Hello everyone!
May is here, which means that Sarah and I have been in Busan for just over 2 months now - can't believe how quickly the time has gone by. It seems that every Friday we find ourselves a little reluctant to believe that another week is already over. Teaching has been a lot of fun for both of us, although I've found that procrastinating on lesson planning has the same result as procrastinating on any other task... However, if you don't wait until the last minute our workload is quite manageable. Although we have different schedules, Sarah and I both make about 4 lesson plans each week. We then teach them 3-5 times each day. Sarah's 22 hours (45 minute classes) of weekly teaching time is all done in regular English classes and she does one hour of English club on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons for which she is paid extra.
My schedule is a bit different: my 22 hours of teaching are completed by teaching 16 regular classes a week, lunchtime Eoz (English only Zone) 4 times a week, and an English class for the teachers twice a week. Like Sarah, I also teach an English club - except only twice a week.
Essentially, Sarah teaches 25 45 minute classes per week and I teach 24. Ha! Its not
that confusing!
English only Zone?
Four times a week, any student brave or foolish enough to enter my "English Dungeon" immediately regrets their action as they are forced to recite and memorize line after line of useless English prose, and tortured mercilessly if they dare to utter a single smidgen of Korean. Those who survive this rigorous and inhumane practice are broken down piece by piece and molded into fluent English speakers, undetectable among native speakers and ready and willing to assimilate into Western culture.
The less exciting truth about this class is as follows:
Around the second week of school my co-teacher Mrs. Yang took me up to the fifth floor and into a classroom whose door was plastered with signs "You can speak here only in English!" and told me about how the room was set up 2 years ago as an English conversation classroom and promptly used by the other teachers about 2 or 3 times since... However, the EoZ's fate changed with the coming of a new vice principal(and former English teacher) this semester whose bold plan was to combine the powers of the eoz with those of the newly arrived native speaker (myself) to increase the student's English conversation ability by no less than 500%... or something. So everyday (except Wednesday) at lunch time I sit in the classroom (which is very nice with a brand new projector, computer, DVD player, speakers and microphone? plus a nice view out over Sasang-gu and the nakdong river.) and wait for students to show up and practice their conversation skills. Due to poor advertising, my usual attendance for the first two weeks was about 3 people... which I've tried to change by telling students about the Eoz during my classes but with little affect. After all it is lunchtime, and I think that most students were just confused by the concept. Students playing in the halls would occasionally shout hello or stare at me from the doorway, only to run off if I acknowledged them in any way. Occasionally I managed to catch a few of these kids and wrangle them into the classroom, but needless to say the attendance remained low. Anyway, the time came for the vice principal to witness the success of his plan. He was not very thrilled with the number of students he saw and insisted that they tell their friends and other students about the Eoz. It must have worked because the next day about 20 8th grade boys showed up. I thought this meant change was in the air, but I have now had this same group or boys come every time. We have a lot fun, but I feel bad for the other 600 students in the school who might want to come. Since students of the opposite sex despise each other, and younger boys are intimidated by the 8th graders, things might not change... unless the boys eventually get bored with talking about my life in the USA, Starcraft, and flying around google earth.
My other classes are lots of fun - We are both getting better at making good lesson plans with activities that both relate to what the students are studying in their textbooks and actually get them talking to each other or thinking about English, instead of just memorizing the textbook. It very satisfying to see them speaking English to each other and enjoying a good lesson. We are both still idolized a bit, though I guess were not as a exciting as we were two months ago. Students always tell me I'm very friendly, but perhaps too friendly - It can occasionally be difficult to settle a class down and get them quiet. All in all though, things are going pretty well at school.
Out of school, our weeknights are usually spent relaxing and catching up on chores. We try to go hiking around on Mt. Baekyang at lest 2 evenings every week for some good exercise and occasionally practice dancing. Friday nights we go to the dance practices with Sarah's coworker and her friends - our improvement has been gradual, but its always fun. And of course the best part is going out to eat and drink with everyone afterward. Despite the language barrier, we are always entertained and have a great time.
On the weekends we've been slowly exploring Busan, either on our own of with Co-workers who invite us out. Recent adventures have included the Busan museum, a very nice park by the ocean "Igi dae", relaxing at Haeundae beach, staring at the half-aquarium half-slaughter house that is Jagalchi Fish Market and going to a Korean wedding - I think I'll let Sarah tell the somewhat disappointing and amusing story about that one. So, its been fun, and wow - 2 months already gone.
And to celebrate - those higher powers at the Busan Department of Education have decided to give us a nice 10 day vacation! yay! We have all of next week off and also Monday the 12th - which is Buddha's birthday.
Basically we have the trip broken into two parts - 1: exploring up the east coast of the rural Gangwon-do province and 2 - Seoul. Gangwon-do is the least populous province in Korea because it is the most mountainous and a bit inaccessible. We'll start Sunday and take a bus from Busan to Samcheok, working our way up the coast from there over the following days to Seorak-san. Seorak-san is the 3rd highest mountain in South Korea and is surrounded by a national park. On Thursday afternoon we'll head over to Seoul. Our friend Magdalena is working in Hong Kong for a few months and will be flying in around noon on Friday. We'll try to explore as much of Seoul as we can with our friend before she leaves Monday afternoon - at which time we'll be on the KTX (high speed train) back to Busan in about 3 hours if all goes well. That evening we're going to have dinner and go to Samgwangsa temple with one of my co-workers - Ive heard the temples are a must see on Buddha's birthday... so anyway - those are our plans.
Before we head off, I'll tell you about our little adventure last weekend, hiking to the top of Mt. Baekyang, which is the large mountain (about 600m tall) behind our apartment. Here is picture (because I love wasting time playing with google earth) of our hike:
It was probably around 3 miles long and according to google earth we went up about 1400 ft or so. It took us a little over 2 hours to reach the top, and although it was little hazy that day and we couldn't see extremely far, it was nice to get up into the cool, mountain breeze and away from the noise of the city. Sarah and I both kept thinking how strange it was when compared to hiking in upstate NY or other places we'd been. It was a weird sensation to be hiking up a little winding path through the trees and then look down at the sprawling city of Busan all around. All in all, it was a lot of fun and we were reminded of how much we really enjoy hiking... when we aren't collapsed and wheezing.
Here are some pictures from the hike: (click to enlarge)
We have a ton more pictures (and even some videos) from our past two months here, and we're now working on getting them up online so everyone can see them. Stay posted!
Lots of Love!
-Warren and Sarah
PS - Megan, we're so jealous of everyone who is going to see the baby before we do! However, I think we can understand that you might not want to wait another nine months for his arrival!
