A Day In The Life Of A Foreign English Teacher In Korea

Parking Korean Style.

It's Friday afternoon fading into evening. I'm sitting in a big fat easy chair on my balcony watching as the car park fills with people returning from work. It's interesting, car parking is at such a premium here that people quite happily double park.  Apparently they leave notes with there cell phone numbers on their windscreens so that if the person they are parked in front of wants to leave they can contact them. Alternatively one morning I watched a man wearing a suit carefully put on white gloves and then push someone's car forward one space so that he could get his own car out. The car park here is perfectly flat and so people leave their cars in neutral without the hand break on.

This weekend is my weekend off. So tonight I am going to stay right where I am curled up with my computer until I've written this blog and updated all my pictures.

So to writing ... Let me tell you about a day in the life of an English teacher in Korea.

The day officially begins, with the start of my first class at 8am, on the dot. Koreans are big on time keeping - however in my school every clock is slightly different so the big on time thing doesn't go so well - on the other hand all cell phones show the same time - it's done by electronic magic! So I've set mine to say 'cuckoo' on the hour.

We begin with a short Bible reading and a prayer, and then I take the roll. The Bible reading can be interesting - how do you explain things like pride or 'going the second mile' to someone with a very limited vocabulary? My art skills are taking an unexpected divergence into the field of stick men. It's amazing what you can explain with stick men!!

Next we have pronunciation drills, "repeat after me; love, love, log, log, lion, lion, etc, etc, the loving lion lay by the log, ..." for about 10 mins. Kind of boring, on the other hand trying to explain and demonstrate correct placement of the tongue when making required sounds can be challenging. Turns out that Koreans have a letter that sounds something like half way between our l and r which is why they have so much trouble with those letters.

After pronunciation we have grammar type drills for 15 mins - more of the repeat after me routine. Compared with teaching chemistry this is not at all challenging, but it is very fulfilling in terms of seeing my students making progress from one week to the next - much more obvious progress than in a chemistry lab, plus there is a much lower risk of blowing the students up - or poisoning them! In the last 20 mins of class we have conversation time. The students ask each other questions from the textbook, the way it is structured the students are supported to begin to make there own responses and so I get to learn all sorts of things about them as I listen to their conversation and correct their grammar and pronunciation etc. Am making friends with my students, been out to a few meals and some sightseeing with some of them.

After I finish the 8-8:50 am lesson I have a 10 minute break and then I teach it all over again at 9 am and at 10 am.

Some of the students from my 10am class.

Same students - pretending to be studious :-) Took the pics after class, just before they went home.

... and now it is Sabbath Afternoon, same chair same balcony, different day. Decided last night that sleep was more important than finishing my blog. Just like I decided every day this week. Sorry about that. But now that I've finally adapted and am sleeping well - most of the time - I'm suddenly very tired, think my bodies gone into catch up mode or something.

At 11am I teach a listening class on Tuesday's Wednesdays and Thursdays. Then lunch is at 12pm in the kitchen upstairs, I am being introduced to the many many types of kimchi, some I actually kind of like, enough to eat a respectable amount when it is offered, not enough to spend my own money on.

Then I am free until 3pm. At the moment I'm using this time to write lesson plans and prep for the next days lessons but am keeping all I do and next term the amount of prep time will be greatly reduced :-)

At 3 pm I teach three 15 minute segments to three different children's classes. They come for an hour long class four days a week with a Korean teacher and I join the class for just 15 minutes. Lots or repeat after me, hangman, and stickers (and other stuff). I'm actually enjoying them - little children not quite so scary after all. My favourite class has only three children in it; Roy, Harry and Sally. Is it very bad of me that I giggle when ever I think about Harry and Sally? Just reminds me of the movie... Which really it shouldn't, these kids are so cute ... Roy is about 8 I think, and I suspect he has a learning disability, haven't asked his teacher though. Harry and Sally are just 5 - and Sally is tiny! And smart!! She is reading the words and everything. Harry is a little gentleman, stands up every time he answers a question, has little round glasses and looks like an Asian Harry Potter. Also smart but not quite to Sally's standard. The other two classes have something like 20 children and I am discovering that those discipline skills that worked in high school work just as well with little kids, no translation required. Mainly they are good and I enjoy them rather a lot.

After these three classes I am free from 4pm until 6pm - have started using this time to go home and prepare food and clothes for the next day, and also to have a nap. I think Nap Time is going to be a priority over here. Not just a luxurious indulgence. 6pm I have a level 1 class - these are students who are just beginning to learn English, I have seen the most progress in them - amazing how quickly people can learn new things if they put the time and effort into it.

