Location: Ilsan-gu
Soundtrack: crickets, and morning city noise
The teacher whom I'm replacing is named Gary. He's a very energetic, dynamic guy from Yorkshire. I get to spend the next two days watching and working with him before he leaves, so there's an overlap to provide some transition for the students and for me. There are two cohorts of students – a Monday/Wednesday/Friday group and a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday group, each subdivided into classes based on age and relative mastery of English – so two days of overlap provides at least one day of time with both teachers for each of the classes I'll be doing.
Abilities range from lower level "elementary" students to quite advanced "middle school" students. I put the quotes as I think the terms aren't quite applicable as we would conceive them in the U.S. – the "elementary" are what I would think of a "middle school" – age 10 to 13 roughly, while "middle school" are more like high schoolers – age 13-16. The oldest student is 17 I think. The whole thing is compounded by the fact that Koreans are all 1 year "older," because they count the day of one's birth as the "first" birthday, and when they report their age to you, you never know whether they're subtracting that extra year because they know that we calculate from zero, or if they've forgotten and are doing a straight translation.
The advanced students are quite advanced – perfectly capable of having complex conversations on just about any topic, and toward the end of the evening Gary and I found ourselves enmeshed in a "discussion" (with the "T2" group) of Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee" that would do a group of American college freshmen credit. I put "discussion" in quotes as the whole classroom structure is, nevertheless, much more teacher-centered than I'm used to from the states – more "question and answer" than discussion. And no doubt some of this I'll just have to adapt to, but other aspects I may begin to try to change as I get settled into the academy.
Gary and I walked down to a Dunkin Donuts (yes, they have those) on break and got some coffee. He told me I had been very lucky, as I had landed in the best hagwon ("after-school academy") in Ilsan (and there are apparently 100's, many of which he's taught in over the last 6 years. 6 years! Anyway, of course I asked "so why are you leaving?" and he explained that he and his wife are moving to southern Seoul (she's soon having a baby) and that the commute out to Ilsan would just be too much. It's pretty clear that he's on great terms with the other staff members of the school and he said Danny (the director) is quite professional.
Most notably (in my opinion) he's on amazing terms with the students. After we finished that last class of the evening we walked out into the hall and all the more advanced students were lining the hall to say "goodbye." Many of them had cut out fat "tear drops" of blue paper and glued them to their cheeks ("see, we're crying because you're leaving" they explained), and they presented Gary with these large posters which everyone had signed with little paragraphs or anecdotes written with them, sort of the way kids sign yearbooks for each other in the U.S. None of the staff were aware the students had prepared this "farewell party" for Gary. I was touched and impressed by their degree of devotion to this guy.
He will be a tough act to follow.
The picture above shows my building, Urim Bobo County I. Within blocks there is a McDonalds, a Burger King across the street from the McDonalds, a Starbucks, a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf franchise across the street from the Starbucks, a Homever (this is, roughly, a Carrefour store – and Carrefour is just French for Wal-Mart). All amazingly high density. But so far, I haven't even eaten in a restaurant (at 3 days, probably already some kind of record for me, at least when being abroad) – I've bought food (yogurt, ramyeon, fruit) and eaten in my little apartment, and there's also apparently a lot of free food flying around the school, too – last night I had some cold Bibimbap for dinner (my favorite Korean staple). I have gone to the Homever store to get some houseold supplies and to be able to shop for food without overstretching my almost non-existent vocabulary.
Ok, well… day 3 begins now. More later.