First Impressions

Well, we’ve been in Korea for about five days now, and we’re working on getting settled. We’ve spent most of our time just walking around, exploring our area and trying to find groceries, apartment stuff, etc.

Our apartment is on the second floor of a little three story building in the southwest of Daegu, about a 15 minute walk from the nearest subway station. It’s a nice little place- definitely more space than we are used to having to ourselves, though that isn’t saying much J You walk in the door and our tiny little table/desk is on the right with our two little chairs. Our kitchen is straight ahead- we have a nice big fridge, a sink, a rice cooker, a microwave, a toaster oven, and a stovetop (no oven, though). Our appliances are living on the floor at the moment, as we have no counter to put them on! We don’t really know how to cook much from the grocery stores yet, so we’ve been living quite happily on sautéed veggies and tofu on rice. Our eating schedule is going to be a little strange, since we work from 4:30-10:30 most nights- it looks like we’ll be cooking nice lunches and packing sandwiches and fruit for dinner. Our bedroom is on the right, and it has a lovely little air conditioner. We also have a little TV room with a couch and DVD player (which doesn’t connect to the TV) and a laundry room with a washer (which isn’t set up) and some drying racks. All in all, it’s a cozy little setup, and it’ll be even better when we get the kinks worked out.

Daegu itself looks like a pretty normal big city- lots of tall, blah, uniform apartment buildings- but the surroundings actually make it quite lovely as far as cities go. A nice river runs through the city, and it’s surrounded on all sides by these lovely green mist-shrouded hills. They’re not developed at all, which makes for a nice reminder of the natural world when we’re surrounded by concrete. I hear the hiking is quite popular and quite good around here, so I’m really excited to give that a try. When Ace and I explored downtown, we didn’t find much of interest, but our coworkers seem to be happy here- they say there’s lots of stuff to do. Some theaters play movies in English, there are Cuban Salsa classes that some people go to (HOORAY! I can’t believe my luck!), and one of the guys is learning Ikeado, which Ace is excited to try. I’m really dying to get internet in our apartment- we have the websites for some local English newspapers and sports and culture clubs, and I really want to start figuring out what kind of things there are to get involved in. MoonKkang should be starting up it’s free Korean classes soon, which is going to be great- we’re dying to start learning. Almost no one speaks any romance language here, and all the writing is in Korean script, which we can make absolutely no sense of whatsoever. This definitely makes everything extremely difficult! I think we’re going to be highly motivated to learn quickly!

As far as work goes, I think we were pretty lucky to get such a good school. It seems very well established and in tune with the needs of foreign teachers. They have over 100 native-English teachers employed around Daegu! All of the teachers that we met on Friday seem happy with the working conditions, pay, location, etc. It’s really different from anything that I expected, though- it’s so completely different from the types of classes we were teaching in the CELTA course! There are Korean teachers that teach grammar and writing, and we mostly teach conversation-type classes. There is a very strict, set formula that each type of class follows- basically all we have to do is pick up the folder of materials that’s on our desk, go into class, and lead the class through the steps while keeping the children from killing each other. There is no prep, no grading, no nothing. The students are told all of the things they should prepare for our classes by other teachers, they do it at home, then they bring it to our classes and present it. The Korean staff takes care of all that stuff! The pedagogy seems a little odd to us- most of the classes I observed on Friday were presentation classes, which means that the students memorize a story as homework, then come into class, review it, then stand up in front of the class and regurgitate it. I think it’s in line with a lot of the Asian school systems (very memorization-heavy), but it’s a real shock coming from the creative curriculums encouraged in the CELTA course. MoonKkang is pretty strict about the way they want things done though, so I’m going to do the best I can.

This is my first time travelling without a really solid support system to take care of me, and Ace and I have both been pretty surprised about how “on our own” we feel. We got into Korea, got picked up and dropped off in our apartment, and then were left of our own to figure out this crazy new country where we don’t understand anything. We’re slowly starting to get our bearings (we’ve found a grocery store, figured out that we can check our email in the gaming rooms packed with chain-smoking guys playing online video games, we’ve figured out how to take the subway, etc.) but we’re still completely lost when it comes to so many things. We’re as good as mute, deaf and illiterate here! How do we order in restaurants? How can we get internet service at home? What is our address? What do we do with all the scary-looking Korean mails (bills?) that are in our mailbox? etc, etc. We definitely have all of our basic needs taken care of, but there is so very much to learn! (update- we found out yesterday that we have to get a foreigner registration card through immigration before we can get internet at home, cell phones or a Korean bank account- and getting the card takes three weeks!! L)


update- Tuesday morning

We taught our first classes last night! We observed three classes, then taught the last two with the teachers in the room if we needed them. It felt really good just to start learning by doing- I’ve been really nervous about teaching, but I know now that I’ve gotten started I’m going to learn so much more and so much faster than by studying the lessons or observing. Tonight we get our own students and teach all six of our classes- our first day of being real teachers! There are a lot of specific steps for each class (I teach five different types- reading, phonics, workbook, story, and speaking) and a specific way you’re supposed to go through each step, but I think once I get the hang of those I’ll be ok. After that, I think it’s just a matter of getting the respect of the students and then getting comfortable with them. They all seem like extremely good kids, but I’m going to have to figure out some sort of discipline system- they definitely figure out exactly how much you’ll let them get away with and then test those limits. I thought I’d just be teaching middle school students, but each teacher actually teaches a mix of lower elementary through middle school age. I’m actually kind of glad- the younger ones are a bit more enthusiastic. That’s it for now….wish us luck tonight!
Kait