teaching English, studying Korean etc.

Hi~

This past week has been busy! Since I last wrote, I moved from Marks to the Holt guest house.  I will move again (soon) to my home stay, which is apparently in Hongdae.

So, on Monday, Brownie, Sarang's former English student came and picked me up with his car and helped me move my things from Mark's place in Sinchon to Holt which is in Hapjeong.
Afterwards, we went to the World Cup stadium for lunch and then he took me to my work place.  It was my first day!!!! but we were a bit early, so we just hung around and explored the area a bit.  He let me drive his car which was fun! I never thought I'd drive in Korea, but the after school program where I teach (I actually have three different sites, but they are all near each other) is kind of a suburb of Korea, so it's much less crowded.

My first day of teaching was okay... Not the best, but not terrible.  It was just really chaotic... The center is only one room, literally called a study room (공부방) so while I was trying to teach there were other kids and teachers doing other things. Plus, there was a large disparity between kids' English levels.  Also age.  I am supposed to teach the elementary kids first for an hour and then the middle school kids second. But some of the middle schoolers decided to join in the first hour and were rather disruptive until one boy actually made another boy cry and they were removed.
I had a lesson plan, but wasn't sure of their levels...
I didn't really have any resources/materials either.  So, after I finished I went to Nik's (thanks Nik!) and he printed out phonics flash cards I had made last year. Whew. I spent a long while cutting and gluing but had them ready in time for class the next day.

My experience the next day was much better, partly because I had the flash cards etc. and also it was more of a classroom setting with just me and the kids I was teaching.  There was some sort of national exam for all middle school students, so I only taught the elementary kids and then we took them out to play at the park for an hour~ nice.

I met up with Nik and Bill Drucker, a writer for KQ who is visiting Korea and we had dinner and ice cream together.

Yesterday, wednesday, is my "day off" when I don't teach.  Class hadn't started yet, so I went to the immigration office and picked up my foreigner's registration card and passport.  Yay! I finally have it.
Afterwards I met Bill at 11:30 and we went to go see the comfort women's demonstration in front of the Japanese embassy.  This demonstration is held every Wednesday and if I understood correctly, I think the weekly demonstration has been going on for 20 years!  The woman along with their supporters are there protesting the Japanese governments denial of what happened.  They want recognition, an apology, and compensation.  And they come rain or shine.

women lined up with supporters behind them~

guards standing across the street in front of the Japanese embassy

I had wanted to go during study abroad, but always had class at that time, so when Bill said he was going, I jumped at the opportunity.  It was definitely a memorable experience.  The former comfort woman were lined up in chairs hold a banner and behind them stood supporters.  There were also speakers who took turns leading cheers or giving small speeches.
Unfortunately, my Korean is not good enough to catch everything, but it was very powerful.

Later, I met YunJeong unni at Ewha Univ. and she helped me reactivate my phone. Finally!!! yay!

Then, for dinner I met up with Nik's friend Nathan and his friend HyunJeong.  Unfortunately, Nik was busy and couldn't come. Nathan is a deaf korean adoptee from the states (They met at a GOAL event) working in Korea for google!  It was really fun to practice my ASL and his friend, HyunJeong, is a KSL interpreter, so I learned a bit of Korean sign language as well, which was really fun, but is completely different from ASL.

Today was my first day of Korean class. I think it will be good, but pretty intense.  I was really surprised that my speaking and reading/listening teachers are male! I have never had a male teacher in Korea and I've heard its pretty uncommon.  I definitely need to get into the habit of studying everyday again... Our speaking teacher seems a bit strict, but also really nice. He said if we speak even one word of English during class, he'll make us buy everyone coffee. Funny, but he means it. He also said we are not allowed to use our dictionaries in class! The entire class gasped, including myself... haha! and this one girl's mouth dropped open and stayed that way for a good 30 seconds or so. It was really funny.

Anyhow, I'm off to go teach English.  This is my first day at the third site, so after today, I will have taught at all of my sites once.
Til later~