I Speak Two Languages, Body and English

I have come to Korea trying my luck at a job I have never done before, a profession that I’ve never really considered, with no idea as to whether I’d be successful at it. A good teacher requires; patience, a caring nature, and knowledge to impart, three qualities that I lack but I thought I’d give it a go anyway. As I write this blog I have just finished my first full week and this is my experience of it.

I was given my teaching schedule and I found out that I have drawn the short straw as I have 7am classes. So for my first day I awoke at 6am and I was out of my apartment by 6:30. I live in a very lively neighbourhood; close to a Konkuk University there are many pubs, bars, clubs, and restaurants along my commute to the school, which unfortunately for me are all still open at that time. People are out drinking, smoking, laughing and enjoying life which is not what I want to see as I walk to work so early on a Monday morning. There aren’t many people that have to walk through the Korean equivalent of the Zante strip on their journey to work, regrettably I’m one of them.

I was lucky enough to have some form of training before I was put in a classroom, the school I work for are generous in offering a two week orientation. Over that time I had learned the method of teaching but I still had no experience. So when my first class came around I was shitting myself but it really wasn’t that bad. I stuck to the methodology, made use of all the material the school offered, and if in doubt I went with the trustworthy “repeat after me”. If anything I actually found the adult classes to be quite enjoyable. Then the afternoon came around and it was time to teach the children. I thought teaching adults for the first time was being thrown in at the deep end but that was a toe-dip in comparison to teaching children. They’re pure bundles of energy that are a nightmare to control. The kid classes are difficult but they can be fun. I persevered and got through them, and then it was the turn of the teenagers. When Koreans hit puberty, they are just a mass of hormones, they’re so shy. They sit blank faced in silence, avoiding eye contact hoping that they won’t have to speak to answer a question and when they do they become low talkers. This is being thrown in at the deep end and having your head held under the water for 30-40 minutes at a time. Brutal. I hate the teenager classes because they scare me. I am more afraid of Korean teenagers than I am of the Taliban, the greatest threat to the western world. Let’s face it, the Taliban couldn’t even take down one Pakistani school girl, but the silent treatment you get from the teenagers is enough to make any man cave.

On my very first day of teaching I was still finding my feet and had many questions to ask. I was about to go into a classroom to teach a teenage class and I asked the co-ordinator about which section of the textbook I should teach to which she replied “we won’t be using that book this term and the new books haven’t arrived yet so just go and teach anything you want”, and then she walked away. What kind of advice is that to a brand new teacher?! Teach anything you want. With no preparation time and no material I went into the classroom, I decided to teach from that textbook anyway but I was asking them questions about text they couldn’t read and pictures they couldn’t see. The lesson became an endurance. Jerry Seinfeld once said “all human endeavour is killing time”, and teaching Korean teenagers English is the epitome of that, just running down the clock. (Two Seinfeld references in one blog, aren’t you lucky).

I’ve tried to think of ways to motivate these students to make my life easier, but there are only two ways that will actually get results, reward and fear. I’ve started offering/bribing the younger students sweets to get them to talk and it has worked, if it gets to the stage where that is no longer a motivation for them then I’ll start kidnapping their families and writing ransom notes in English. I bought a big bag of sweets and like most kids they only want the good flavours, so at the bottom of the bag were the coffee sweets that the kids didn’t want. I remember as a kid that I hated them too but I thought I’d have one and you know what, it wasn’t that bad. It was at that point in my life that my childhood was over at the age of 24. For most people it’s when they start to have more responsibility, when they get a mortgage or have children, my realisation was liking coffee flavoured candy. I knew that disappointing day would come eventually and now I realise I’m an adult. Depressing.

There are times when the kids can be a little overwhelming, trying to control eight six-year-olds but then I think to myself “I reckon I could take them” I could cause some serious damage to these kids, so what have I got to be worried about? The teenagers have their own problems, they often say something in Korean and then they all laugh which means they are laughing at me, but to be honest ever since I was a teenager I’ve been used to teenage girls laughing at me so it’s like water off a ducks back. You seem to get your favourites in your classes, some students make your life easier and others are there to test your ability not to hit children. Maybe these kids exist as a punishment for all the times I was a little shit at school, maybe I deserve it. Karma’s a bitch. Actually, you know what? I’m glad I was a nightmare student as a child, I’m pretty sure I would have misbehaving children regardless of whether I was well behaved at school or not. So for all the suffering I’m going through at the moment I’m glad I made some other teachers life a misery growing up. What’s that expression? Two wrongs make a right? Yeah, that sounds accurate.

I sometimes feel like I'm making a difference. When you teach someone something it does make you feel good but there are other times when you repeat yourself over and over again and it just doesn't sink in. No matter how many times I practise pronunciation it doesn’t really matter. I sometimes feel like I’m teaching a whole class of Ralphs.

Teaching as a whole hasn’t been as bad as I once feared. The adult classes are easy, they’re the ones that are paying their bill so obviously they want to make the most of their lesson time. Whereas the children and teenagers are forced to be there by their parents, so I don’t really blame them for not being the most focused. If I was sent to after school classes every day of my childhood I’d have been miserable too. The teenagers should be doing what the British teenagers are doing, taking drugs and getting pregnant. That’s the British way! They shouldn’t be in education, when has that ever helped anyone?