Let me introduce myself

Before my first interview

My journey of becoming a teacher of teachers is on its way. I’ve completed my first interview with Sookmyung Women’s University and am preparing for the second. The strangest part is it is all taking place in my living room. I’m excited about this opportunity and hopeful that I will succeed and can use this blog post to introduce myself to my new students next semester. 

This blog post is about my journey as an English teacher and language learner. I will tell you effective and ineffective teaching strategies

I can remember from my studies. Use my blog post as an example. 

My dream (Your imagined job)

When I was in high school, I decided I wanted to move to another country to teach English to non-native speakers. In university, I decided after I came back home, I would like to become a professor of teachers. Although I never came home, my dreams have come true. 

I’m a graduate of both the TESOL Certificate Program and the MA TESOL course at Sookdae.  On the left is my photo from my graduation from the TESOL Certificate Course in 2014. 

           

The photo on the right was taken in 2017 at my graduation from the Sookmyung TESOL Master’s Program. Although these photos were taken only three years apart, you can see a big difference. I had surgery on my ears and a nerve was damaged. At this time, I could not move the right side of my face at all. Luckily, it is still slowly improving. 

My experience as a language learner

I have taken many, many Korean classes and done countless hours of language exchanges. Even now, I meet my partner about 4 times a week. I studied at Pagoda, where I worked, Yonsei University, YBM, Ganada, Seogang University, and more.

For nine months, I studied for an hour a day, four days a week, one on one at Ganada Academy. It was expensive and hard, but I enjoyed the lessons. One of the teachers was not as good as the rest. She would explain and explain things in Korean. Although I understood the concept, I could not understand her explanation. It was frustrating.

In the summer of 2018, I took an intensive Japanese course in Tokyo for three weeks. The book was in English but the teacher only spoke Japanese. I was impressed with how expressive and clear she was since she had to communicate with beginners. 

                              

            In front of the Shibuya Language School                          My teacher making takoyaki

In the fall before the pandemic, I took the same Japanese class at the Japan Foundation here in Seoul. The class taught us Japanese through Korean. I was able to understand most of the Korean the teacher used because it was classroom Korean. One issue I had was the teacher always told us our homework assignments aloud. I had to ask her to write them on the board so I could be sure I understood. While I learned a lot in the class, the two languages became intertwined and I still accidentally speak Japanese instead of Korean. 

During the pandemic, I have been studying Korean online. There are six levels in the Korean program.  First, I took a level 2 class from the Dongdaemoon Community Center. I liked that teacher because she was kind, but she always just went student by student and asked us questions. I wish she would have let us practice with each other. 

Next, I took the Korean Immigration Integration Program (KIIP) test and was placed in level 3. The class was too hard for me, so I met with a language exchange partner every weekday and studied level 2 with him. Since we studied from home, some students were young mothers with babies and noisy kids. The teacher was quite angry and yelled at us quite often. She would stop the class and berate the mothers with noisy children. If someone’s phone made a noise, she would stop teaching and yell at us to follow the rules. I finished each four hour class with a headache. The class was not fun and I felt frustrated. I failed level 3 and took the class a second time. 

The second time I took level 3, I met my favorite teacher. She was very patient and spoke and wrote clearly. She put us into breakout rooms and let us practice with each other. We talked more in that class than in any other Korean class I’ve ever taken. Still, I failed level 3 again. 

The KIIP Program automatically moves you up if you fail a class twice. Now, I was in level 4. My understanding was improving but my speaking was not. My level 4 teacher was very passionate and somewhat kind. She talked a lot, though. She talked and talked and then suddenly would ask us questions. Sometimes, I didn’t understand what she was asking because the question was unexpected. At this point, I had used Papago to translate every page in my book. Here is an example. 

In order to move up to level 5, we had to take a paper test at a testing center again. Because of the pandemic, the test was postponed 3 times and finally cancelled. The KIIP Program announced that they would just move all level 4 students up to level 5. I had hoped to take level 4 again since I wasn’t even good at level 2. Once again, I was taking a class that I needed to translate the book in order to understand. This class was not for studying Korean anymore. Now, we were learning about Korea through Korean. 

This teacher had a habit of asking a question and then making incredulous noises if anyone got it wrong. Sometimes, she laughed at us, too. I don’t mind being wrong, but I didn’t like her laughing at me. When she had us do assignments in class, she only gave us a short time, so I went ahead and answered all of the questions in the book so I could just review during the class while the other more proficient students answered the questions. The other issue I had was she would scribble on her PPT or the answers for a question. I could rarely read what she wrote. 

I’m finished with all of the KIIP classes. Now, I am studying on my own to pass the KIIP test so I can get my permanent visa. It might take me a year or two, but I can do it. My ultimate goal in taking Korean classes is not to pass a test, but to be able to converse with people with ease. I have lived here a long time and have studied Korean too long to be as bad at it as I am. Still, I have time to improve and believe my struggle only helps me understand some of my students better.