Author Archives: Victoria H

Do Not Feed the Children

21 Thursday Apr 2011

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I’m always either delighted or disappointed in the similarities I find within Korean and American culture. I’m specifically talking about the behavior of children. More specifically, the children’s eating habits.

If you should be feeling so generous as to provide snacks for your kids, do so with caution. It should be noted that your kids are in school ALL day, and they’re usually hungry. Many feel that telling you that they’re hungry will cause you to pull lots of snacks out of your pants. I don’t know about you, but I usually don’t keep snacks in my pants. I do however feel a surge of sympathy at those times, and I will feel compelled to spend some of my hard-earned cash on the little miscreants and purchase some candy or chips. This generally leads to regret, muttered curse words, and thoughts of flights back home.

In the aftermath of deliciousness, I usually find a collection of wrappers littering the floor. Usually, the sight would appear to tell a story of children who, in a fit of joy, threw their wrappers precisely in a spot inaccessible to the inflexible, such as myself. If the teacher is especially lucky, he or she will have the chance to touch something moist. As I’ve gotten to know my kids better, I know that there are some classes that just won’t get treats. Period. My youngest group is no longer allowed to have food, whether they brought it or not. One of them ruined it for everyone else by spilling a bottle of something that he wasn’t even consuming. And the lid was on it. No more food for those guys.

I can’t help but be reminded of days of my own childhood, when my teachers would provide snacks. My first thought is, “Surely, we never made messes like these!” Upon further introspection, I’m forced to confess that I often heard phrases like, “Clean up your trash!” and “If you don’t clean up, we can’t have treats like this.” While I may not remember making wrapper confetti messes in the classroom, nothing else would incite such desperate directives.

While part of me delights in finding that some things are universal, it also pains me to have to deal with it. These kids work hard all day, and you may feel compelled to reward them occasionally. If you should do so, be prepared to play custodian. Otherwise, do not feed the children.

Teaching

08 Friday Apr 2011

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I have never taught anyone before.  I have never worked with children before.  I did not know what I was getting myself into, but I was determined to do my best and pick up the skills I needed to identify with these kids.  My first class was my lowest level class.  It’s the second lowest level we have.  I walked into the room and introduced myself, “Hello, my name is Victoria Teacher.”  Deadpan stares from the 5 year-olds.  One of the Korean teachers popped in there to get something, and in a hushed whisper, I exclaimed, “They don’t know what I’m saying!”  She said a few words in Korean to the kids and gave me a smile and said I’d do fine.

Korean schoolchildren are very shy.  On the first day, maybe for the first 2 or 3 days that you have them, they won’t talk.  It was difficult for me to see if they just didn’t understand, or if they were shy.  It was no doubt a bit of both.  I went ahead with the lesson, which was a whopping 3 or 4 pages of easy material that we finished with about 30 minutes to spare.  I didn’t know what else to do.  So we played Hangman.  I later found out that Hangman has been outlawed at my school.  Whoops!  I guess when the parents ask their kids what they did in this expensive private language school, all they tell them is that they played Hangman.  The parents get mad, call the school, and yell at the Korean teachers.  So no more Hangman.  sigh.

It’s been a few weeks since that day, and I’ve gotten a bit better at this whole teaching thing.  A big thing is knowing how much your kids know.  That can be hard.  They don’t always say, “Teacher, I don’t understand.”  And then the little kids still try to talk to me in Korean.  I learned how to say “Hey!” in Korean, and it’s pretty effective.  They think I must be fluent in Korean by saying that one little word.  If you ever want to get a Korean’s attention, just say, “Ya!”

Some of my kids are wonderful, some aren’t.  Like us, they have their good days and their bad days.  I try to just go with the flow.  At some point, you have to give in a little bit.  Especially with the little kids.  The nice thing about teaching here as opposed to the US is that you don’t have to worry about not touching the kids.  We’re encouraged to play around with them a little.  Muss their hair, poke them, tickle them, wrestle with them.  One of my little boys started calling me Momma and kept trying to give me kisses.  That was one thing I didn’t make concessions for.  Kissing someone else’s kid is just too weird for my American sensibilities.  He then tried to give me a booger.  What a day.

I’ve had to get the Korean teachers involved a couple of times with troublesome kids.  The younger ones will hit each other sometimes.  Just this past Monday, one of my girls hit one of the boys and made him cry.  What a brat!  I get to deal with her later today… joy.

