I was not as consistent with my blogging as I could have been, which is regrettable.

However, these blog entries are from my first week or so observing classes at the
Kyunghwa English Business High School, and in retrospect I can recognize both the
intensity of the culture shock I experienced and the judgement with which I viewed
the native English teachers. I did not know anything about teaching at this time, but
I thought I understood all the flaws in the system better than the teachers
themselves did, which is an incredibly arrogant way to come into a new setting. I
see now how much these teachers worked within these systems, but I understand
now how innovative they have been within their confines. They teach a certain way
to allow the students success, while trying very hard to get content and knowledge
across. The strong focus in Korea is on getting high marks. But because English is a
language, and its mandatory, if it were graded the way language is graded here in
the United States, many of the girls would get average to failing grades. There
simply isnt time in their schedules to account for all the work it would take to
become fluent in a second language, considering they only have English once a
week and they regularly study until midnight or later as it is. I wish I had had some
better perspective on where teachers fit into this dynamic when I started, but Im
glad that this experience allowed me to realize how little I knew and respect the
teachers there for what they have accomplished.

First Blog Post! 6/3/15

Where to even begin. Well, I left Kansas on the 19th of May, a little over two weeks
ago, and arrived late at night on the 20th (local time) in Seoul. The first week was a
blast, visiting historical sites, visiting friends who were studying abroad here, trying
out new foodsAll detailed in my vacation tag. Anyways, on May 26th, our group
made our way to Gwangju to finally settle into the school wed be teaching at:
Kyunghwa Girls School. None of us knew what to expect; while we had been told to
bring conservative clothing and that the female student teachers would be staying
in the dorms with the girls, we didnt really know what that meant. It became
apparent once we arrived.
This program is in its first run-through, so it makes sense that there are a lot of
details that needed to be worked out as we went. But when we got to the school, we
realized that our expectations of what accommodations meant was different from
our hosts. The administration that greeted us was very friendly, and the founder of
the school had us in his office to welcome us personally. But conversation was
stilted, partially because most of us dont have much skill in Korean but I think also
partially because no one really knew what to do next. Finally, us student teachers
were shown to our living spaces. The three guys on our trip werent allowed in the
dorms, so they live in a building right down the hill from us. I hear that its spacious
and has a kitchen.
Us girls, on the other hand (including our professors) were put in dorm rooms. Six
student teachers in one room, and the two professors in another. The rooms are a
decent size, and we each have a closet to store our belongings in. Each room even

has its own bathroom, which is nice but still a little tight with six girls. The worst
shock of coming here came from a few things:
1) There is no wifi on campus, anywhere. In the English teachers lounge they set up
for us, there is technically wifi but no one has yet been able to successfully connect
to it, so that doesnt count. Seeing as this course is primarily online, that caused
some minor outrage. In the time since, the school hasnt been able to set up wifi but
they did set up computers that we could use until 1am in the dorms, which we
greatly appreciate.
2) The first few nights we stayed here, we were told lights out at 11, the same as
all the students in the dorm. This rubbed us the wrong way, seeing as were here in
a teaching capacity, and as college students used to our own freedoms when it
came to bedtime, it was a constraining rule that we werent prepared for. Since
then, weve mentioned it to our professors and continued using the lights if we have
work, and no one has bothered us about it.
3) Every morning in the dorms, at 6m sharp, a song of some kind plays loudly over
the intercom as an alarm for the girls. Breakfast starts at 6:50 and ends at 7:30,
which is why they do it so early. But no one warned us that that was going to
happen, and it lasts for a good 3 minutes every morning. Again, seeing as we
werent used to having our sleep schedules controlled that way, it made the whole
settling in process that much more difficult.
4) When we were told to pack conservative clothing, most of the girls packed what
WE consider to be conservative. On our arrival, we realized that most of our clothing
would be inappropriate by school standards. They want their teachers to always
look professional, which is understandable. They also want the girls to always have
their shoulders covered. In Korea, Ive been told that shoulders are the equivalent of
legs when it comes to how much skin you can show before it becomes scandalous.
They also dont like heels higher than an inch or so, and they cant clack on the
floor. Our skirts or pants have to come down to our knees at the very least, and
leggings are out of the question because they accentuate our buttocks.
Most of the girls felt uncomfortable with these aspects of living on campus,
especially when we found out that the boys didnt experience any of these issues
(except for the wifi, that one was universal). Its calmed down over the last few
days, but this level of discomfort may take a while to dispel and may not completely
go away over the course of our studies here. Theres definitely tension between the
boys and girls on this trip that wasnt there before, which I want to be wary of. It
isnt the boys fault that the system was set up this way, so its pointless to be
irritated with them.
That all said, settling in is a bit of a task. Hopefully it all becomes less stressful in
the next few days, because we just began actively observing classes yesterday as
the first step in our teaching practicum. I want to get as much out of the program as
possible, so now I need to focus on the work and readings that that entails. Ill write
again tomorrow, detailing our experiences as teachers thus far.

6/8/15
The teaching situation:
There are 9 student teachers on this trip: three boys and six girls. When we came,
we were vaguely aware of the school setup, but we were given a much more
detailed description on arrival. The school is composed of a middle school, high
school and business school. The business school and high school are actually
parallel, in that the ages of the girls that attend each are the same age. The high
school is more focused towards passing their college entrance exams, while the
business school is preparing the girls to enter the workforce directly after they
graduate from here.
Three other girls and I were assigned to observe the two teachers in the business
school, and we split ourselves into two pairs in order to make observation of the
teachers simpler. The classes are numbered, 100s for the first years, 200s for
second, and 300s for third. There are 5 classes per year, and each class is split into
A-level and B-level, based on their proficiency in conversational English. So each
teaching period, one pair of us goes with one teacher to observe the A-level lesson
and the other goes to observe the B-level lesson. So far in my observations, there is
a difference in the two levels fluency within each class, but overall the difference
isnt very large. The exceptions are the classes that have members that studied
abroad, either in Australia or in Malaysia, because their fluency is much higher than
their piers. It can be a problem, however, because the rest of the class relies on
them instead of actually trying to produce English themselves.
Today the template for our lesson plans are due. I used the example template
provided and tried to change a few things to fit the classes better, but because I
have no experience in teaching or lesson planning its a real struggle. I hope to get
some informative feedback after our meeting. I know what I want the lesson to be
like in practice, but I dont know how to document it. My plan is to teach the
students about the subjunctive form, If I could do _ I would _. I want to specifically
apply it to where the students would like to travel, which I thought would be
relevant to us teaching them because were foreigners. Ill work on fleshing it out
throughout the day.