautiful Mountains and Rivers"? 

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Previous posts about Thanksgiving

#3: Thanksgiving 2013

#2: Thanksgiving 2012

#1: Happy Thanksgiving! 2011.

* Ironically, Thanksgiving signals the start of the crazed Christmas shopping season. And Black Friday and its sales are on the next day. Strange.

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Last, but not least, thanks to Cal and J for being here in 2013-2014. Rock on!

Proving that we can eat spicy food

From journal entry since revised:

4 September 2014 – Went down to dinner and ended up going to a new Chinese restaurant in town. I ate jjajangbap and R ordered jjamppong noodles. Both dishes tasted good!

…

R ordered the spicy version of the jjamppong because she didn’t want the owner to think that she, a foreign woman, couldn’t handle spicy food. She wanted to prove herself and to not further the Korean assumption that foreigners can’t/won’t/don’t eat spicy foods. Second, she didn’t want to set a precedent for future visits where she’d always get the less-spicy version of the dish.

This changed prompted a conversation about Korean perceptions of foreigners for a bit before we moved on to talking about how the school day went for each of us. The conversation about spiciness and precedence stayed with me, which is why I’m recording it here. The owner of the restaurant seemed to assume that R wanted the less spicy version and, judging from her brusque manner, wanted us to make up our minds faster than we did. When we actually had to tell her twice that, yes, we wanted the spicy jjamppong because she talked over us when we ordered the first time. We’d ordered and she’d said some rapid-fire Korean back at us. We caught enough words to know that she was telling us the dish was spicy and she’d make the less spicy one for us. But that wasn’t the food we’d come for.

Spicy food is a sticking point for both of us, for while we do eat it, we don’t care to eat it all the time. And for my part, I always wonder about this, because whenever spicy food is on the menu, I feel as though I’d better eat it, lest I get labeled with not being able to handle spicy foods. And possibility of being told, “Oh, but you don’t like spicy things, so we ordered you something else.” Lest any readers think I’m worrying too much or too irrationally, what I just described—the “one and done” assumption—can and does happen here. Many EPIK friends have related similar stories to me.

And I don’t want to sound worrisome or act like Koreans want to paint western foreigners into a corner. Goodness knows that the world has enough stereotypes and misconceptions about Koreans. No, the idea here is whether or not R and I, Western foreign teachers here, have to prove our culinary chops to Korean people, particularly with:

• Using chopsticks
• Eating spicy food
• Eating kimchi (which is spicy, but even so…)

During the time here, I’ve alternated between two views:

• There is no need to prove anything. I like what I like, and that’s that. As I like to tell the students, there are 300 million people in America from all different ethnic groups. There isn’t really a standard “American taste.” Not to digress, but I also hesitate to say, “Americans do…”
• It’s best to go along with things and not make a fuss…especially in this small town. Or, for that matter, anywhere else. Being the noisy customer is not for me.

19 November 2014/extra notes:

I mentioned the “proving” bit above because that’s what we and others have experienced in our time here. Let me emphasize that this mostly small-town­ Korea…areas that haven’t had much contact with foreigners. And the old ideas about foreigners not eating spicy food or Korean food being too spicy tend to persist here because of that lack of contact. We get that.

But then, I can’t worry about whether or not ordering spicy chicken breaks down the idea that foreigners don’t eat spicy chicken. And I can’t worry about turning down a spicy thing…people will think what they want. I won’t be the only foreigner they meet. In sum, for those of you who think about whether or not you should prove yourself worthy of jjamppong, well, just eat it if you want to. 

What these two foods look like:

Jjajangbap [Black bean sauce/stew with rice. Picture: http://www.maangchi.com/tag/jjajangbap] 
Note: Bap means rice. I've had this dish with chopped vegetables in the rice. It's also come with a fried egg on top. Some restaurants do that. Also, jjajangmyeon means jjajang with noodles [myeon] instead of rice. 

Finally, this is the unofficial dish of "Black Day," which is a sort of Singles Day for Korea. Many single people from all over Korea eat jjajang on 14 April every year.

Jjamppong [Chinese/Korean spicy seafood noodle soup. Picture: http://www.maangchi.com/photo/jjamppong-3]

Note: This dish took a long time to build a taste for.

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Veruca Salt - "Don't Make Me Prove It"

"Words won't do/words won't do it"

Television - Prove It

"Just the facts"