My ESL Teacher's Life So Far

I have a feeling that every time I write a new post on this blog, I am going to get the exact same phrase popping into my mind: Wow! I can't believe it's been (amount of time since last post) already! So much has happened! I once read an article which said that it can feel as though life moves really quickly when you picture yourself living in one place for years or decades into the future.  Daily routines turn into weeks, which turn into years and life seems to be passing you by without you even really appreciating it.  But when you move abroad, it's like there is a different switch activated in your brain telling you "Pay attention!  Don't miss out!"

"Every minute matters.  Every smile, every word, every action has greater depth because you know it is one of very few you might have in this new place you call home."

It hasn't even been a month since I moved to Korea, and only three weeks in my adopted hometown, but it feels like I've already reached my quota for a year's worth of new experiences and random Korean surprises.  From my beginning as an elementary teacher at two different schools and trying to learn everyone's names (more on that later), to making my first trip up to Seoul for a weekend, to successfully finding an English church in Daejeon (it takes 1.5 hours to get there *crying emoji*), and even to navigating the local lifestyle - which supermarket is cheaper, which kimbap place is better, which cafe has the fastest Wifi, where to go to avoid drunk ahjussi's late at night - it's all so new and exciting but draining at the same time.  Although, I have to say, every time something new happens, and I am either successful or not made to look like a complete idiot (which, don't worry, has happened a few times), I feel so proud. Like, I did it! I didn't have to walk away in shame from the ahjumma at the supermarket checkout because I forgot to bring my wallet and had to put back all the items in my basket including returning my fresh pork belly to the delicatessen ahjumma and try to apologise and explain in my broken Korean that I didn't have any money and therefore she needed to unwrap the pork belly and put it back into the fridge.

Anyway.

I wanted to describe my teaching life a little bit more since this is what takes up the majority of my time here.  As mentioned before, I currently teach at two rural elementary schools.  Both of them are very small schools - one school has a total of 35 students and the other has a total of 45 students - and both range from grade one to grade six.  My largest class, a third grade class, has eleven students while my smallest class, a sixth grade class, has four students.  Both schools are outside of the Geumsan town area so I take a bus to get there.  The bus journey to the schools is only about 10-15 minutes long and the scenery along the way is pretty gorgeous with an assortment of greenery, vegetable farms, rice paddies, traditional villages and lots and lots of flowers.

My students are between the ages of 9 - 12 and they are just.....precious.  My third and fourth graders are basically energetic balls of cuteness while my fifth and sixth graders are on that narrow edge between childhood and the pre-teen era so sometimes they're super cute, other times I can't get a smile out of them until the end of the class when we play a game.  The word 'game', by the way, is a universal magic word.  It has powers to transform the most sullen students into excited and noisy know it alls.

Learning all the names of the students and teachers has proven to be a little difficult so far since for the teachers, all I really need to do is call them 'Teacher' in Korean and it's sufficient, and for the students, I can just point and say 'You!'. But I am making more of an effort now, especially since we're nearing almost three weeks of teaching and I feel bad for only knowing some of the student's names and not the other ones.  The ones I do know are generally the ones who act up during class (*sigh*) or the ones who are really good at English.  The other ones just kind of fly under the radar so it's harder to remember their names. I'm trying though! I promise.

One of the more challenging things I've found about teaching English so far is trying to cater for the vast range of English capabilities in one class.  For example, in one class, I might have a few students with whom I can hold a decent although slightly stilted conversation in English and then have students who struggle with responses to basic questions like "How are you?".  I think it also depends on the personality of the student as well - there are a few students who are quiet and don't say much but I know they know what I'm saying.  Well, I hope so.   This also makes it a little difficult when planning what activities to do and what games to play.  I'm slowly learning the overall vibes for each class and I have my Korean co-teachers (although they're not really co-teachers) to thank for keeping the classes in line.

About the co-teachers, so during our orientation with EPIK, we were constantly told that we would have a Korean co-teacher who would be teaching the lesson with us and prepare the lessons together.  The co-teacher would basically be our teaching partner and we would be working with them all the time.  Well, that ain't the case for me (and a lot of other EPIK teachers in my region).  I am the main teacher in all of my classes and the Korean teacher will be there to translate what I'm trying to teach.  Sometimes they will explain how the English grammar system works to the kids (because let's be honest, native speakers know nothing about English grammar and why it's 'slower' but not 'beautifuler' and why 'bake' becomes 'baked' but 'make' becomes 'made'), but most of the time the kids just roll with me being in charge.  And to be completely honest, I love it.  I think it's because I enjoy being in charge of what is going on and not having to depend on or rely on someone else.

That's not to say that my Korean teachers aren't helpful.  In fact, they are the complete opposite.  While it is always challenging being the newbie in the office, and doubly challenging when you don't speak their language as fluently as them, my co-workers have been nothing but the epitome of kindness and welcoming to me.  I have had one staff member drive me home after school every time I teach at the school, one co-teacher who suggested I sleep over at her place so I could try out her church and one co-teacher who told me to contact her any time I felt lonely or bored.  Other teachers have been just as welcoming and make an effort to speak with me despite the conversations generally being one-sided and I even went on the monthly teacher's trip before I started teaching my classes.  We went hiking near some temple and had dinner together at a local restaurant.  Dinner was pretty awful (this was a general consensus) but it was fun to see what it was like at an official Korean work dinner.

 

Anyway, moving on from teaching! School finishes at 4:30pm every day so I'm basically back in town by 5ish and can be home by 5:15.  This gives me a LOT of time to kill so I've started walking around Geumsan before I go home and see what this little freckle of a town has to offer.  Everything is basically within a 15-20 minute walking radius of each other and I have been happily surprised by how close my apartment is to the Express Bus Terminal, to the other foreign teachers' apartments, to the free gym that has excellent amenities and to the downtown area where the shopping and restaurants are.  Granted, it's still only a small town so the options are pretty limited but there is enough variety to keep me occupied for the occasional weekends I'm in Geumsan as well as when I meet up with the other teachers and hang out.  There is actually another teacher here who has been living in Geumsan for two years already but he hangs out in Daejeon, the closest city to our town, a lot.  

There's still a lot more ground to be covered, both in Geumsan and on this blog, but this has been a pretty long post so I might just stop here for now.  I'll write more about the places I've been eating at and shopping adventures in my next post so stay tuned!