It’s only been a month, and with any luck I’ll have this teaching thing down pat by the end of the term.  Just in time to get a new batch of kids and learn it all over again.  It’s an adventure!

The Love Motel

08 Friday Apr 2011

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Welcome to the Love Motel- I mean, the Six Motel!

So once my bags were moved upstairs to my motel room, and I changed clothes (I’d been told to dress professionally, so I was stuck on the plane all dressed up for no good reason!), the guys and I did dinner at the most traditional place I’ve been to thus far.  We took our shoes off at the door, and we sat on the floor.  Had I the presence of mind (and lack of dignity), I would have brought my camera with me to take cheesy, touristy photos of the experience.  The food was delicious.  The table features a holder for hot coals.  The server brings the coals over and puts a grill top over it.  Then came the ingredients.  Since then, we’ve usually dined in similar places, where you cook the food right there at the table.  I regret not having much of an appetite that night, but the things I tried were delicious.  Most people suspect that Korean eat really weird things.  Things that are TOO weird, but that’s not the case.  The weirdest thing I’ve eaten here is squid, which I didn’t care for.  They eat a lot of kimchi and vegetables.  They also eat a lot more meat than I expected.  At restaurants, you order the meat, and then it comes with a variety of vegetable side dishes.  If you want rice, you order it separately.

Anyway, dinner was good.  Afterwards, I headed back to the 6 Motel with one of the other teachers, who was also a noob, and then I proceeded to take photos of the room.  This was my first experience with a Korean bathroom.  There is no separate shower.  The shower hose has a holder to keep it upright above your head, or you can remove it as needed.  You stand right next to the toilet as you shower.  There was a gap between the edge of the bathroom door and the jamb in this particular bathroom, so I had to shower very carefully, so I didn’t soak everything in the room.  They provided full-size bottles of personal care products.  There was a computer with internet access.  A big tv.  Overall, I was impressed by the standards of what appears to be a rather questionable motel.

And questionable it is!  They don’t call it a Love Motel for nothing.  I heard some noises.  I’ll leave it at that.

Take off your shoes before you enter my house! Er, motel room.

Just try not to get water all over the place, okay?

Last Minute Prep and The Flight

08 Friday Apr 2011

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I know I promised all of you that I would blog about my adventures and keep you up to speed.  At first, there didn’t seem to be any time, but then it felt that I had too much to write, and that very fact was far too daunting for this teacher to face.  I think the only approach here is to write several posts at once.  Good thing I’m an early riser.

Last Minute Prep and The Flight

In order to get here on time, Rena told me that I needed to get my Visa ASAP..  This meant I had to drive from Indy to Chicago (about a 3-hour drive, so really not all that fun) in one day to drop off the passport and have the interview.  Thanks to the GPS, I got to Chicago with no trouble.  Once I got there, I found out that Rena had sent me an outdated form, so I had to re-fill everything out there.  And one of the questions was asking me my employer’s birthdate.  I just barely knew the man’s name!  I left that blank, and evidentally, doing that didn’t hurt my chances of getting my Visa.  My interview was at 10:30am, but it didn’t start for about an hour.  I was told that the interview was a 5-10 minute thing, but once I got in the room with a few other applicants, I found out why my interview was so late.  The consulate asked everyone their names and why they wanted to go to Korea.  Then he stamped our passports.  Done, right?  No!  He had a transcript of a radio program, and he wanted us to translate some of it for him.  He particularly had a difficult time with the idioms and slang we use.  That took a bit of time.  We already had the stamps we needed, so we weren’t sure if he was testing our English knowledge or if he just really wanted help with his own knowledge of English.

The passports were supposed to be ready by 3pm that Friday, and my flight was early the next morning.  Joy.  I was pleased to get there and find my passport ready.  I was sad that I couldn’t enjoy as much of Chicago as I wanted, but I needed to get back so I could pack.  I didn’t get back home until about 9pm, and then came the Ordeal of the Packing.  Trying to fit everything you think you’ll need for a year abroad, when you aren’t entirely sure what’s available in the country to which you are going.  I wound up not sleeping at all that night, as I spent the whole night putting things in my bags, taking things out of my bags, trying to rationalize what was needed and what wasn’t.  Not fun.  Everything did get packed though.

