Yes, underwear. One of my colleagues told me the other day that a student wrote an essay about underwear on her midterm exam. The prompt was to write about an advertisement that had convinced you to buy a product, so I guess it sort of fit - but we both still found some of the details she included a bit odd for an academic assignment. Thinking back to my first time in Korea, though, I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me too much. Back then I received underwear as a Teachers' Day present from one of my elementary school students; I'd been told that it was a common gift, but it was still a bit of a shock when I opened the package. Another pair of students (brother and sister, about 8 and 10 years old) gave me nylons - and when the girl handed them to me she said, "Don't worry, teacher. They're big size!" Isn't it funny how cultural ideas about what makes an appropriate essay topic or gift for a teacher can vary so widely?
This being midterm week, I've spent most of my time grading tests; these thoughts on underwear are the most entertaining thing I can think of to write about. But Eric arrives tomorrow from China, the first in a string of visitors I'm looking forward to over the next two months - and I trust that touring around with them and seeing Korea again through fresh eyes will provide some good material for upcoming reflections on life here in Seoul!
Friday, April 27, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
It's not all fun and games
A couple of you have asked, via e-mail, about my job. I decided to respond with a blog post since there might be others of you out there who haven't asked but are interested - and also because I'm afraid I might otherwise be creating the impression that I spend all my time in Korea rating coffee shops and relaxing at the bathhouse.
I love my job. It's loads of work, especially since this is my first semester; next fall it will be nice to revise lesson plans, assignments, rubrics, quizzes, and exams rather than creating them from scratch as I'm doing now. But my students are great, and the work is rewarding and (with the possible exception of grading/commenting on written work) really enjoyable.
The College English Program that I teach in is sort of an extension of the English Department. The latter offers courses mainly for English majors - literature mostly, plus some advanced grammar and linguistics courses. In the CEP we teach more practical - for lack of a better word - language courses. All students at SNU have to take at least one course in our program; based on their standardized test scores, they take a low-level English foundations course, an intermediate reading/writing/speaking/listening course, or an advanced course - their choice from themes such as current issues, English-speaking cultures, or drama.
I teach three sections of the intermediate class, which is the category that most students here fall into, and also two sections of advanced English reading. For the first few weeks of the reading course, students read and discussed news articles about trends in higher education in the States such as service learning and taking courses online. Right now they're reading editorials on some of the same topics and analyzing and evaluating the arguments made in them. Midterms are next week, and after that we'll change gears and start reading short stories by American authors like Hemingway and Kate Chopin. The reading course has been fun for me because I got to design it myself (there's a bit more structure in place for the intermediate courses), and also because both sections are fantastic groups of students. My intermediate students are good too, but the advanced ones are especially active in class discussions and thoughtful in their responses - and since their English level is pretty high, we can dig into more complex issues.
So, for the record, I do spend the bulk of my time here in the classroom and the office. I suppose my free-time activities probably make for more interesting blog posts, though, so I'll get back to them next time!
I love my job. It's loads of work, especially since this is my first semester; next fall it will be nice to revise lesson plans, assignments, rubrics, quizzes, and exams rather than creating them from scratch as I'm doing now. But my students are great, and the work is rewarding and (with the possible exception of grading/commenting on written work) really enjoyable.
The College English Program that I teach in is sort of an extension of the English Department. The latter offers courses mainly for English majors - literature mostly, plus some advanced grammar and linguistics courses. In the CEP we teach more practical - for lack of a better word - language courses. All students at SNU have to take at least one course in our program; based on their standardized test scores, they take a low-level English foundations course, an intermediate reading/writing/speaking/listening course, or an advanced course - their choice from themes such as current issues, English-speaking cultures, or drama.
I teach three sections of the intermediate class, which is the category that most students here fall into, and also two sections of advanced English reading. For the first few weeks of the reading course, students read and discussed news articles about trends in higher education in the States such as service learning and taking courses online. Right now they're reading editorials on some of the same topics and analyzing and evaluating the arguments made in them. Midterms are next week, and after that we'll change gears and start reading short stories by American authors like Hemingway and Kate Chopin. The reading course has been fun for me because I got to design it myself (there's a bit more structure in place for the intermediate courses), and also because both sections are fantastic groups of students. My intermediate students are good too, but the advanced ones are especially active in class discussions and thoughtful in their responses - and since their English level is pretty high, we can dig into more complex issues.
So, for the record, I do spend the bulk of my time here in the classroom and the office. I suppose my free-time activities probably make for more interesting blog posts, though, so I'll get back to them next time!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Signs of Spring
The weather is warming up, and with the forsythia and cherry blossoms in bloom and the trees beginning to bud, it's really starting to feel like spring. But even without the buds and blossoms, another, rather unusual, sign would let you know that it's spring in Korea: surgical masks.
Actually, random Koreans can be seen wearing them year-round. Some students in the academy where I used to teach wore them when they had colds to prevent the spread of germs - a nice idea, though the purpose seemed to be soundly defeated when they'd peel back the masks to drink from the one cup that all the kids shared at the water cooler. But when you see masses of people walking around with masks on, as I did on my way to church last Sunday, you know that spring has arrived, and with it the yellow dust that blows across the West Sea (a.k.a. Yellow Sea) from the Gobi Desert aroud this time each year. The dust picks up pollutants emitted from the industrial centers of northeastern China as it makes its way east, so apparently inhaling it once it reaches the Korean peninsula is bad for the lungs.
Last Sunday I went for an early morning hike on one of the trails behind campus, and when I reached a rocky outpost I was thinking that if it weren't for the haze, I'd have a great view of campus and of southern Seoul. It was only later in the day, when I saw all the people with their masks on, that I connected that morning haze with the yellow dust; during the week I looked it up online and discovered that was probably the worst day for yellow dust that we'd have this spring. I wonder: do the health benefits of a hike outweigh the damage of any pollutants I inhaled along the way?
Actually, random Koreans can be seen wearing them year-round. Some students in the academy where I used to teach wore them when they had colds to prevent the spread of germs - a nice idea, though the purpose seemed to be soundly defeated when they'd peel back the masks to drink from the one cup that all the kids shared at the water cooler. But when you see masses of people walking around with masks on, as I did on my way to church last Sunday, you know that spring has arrived, and with it the yellow dust that blows across the West Sea (a.k.a. Yellow Sea) from the Gobi Desert aroud this time each year. The dust picks up pollutants emitted from the industrial centers of northeastern China as it makes its way east, so apparently inhaling it once it reaches the Korean peninsula is bad for the lungs.
Last Sunday I went for an early morning hike on one of the trails behind campus, and when I reached a rocky outpost I was thinking that if it weren't for the haze, I'd have a great view of campus and of southern Seoul. It was only later in the day, when I saw all the people with their masks on, that I connected that morning haze with the yellow dust; during the week I looked it up online and discovered that was probably the worst day for yellow dust that we'd have this spring. I wonder: do the health benefits of a hike outweigh the damage of any pollutants I inhaled along the way?
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