The hike was held at Bukahn mountain, which I'd visited last on my birthday. This time we took an easier route to the top. The teachers hiked ahead: before the children were admitted through the fortress gates, they had to answer at least two questions in English, from their respective teachers. The questions ranged in difficulty from "Am I a girl?" (glad that all my grade ones got that one right) to "Do giraffes sleep standing up?" If they couldn't answer, we asked another one from the list.
The vice-principle led the teachers down the mountain by a more scenic route. We stopped at an outdoor restaurant on the way down. The party of Koreans eating at the picnic table next to us came over to say hi. One of them gestured at me, indicating that I should try dipping the tofu in my traditional Korean alcoholic rice beverage (served in bowls). Common sense made me hesitate, but I followed through, so as not to disappoint (I'm the foreigner, what do I know?). As soon as I had the makoli-drenched tofu in my mouth, they held back their laughter, making faces of innocent incredulity that anyone would dream of such a affront to the laws of taste. Needless to say, the other foreign teachers got a good laugh out of it too.
In the past two weeks, I've judged two speech competitions, one of which was held at our school, the other of which I was invited to judge at another elementary school, Kyung Hee. Both involved contestants from all grade levels, and every student had to memorize his or her piece. Some of the speeches were abridged versions of traditional European fairy tales that the whole class had preciously read, while others consisted of essays written by the students themselves. All the judges were impressed by the delivery, the maturity of the content, and the amount of preparation that must have gone into each speech. At both schools, the younger children frequently outdid the older ones in performance value, pronunciation, and memory, not to mention employing a whole host of adorable props and costumes. I was asked by another judge if it were possible to die of cuteness. If so, we barely made it to the end of the competition alive.
The students haven't been the only ones giving speeches in the last two weeks. The teachers at Kwangwoon had to write dialogues for their respective classes and perform them over the P.A. system, twice. As luck would have it, the listening test occurred around the same time I caught another cold and started losing my voice. I'm just recovering now. My fragile immune system is no match for and these germ-ridden children!
I'm also teaching new classes at BCM this term, both of which are "free talk" or advanced level conversation classes that don't require a book. I have to search for articles or other subject material to present for discussion. The demographic of my free talk classes is significantly older than my former, intermediate level classes: most are middle aged, and many are career teachers. It's a relief in a way, to have more flexibility, though I have to be on the ball all the time.
So now, when I'm not teaching classes at Kwangwoon or BCM, I'm taking Korean language classes on Tuesday and Thursday evening at the Culture Complex, one on one with a tutor named Bohyeon. He's the same age as me, recently graduated, and lived in the U.K. for a few months last year. After only a couple of classes, I can successfully differentiate and pronounce most of the syllables in Hangul, if not quite consistently.
Below are the pictures you've all been waiting for: the entire Kwangwoon English-teaching faculty; some of my lively grade one students from Kwangwoon elementary; a few mouth-watering pictures of typical restaurant fare (Samgyapsal!); and the brightly coloured mountainside.
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