I headed out of the house, with the family in tow, at about 4:30am.  When I checked my bags, I discovered that one was 49 pounds, and one was 51.5 pounds, and the limit is 50.  Luckily, the employee at the counter decided to cut me some slack and not charge me a fee for an overweight bag.  No one in the family cried, at least not in my presence.  We said our goodbyes, and then I had to go through security.  I went from Indy to Chicago (I was JUST there!!) to Seattle to Incheon, South Korea.  The flights were long, but no longer than they were anticipated, which is always appreciated.  Since I didn’t sleep the night before, I spent most of my time on the flights sleeping.

We landed at about 6pm (Seoul time), and I spent quality time in the Immigration line.  I grabbed my bags, which luckily all present and accounted for, and then I met my driver, who spoke no English and had my name spelled almost correctly on the sign he held.  He ran a few red lights on the way, but I later discovered that all drivers do that here.  I expected to be dropped off at the school to meet my director, but he dropped me off at the 6 Motel instead.  There, the director was waiting for me, as well as three of my new co-teachers.  They were nice enough to haul my 50-pound bags up the stairs to my room.  And then the Korean adventures began!

Prep Time

02 Saturday Apr 2011

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(This post was originally published on my old blog on Feb 1, 2011.  I’ve re-posted it here, since it’s informative and not boring at all.  Enjoy.)

The process for applying to teach English in Korea is, quite frankly, a pain in the butt. I am fortunate to know a couple of people who are teaching there, and one of them put me in contact with his recruiter. Rena Kim works for ESL Park, and she’s been an enormous help in getting my requirements fulfilled. I first filled out an application for ESL Park. (To anyone who is interested in applying- give me your email address, and I’ll put Rena in contact with you.) Rena called me for a quick interview the next evening, and she sent me a list of the required documents.

1. The Criminal Background Check (CBC)- State background checks used to be considered good enough for this process, but recent changes require a federal background check. You will need to get your fingerprints done. If you’re not sure where to go, give your local law enforcement agency a call, and they should be able to direct you. It only cost me $3 to have that done. Then, go here to fill out the forms and authorize payment. Make sure to have it sent directly back to you. For the reason, just put that you want a visa to travel to Korea. Otherwise, they may want to send it to Korea instead of back to you. Then comes the waiting. My recruiter warned me that it could take three months to get the CBC back. Mine only took about 6 weeks.

You will then need to get your CBC notarized and apostilled. Any notary should work as far as the notarization goes. An apostille is like a notarization, but it is recognized internationally. It makes the document extra official. You have to send your CBC to Washington to get it apostilled, and it could take about three weeks.

2. TWO Copies of Your Diploma- Only one gets sent out to Korea with your other documents, but you need to have two copies notarized and apostilled. I was able to get mine notarized by someone at my bank (make sure that the notary dates the notarization!), and then I took them to the Secretary of State in Indiana to get them apostilled.

3. Copy of Passport- This was easy for me, since I already have a passport. This can also take a long time to process if you don’t already have one. Don’t send out the actual passport! They just require a copy of the page with the photo.

4. FOUR Passport Photos- Why do you need additional photos when you already have a passport? I don’t know. Rena told me that I could scan the photo from my actual passport and print out 4 copies. I didn’t, because my photo is so horribly washed out that I wonder how someone specifically trained to take an important photo for an important document could botch it so badly. It got me to Italy just fine a few years ago though, so I guess it works. I went to Walgreens to get some new photos. It cost a little less than $20 for four photos. It was quick and painless.

5. The Contract- You have to send in the copy of the contract that your recruiter sends you, with your signature on it.

6. Health Certificate- Rena emailed me a Health Certificate to fill out and sign. I am not sure what could set you back, as there’s nothing seriously wrong with me. Physically, anyway. I read a blog by someone in Korea who has diabetes, so I guess that’s not a problem that would prevent you from teaching. On a side note, he commented that the meds he needed were considerably cheaper in Korea.

I sent out my documents last week, and my departure depends on how quickly they get my visa in order. Rena seems to think that I will be leaving around the 21st of February, but it could be a little later.

Oh, and you don’t need to know Korean to teach there. They recommend that you try to learn Hangul, their alphabet. Knowing that should be a big help in learning the language. I’m slowly learning it, and I’ll keep you posted on what sources I find the most useful.

For those of you who are on the fence about teaching abroad, I highly recommend that you get your CBC done. If you decide in the end that you don’t want to do it, you’re only out the $20 for the prints and CBC. If you decide you do want to do it, and you haven’t gotten the CBC done, you have to wait the two or three months, and then wait even longer to get it apostilled.