Heart, Mind, & Seoul: First Semester

Last week I finished my first semester teaching in Korea.

That first day of school, where I wandered into the teacher's room for the first time, after having gotten lost, and was led to my desk for my first taste of deskwarming, feels so far away. I started March 3, 2011. Only four months. Honestly, I've never had time rush by like this. As a student, the semester always seemed to tick by so slowly. On the opposite side of things, it goes by ridiculously fast. On the one hand, those four months seemed to slip by me so quickly, and yet, I feel so fundamentally different from the person who first got lost at school four months ago.

In the last four months I've gone through a couple different cycles while teaching at school. The first, clearly, was something akin to sheer terror and bubbling ineptness as I struggled to find my footing not only with students, but with the Korean education system, and also with my co-teachers. I bombed a lot in the classroom, but all those shitastic days helped me figure out what worked and what didn't with these students at this school and in this country.

From then, I felt myself go into a more comfortable stage where I wasn't nearly as stressed as I was before, and where I feel like my skin was a lot thicker to deal with all the crap that is the necessary companion to all the wonderful things that do happen when being the native english teacher.

Lastly, and this is where I feel I currently stand, is this stage where you begin to wonder about how to be more effective in the classroom given the institutional limitations of being the native english teacher. As much as I learned from my students, I'm not entirely convinced of their learning anything from me. As hard a pill as that is to swallow, I honestly wonder.

My situation is a little different from perhaps other english teachers either in Seoul or in Korea. The Korean english teachers at my school are utterly capable of teaching students English without my help. There's actually very little that I can provide for my students/school. Sure, I can check pronunciation and idioms, and I can offer the gem of cultural variety... but with the other Korean teachers being as adept as they are, I can't help but think that my position in the school is unneeded.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. It's absolutely wonderful that my school is lucky enough to have such a strong English department, and ideally, their level of language skill and teaching is what ought to happen in all Korean English departments.

That is not to say that there aren't glaring holes in the English curriculum of Korea. Essentially, everything is directed towards getting the students' reading, writing, and listening skills good enough for them to pass/excel in the University Entrance Examinations. Basically, all students who want to go to university must take this test, and the english section stresses reading, writing and listening.

And not speaking. not conversation.

So while my students can come up with really interesting essays...their ability to speak on the fly is not so good considering how many years they've been studying English. This is the first institutional challenge to the English program in Korea. The curriculum doesn't really focus on conversation since the University Entrance exam doesn't cover it. Thus, students don't get the practice speaking that they should, nor do they think its as important in their long list of things to study since there's no exam where their ability is tested. Even I, as the native english teacher, don't have a say in their english grade and theres just no incentive for them to really study speaking. Besides me, there's not anyone they would even speak English with.

So I want my classes to be centered around conversation since grammar and everything else can be covered by Korean English teachers. But I'm subject to the whims and curriculum of my school, and if they want me to do writing projects with my students, then it's not something I can take lightly.

With all of this, it makes me wonder if I should renew my contract next year, if given a chance (and, with the cuts happening in Korea right now, this could be a very big IF). This is not the whinny post of someone who wants to feel important... the truth is that I'm not really needed. As a native english speaker, I'm not being utilized effectively, and as such, there's really no reason for me to stay.

I mean, except for the small fact that I love my students.

I'd like to stay in Korea. Do I want to stay at my school? Yes and no. Do I want to move to another public school where I'm met with the same institutional obstacles? Not really. Do I want move to a private english academy? No because students shouldn't have to pay ridiculous amounts of money to learn the same English skills they should get from going to public school. Nor do I want to correlate someone's English proficiency in Korea to the amount of money they own and can spend on these academies. Being proficient in English/Education is a privilege that is available and thus should be readily accessible regardless of income.

Do I want to feel useful and effective? Yes. Do I wish I could do that while staying at my school? Absolutely. My only hope is that next semester will be better. I say better because supposedly the semester is to be focused on conversation (as opposed to this semester which was the "reading/writing" semester).

However, they just gave me the conversation book yesterday. I haven't looked at it yet, but if I'm just going to be teaching scripted dialogues out of a book, things aren't looking too promising.