7pm has a Religion class that I am loving, 5 students. We are looking at the stories of Old Testament people; Joseph, Ruth, Daniel and Esther. I get to tell stories and am loving it!!! Actually they do most of the talking, there is a simple worksheet that the students read a paragraph each and then try to summarise in their own words what they read, then I fill in the story in with more details and ask things like "how do you think Joseph was feeling when ...?" or "Why do you think God allowed ...?" etc. Leads to very interesting discussions. Then there are grammer exercises, vocabulary words, and discussion questions. We finish with prayer.

8pm I teach another L1 class, the beautiful thing is that I only have to prepare 2 lessons and then teach them multiple times. The Bible classes are already prepared, I just have to look over them before class and think about how I am going to tell the story, and pray - a lot. I think I am beginning to understand what Paul de Ville once told me about 'teaching students not content' - because the general class work is kind of boring I'm concentrating more on the individual students than what I'm teaching. Maybe there is hope that one day I'll go back to chemistry teaching ...  and Maybe NOT! There is still the difference that these students actually want to learn English. Few of my chemistry students wanted to learn Chemistry. There were a few, and I thought they were delightful, but the majority did not. Sad since it's so fascinating.

My classroom - view from the door.

My classroom - view from the back. 6 of these would still be smaller than my Lab was.

I've given up trying to prep for the children. Was at first but then the Korean teacher would want me to do something different when I got to class. I just make sure I know the story of the week really well and have thought about lots of different questions I can ask about the story. And activities to go with each page in the textbook. The format of the lessons is that on Day One I read a story - with lots of actions and funny voices and things like that, Days Two through Four or Five I do what ever the Korean teacher asks - but it is always related to the story. There is a text book that has something like ten pages of activities the students complete - when I get into class the teacher will point to a page and say please cover this page - and I never know what it is going to be - have tried asking before class, but they are busy then and I don't like to interrupt their time. They each have to ring every parent of every student every day. So imagine, you teach about 5 classes of 20 students each - that's 100 phone calls a day! On the last day of that story I test the students and give them a grade. That is the easiest day.

I finish my teaching day at 9:15pm and being the last one to leave I lock up the Institute and go home.

View from classroom window just before I go home.

View from classroom window just before I go home.

The institute is on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors of a large building that also contains 3 other English language Institutes. Have met one of the teachers from one of the other schools. A very tall American - must be 6'6'' I think. He's nice, but spends all his break time smoking by the front door of the building.

My classroom is on the 4th floor of this building.

These Institutes (the Korean word is Hogwon) are after school/Night school type services. Except they happen all day too. People who want to learn English sign up for a one hour class in English and they can take a Religion class as well for a very cheap price to get extra practice. Then they come to class 5 days a week. (4 days for the children.) There is also a program called All Day Club, that is an English Intensive. They have their regular 1 hour class and then 3 additional hours of things like listening, pronunciation, grammar, etc. And then any Religion classes they have signed up for as well.

Over all I can highly recommend the experience and am very glad I came - even if I do get chatted up by random men in the subway :-)

Have also discovered that the temptation to go back to my bad old workaholic ways is high! Am doing my best to stop that. On the plus side - days when I don't do so well as a non-workaholic I also can't go back to the 'bad old live on takeaways' ways either. Difficult to buy edible takeaways when your a vegetarian in a country with a high meat consumption and you don't speak the language. Means some days that lunch is the only meal I eat - sleep being such a premium that sometimes I choose to sleep rather than get up in time for breakfast. But since I started coming home between 4 and 6pm that has not been such a problem - make the next days breakfast and put it in the fridge ready to be micro-waved in the morning - quick.

Next term my schedule will change to different time slots and classes, but will be still about the same number of teaching hours. I'm planning to join a gym and re-start my weightlifting routine - found one very close to my apartment building -it's underground - and it is so cheap compared to gyms in NZ. Also going to use some of my free time to explore the area where I am living. Am discovering that there are hidden surprises here too. Statutes and other artworks nestled in unexpected places :-)

An Anatomy of Fear

Over the last year and a half I have been thinking about fear, its nature, its causes, how it affects me and most importantly how to overcome it. Now it is time for me to wax philosophical. These are my thoughts, based on my own experience so please feel free to comment, to disagree, to proffer your own opinions, experiences and or ideas. 

