This was extremely interesting and funny.
I’d like to see the same done for other countries. Especially of note – although South Korea is about the same size as that sticky-down part of Canada southwest of Toronto (I guess it’s called southern Ontario?), South Korea has 1.5 times the population. Combined with North Korea, it’s about 2 units of Canadas. And then, let’s visualize a map of China or India done in units of Canadas. (Thanks to tumblr I Love Charts for pointer to this.)
This is the third question (section heading) from the handout entitled “초등부 강사로서의 나의 역량 자가 진단” (roughly, “self-diagnostic of my abilities as an elementary teacher”) which we discussed in a meeting a few weeks back – I discussed the first and second question prior.
수업준비는 완벽하게 하고 계십니까?
class-prepare-TOPIC be-thorough-ADV do-PROG have-DEF-FORMAL-QUESTION
Are you thoroughly prepared for class?
This is pretty easy to understand – maybe with less ambiguity or semantic complication than the first two questions. There’s not much here, from a linguistic standpoint, to comment on. But it’s depressing, because my answer is quite simply: “없어요” [no I’m not].
I would say, though, that class prep is one of my weakest areas, as a teacher. I procrastinate too much and then I am inadequately prepared and forced too often to “wing it.” I find class prep to be stultifying and stressful, although I’ve always felt that was at least in part due to the Korean way of packing all the teachers into a too-small, too-cramped, too-noisy staffroom and not giving the breathing room needed to adequately prepare for classes. I seem to recall being better at prepping when teaching in the US, where I could sit in a silent classroom (my own classroom) during a free period and get things done without interruptions or distractions. Even then, procrastination was bane.
