Korean Class #1

I decided last week that I really need to do something about learning Korean.  I don't really use Korean in everyday life - after all, living in an ex-pat community on a global campus in a town where I can find the "foreign" food aisles and most Koreans know enough English for us to cobble together some mutual understanding means... I've gotten away with being lazy.  And I've lived here for 9 months already. Get a grip.  Learn the language.

Ok.  Wanting to be self-sufficient, I accessed the Handong Global University's intranet, using Nick's id.  I clicked on the English version of the website, which changed, well, a few things from Korean to English, and I managed to find the link to Courses.  But beyond the pull-down Year and Semester selection boxes, everything else was in Korean.  Oh. Yet another good reason I should learn the local language.  Nick's TA kindly found the class info for me and today was scheduled to be the first day of Korean 1.

I did not sleep well last night.  I haven't been this nervous since, well, my professor days.  Even after years of teaching, I always had bad dreams for a couple of nights before the semester began - I would show up in the wrong room, or would have prepared the wrong class, or the students wouldn't pay any attention. Now I was on the other side of the lectern and scared that I would be the dumbest kid in the class (let alone the oldest).  I nearly chickened out - after all, I could still get a Korean tutor!  (Not that my tutor worked out so well last time).  I could study on my own! (yeah, like that has been effective.)  I could....  Ok. Enough excuses.  Get to class already.

I was a couple of minutes late, puffing hard from all the stairs, and the room was nearly filled with young, energetic people.  I felt old.  Out of shape.  One student stood as I entered the room, then he bowed slightly and asked if I'm also teaching the Korean 3 class. Ah, no, I'm actually a student in this class. The other students laughed, but not in a mean way - gentle, almost.

I dashed to the back of the room, reverting to my shy student self, and found a chair behind the other students.  After forever and a half, the teacher entered: a lovely Korean young woman with a bounce in her step and smile on her face.  What a difference that first impression makes - the classroom filled with "ohhh!," a common Korean sound to demonstrate affirmation.

After some introductory greetings ("ahn-yong-ha-say-yo!"), she took roll (only 12 of the 20 of us were actually registered) and passed out a sheet of paper requesting some basic information, most of which I couldn't answer (handheld phone number; college major; student id number) or felt dumb because I "only" know English: it's my mother tongue, both my parents's mother tongues, and I have no experience with Korean in the home.  Quickly though, the fun began.  We're instructed to draw a circle on the back of our page.  "WAN!" she said, smiling and encircling her own face.  WAN!  And she writes this word in Hangul (the Korean language) on the board - happily, I can read Korean fairly well already - and she explains that "wan" means "circle." We spontaneously repeat after her, trying out this word on our tongues and peering at the strange letters.  Then we drew eyebrows in our circles ("noon-sub!"), eyes ("noon!"), lips ("ko!") and so on.  The students were remarkably responsive: drawing, seeing, hearing, repeating.  No one was called on individually and we all repeated her sounds as best we could, with a range of American, Spanish, Chinese, and other accents.  We then wrote three characteristics about ourselves and she asked a volunteer to stand, state his/her name, home country, and the three characteristics.  As each student did so, she wrote his/her name and characteristics in Korean on the board. The rest of the class--people from Burma, Indonesia, Ghana, Rwanda, etc.--murmured these names and applauded as each person finished.

Conclusion? This woman can teach.  We were involved right away, felt welcomed and supported (lots of gentle laughter as we shared our pretty ugly "faces"), learned a little about each other, and learned new words and how to spell our own names already. She used strategies that taught both the complete novice and more advanced learners.  Wow - this is a woman I can study hard for.  And I can learn some things about teaching, despite the fact that her "day job" is as an elementary school teacher.  Very, very impressive.

P.S.  After class, I asked an American student where she's from in the US.  She said South Dakota - Sioux Falls, to be exact, from Sioux Falls University. No. Way. I've been to her college campus and she has friends at Dordt College, where I taught for 16 years.  Ah....  who would have thought that my Siouxland Bingo skills would come in handy in Korea?