I have to admit that to date I have not managed to overcome fear in my life. I am more familiar than I would like to be with its paralysing grip. The way it curls its tendrils up through my belly, around my heart and tugs, as it cries out, "Look at me, look at me." Demanding my attention to the exclusion of everything else, causing me to do and say things I know I will regret in the morning. Playing with me, holding me tight one day, doling out the chains another so that I think maybe I'm winning and then cruelly slamming me back up against the prison wall. I know its chuckle as it watches me squirm, I feel its satisfaction as it feeds on the hate I have for it and I see myself spinning desperately in its grasp searching for a way out, for freedom.

It's strange, in the last year and a half I have had many people tell me how brave I am to be doing what I am doing and in the last year and a half I have struggled with fear more than any other time in my life. The thing is, choosing to take that second years leave and go to America rather than back to my safe life was not about fear or courage. It was about life and death.

While I was teaching in Sydney in 2009 I meet a lovely lady, maybe ten years older than me, a dedicated teacher, who was quite a bit larger than I was at the time and she had major health issues and I realised that unless I made major changes in my life then her present was my future, and that I would probably be dead in 15 years. I chose to live. 

Obviously it was the right choice - My year in America was a turning point in my life for which I will always thank God. Book-ended by my getting off the fence and deciding to follow God completely on my first Sabbath, and being re-baptised on my last Wednesday. And, in between those two events I lost 75 pounds* and regained my health. 

Now I am coming to realise that giving into fear is another way of dying. And again I am choosing to live.

When I was living my nice safe life in Palmerston North with my lovely safe job and my lovely safe friends and my lovely safe home and fulfilling societies expectations I had little fear. Actually that is not true, there were things I feared but I ignored them. My life was full enough with school and friends and a nice income, and my independence that I could easily avoid situations that caused me to fear. Sometimes I would wistfully wish that I could be involved in certain activities but then I would find something else with which to fill the hole: food, a movie, a story book, an outing with a friend, a new project at school and I could stifle the desire to overcome fear and pretend that I was not afraid of anything - for a while.

There was one area of fear that was more difficult to ignore, but I could look back over the previous few years and see how God had brought me through that fear, to the point that just before I left NZ for America I remember congratulating myself and God on how far I had come. Just days before I left the country I was in a situation where previously I would have retreated into a book to hide from the source of my fear and I had handled the situation with confidence and ease. Was so proud of myself, and you know what they say about pride and falling!

In that year in America I did not have any of the things I used to use to stifle fear. It reared its ugly head with a vengeance, with an insistence on making up for all those years of neglect. It irritated me no end, I could see that my fears were irrational and had no bases in reality but I still could not overcome them. I tried several approaches to deal with the fear:

1. Ignoring it - was not possible without my props.
2. Giving into it - this did not work as the fear simply grew until I found myself unable to even stay in the same room as the object of my fear. Only tried that approach once - most uncomfortable.
3. Fighting it - and I have done this repeatedly, using pure determination and teeth gritting gut strength. Only that made me turn into a blithering idiot, who either sat paralysed like a lump and could say nothing or said ‘silly’ things because I was so busy in my head fighting to not give into the fear that I didn't have time to work out intelligent things to say.
4. Praying about it - have done that a lot!!!! However just this week I have come to realise that my praying had the wrong focus.

Over my year in America I saw God at work in situations teaching me to deal with the fear - to walk through it, or maybe it was simply a case of 'familiarity breeding contempt.' I started to become used to the fear, to be able to operate regardless of how I was feeling. This is an advance but I don't want to be existing in fear, I want to be free!

And now here I am in Korea, and here to meet me is my old frienemy fear. New context, same old fear. I know God will be faithful and bring me through it again but I am left wondering how many more times am I going to have to face this? Why can't I just win the fight once and for all and banish fear forever? Will my life ever come to the point where it is not ruled by fear? Does God really want me to repeat this cycle ad infinitum? or does He desire me to win and move on? I believe He desires me to win – all over the Bible He instructs us not to fear! So what am I not understanding? What is that vital key to overcoming fear that I have not yet discovered?

I've analysed the fear so much it should be dead! Do I know why I developed the fear? I think so. Do I know the events/situations that trigger it, that spur it into action? Most of the time I do. Do I know the lies I have believed that caused me to be vulnerable to the fear in the first place? God has shown me a couple of them and I am working to replace those lies in my heart with truth - God's truth. Does this help with dealing with fear when I'm being squeezed in its grip? Not in the slightest. Just like a medieval knight fighting a dragon, knowing the whole life-cycle of the dragon from the moment it hatches from its egg until it dies on its treasure horde does not help the knight wield the sword, my knowing the anatomy of my fear does not make me any more adept at conquering it.

And I think I've finally figured out why. I've been concentrating on the dragon. I should have been concentrating on the sword. Like the knight, if I am to have any chance of conquering the dragon I must know my sword intimately. I must be familiar with its balance, know how to wield it, how to care for it, sharpen it and have built up my strength so that I can lift it with ease. That sword is my salvation, my safety and my life.

That sword is the Word of God, and I wield it by focusing my thoughts on the truths of the Bible, by applying them to my life, by praying God's word back to Him, and by claiming His promises as my reality. My strength is my faith and the better I know and apply God's Word to my life the more deftly I can parry and thrust with my sword.

It is silly really that it has taken me so long to realise how to use this sword, particularly as I've used it before to fight other beasties, such as anger, and depression.

So where did I go wrong? 

Consider: fear is a large and demanding dragon. Rather like a misbehaving child in a classroom it insists that you give it all your attention. When fear is in the room nothing else is of consequence.

In my prayers and Bible Study I have been concentrating on verses such as:

2 Timothy 1:7
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

Psalm 34:4
I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

There is nothing wrong with these verses, these are excellent verses, but they are for sharpening the sword, for practising to build up the faith muscles. When in the midst of a fight with the fear dragon these verses are not so helpful. When fear has its claws in your belly and it’s pulling your strings it seems like these verses are simply a lie. Now you can tell me that that is where faith comes in and that I must be patient but I am thinking that using verses like these when in the midst of the fight is like hitting a dragon with the flat of your sword, it doesn’t wound the dragon, it enrages it. 

Remember that I said fear is like a naughty child demanding all your attention? Like the child, fear does not care if that attention is positive or negative it just wants attention - lots of it. When I use verses like the above my focus is still on the fear. Take the verse from 2 Timothy, sure I can claim that promise, so now I know that the emotion ripping through me is not from God. Fine how does that help me right now? I'm still been torn apart. Or the verse from Deuteronomy, 'too late, I'm already afraid, God where are you?' In both cases my focus is still on the fear.

So how do I use the point and the edge of my blade? When in the midst of a battle rather than focussing on the fear, I am to place my focus elsewhere.

As it says in Matthew 6:33; "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Freedom from fear is one of those things that Jesus promises to add to us.

Where do I place my focus when in the midst of battle? On Christ, on His mercy, His goodness, His grace.

What promises do I claim as the sharp and pointy bits of my sword?

Ones like:

1 Corinthians 15:57
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:14
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

Isaiah 26:3

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

These verses and ones like them remove my focus from fear and onto Christ who is the true knight in shining armour, the triumphant victor. In retrospect the analogy of my fight with fear to date should really be one where the fair maiden is wearing a tin can on her head, carrying a pointy stick, trying to fight the dragon herself, and getting in the way of the Knight. Making it impossible for Him to fight the dragon because of the risk of stabbing the maiden, rather than the dragon. Must be rather frustrating for the Knight.

For the longest time He has been calling to me "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." (Isaiah 41:10) and I've been too deaf/stupid/distracted/obsessed to listen.

Do I expect that this battle will be won over night? No I know that changing habits of thought takes time. But I also know it can be done. The silly thing is that I should know this trick of refocusing my attention away from the battle and onto Christ. When I fought the Demon of Despair and Depression I won when I finally stopped allowing the dark and dreary thoughts to smother my mind and instead offered God whatever thanks I could think of at the time. (Story is here.) When I conquered the Cyclops of Anger it was by focussing on God’s gifts of forgiveness and contentment, not by telling myself that I should not be feeling angry and to just stop it! (Remind me to tell you that story sometime.)

I have faith that as I follow God’s instructions to those who would have a healthy mind I will conquer this dragon too – or to be more precise, the fair maiden will take herself out of the fight and allow Jesus to be the Knight in Shining Armour He desires to be.

Philippians 4:6-8Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Fear is not one of those things!

*Have lost more since arriving in Korea - while home in NZ I just maintained the American lose, leaving the country weighing the same as I had when I arrived - not a gain, so I'm counting that as a win.

Subway Adventures

A Modern Asian Dragon

Probably the thing the scared me the most about coming to Korea was having to use public transport. How was I going to get around when I couldn't understand or read anything? Or talk to anybody??? Plus I'd heard all those stories about people being so tightly packed into the trains that other people are hired to push more people in ... and then on the night we arrived we were taken home partly via subway. Which was fine, because there was someone else to read the maps and signs and show us all where to go. However once we were 'pushed out of the proverbial nest' and sent to our schools we were on our own. Yes I have a lovely flatmate who has shown and explained many many things to me (and I always have more questions) but I can't expect her to shepherd me around the subway for the rest of my time in Korea.

So last Thursday I decided it was time to slay my dragon and conquor the subway on my own. Therefore just like St George I set out with money for the fare, representing treasure with which to distract the dragon and a map in place of a sword to do the slaying. Here of course the analogy breaks down, because normally St George would be a man setting out to rescue a fair madain, while in my case I was doing my own rescuing. So maybe I should say St Georgina set out to tame the dragon, because I don't actually want to destroy the subway, just learn to ride it safely.

The Seoul Subway System Map aka St Georgina's Sword

I can happily report that the dragon has been tamed and the door to a fabulous wealth of exploration and adventure has been opened to me. (Don't you just love mythological analogies?) Sunday actually turned out to be amazingly uneventful. I caught the bus to the subway station, transferred to the subway, travelled a big loop through a couple of dozen stations and arrived back at my point of origin with much imagined fanfare and back patting and a complete lack of misadventure.

On the journey I  brought a lovely broach as a souvenir of my taming the Asian Dragon, chatted with a man from Bangladesh for a few stations (he has been here for six months and is studying Korean), and purchased a watermelon from a roadside stall - which has since been turned into sorbet - and very delicious it was too!!

Since then I have been out in public a few more times, and have discovered a couple of things:

1. I have yet to see a bus or train that comes close to the stuffing stories described to me before I came to Korea. In fact to be quite truthful the buses and trains I caught when going to high school in Auckland were much more crowded. However if I ever experience otherwise I will let you all know.

2. I am discovering a tendency to feel quite isolated when out on the subway on my own due to the fact that I can't talk to anybody. I have noticed that this has been resulting in me trying to talk to anybody who doesn't look Korean - foreigners are after all rather obvious here. I've had some interesting conversations. But Sunday reminded me about those old instructions about not talking to strangers when a man asked for my phone number as our conversation was ending - I smiled sweetly and declined to give it to him. Korea is turning out to be full of new experiences ... lol. Thinking that I am just going to have to learn Korean!!!!!

Back on the Blogosphere ...

It's a Tuesday evening and I have a Pav in the oven and peace in my heart. It's one of those quiet nights after a grey and drizzly day where the air is still and fresh and all I can hear is a drum beating a complicated cadence in the distance. That and the clock ticking as I wait for the pav to cook.

There is so much to tell about the last week and a half and I have no idea where to begin. I think I'll just begin with today and work backwards, see how far I get tonight and then add anecdotes as I have time.

Today is Buddha's birthday, a national holiday in Korea, which means we got another day off school. I'm currently quite fond of Buddha! Sinny, my flatmate and I went to a free showing of Nanta, which apparently normally costs something like $100. It's a mimed musical about a set of chefs preparing for a wedding banquet. Lots of traditional drumming and and other antics using kitchen utensils, knives pots, pans and just about anything else as the drums and/or drum sticks. Exceedingly well done, I loved it. Then we had tea at an Indian/Nepalese Restaurant called Everest - I had excellent Palak Paneer and got the card with a map so that I can go there again :-) (Catch the subway to Dongdaemun leave the station via exit 2 (I think) take 3 steps and look up - the sign will be just above your head and the door is on your right (or possibly left) - restaurant is on the second floor.)

One thing I am learning in Korea is to look up and down. Often what you're looking for is on the second floor - or third, or forth ... or under the ground.

Something that has surprised me since I got here is that Koreans are quite tall. I had expected them to be short - another of those stereotypes I didn't know I had until it was proved wrong. Over the last few days I have noticed however that while they are tall they often have long torso's and short legs, I guess that's one reason the women like to wear high heels - makes their legs appear longer.

Another thing I've noticed is a lack of flower shops, I've seen a few garden type shops where you can buy pot plants. But I don't like to buy pot plants, they come with a guilt factor as I know without a doubt that any plant I buy is doomed to death in about three week. However cut flowers do not have this guilt, they are to be enjoyed and disposed of.  Sinny assures me that there are flower shops in Seoul, just not near where we live. I shall have to search one out. Today I found a lilac tree blooming just outside my bedroom window - if I look slightly left (or possibly right) and down.

Our apartment is on the second floor of the apartment building, there is a lift but I have not used it - except when I arrived with my suitcases. I can climb the stairs faster than it takes the lift to arrive to collect me. To get to work all I have to do is walk down stairs, out of my building through the carpark, across the road and then take the lift to the 4th floor of the building directly opposite the carpark gate. Can be at work in about 1 min. 2 if I have to wait for the lift.

Something interesting about our apartment - the ceilings are wallpapered with the same pattern as is on the walls. It makes the rooms feel smaller somehow. One person described it as being in an inside out present.

It's now time to turn the oven off, so I shall wish you good night and post this blog.

Until next time...