Hiking to Dobongsan Peak

I went hiking with some new friends at a national park.  The hike was pretty strenuous, and we were pretty much rock climbing (climbing up rocks) towards the end.  It was so fun, and the view was breath-taking! 

Josie (below)

My Seoul Apartment!

Different Angles...
Take notice that the washing machine is right below the stove burners.



I got this poster from the Abbey- the house I lived in last year at Taylor! I took it with me.
The building is pretty new, so everything in my apartment is so nice. Everything I need is all right together!  It's a nice haven away from the hustle and bustle in the thriving city of Seoul.

Teaching English to Korean Students

Hi Fam and Friends!  

   I'm so happy to be writing to you.  I finally have my own high-speed internet in my apartment! Up until today, I have been using some wireless internet that I could reach from my windowsill. 

   I have been here for exactly one month as of today.  It's time I tell you more about my new job.

    NUMBERS. I am an English teacher to almost 1000 students at Karak Middle School.  I see 28 different classes of students, each containing about 35 students.  On any given week, I see 22-23 of those classes.  It's truly amazing.  I teach 7th grade students which they call 1st grade, and 9th grade students which they call 3rd grade students.  

    ENGLISH. The range of the English speaking abilities that my students have is vast.  Some of the low-level 7th graders understand just the basic phrases, while some of the high-level 7th graders are very conversational.  There are also a few students that have had the privilege of studying in an English-speaking country for a year or more; these students are just about fluent.  I have to say, it's so fun to hear Korean students speaking English with an English, Canadian, or New Zealander accent!  I love cultures.  

     CO-TEACHERS.  There are about 8 English teachers in this school of 1500.  I have about 6 co-teachers.  Most of the English classes meet 3 days a week.  I am the teacher for these English classes once a week, or every other week, if that makes sense.  I come into the English classrooms and work with the Korean English teacher.  I plan my lessons, but the Korean English teacher assists me by translating when necessary, and assisting individual students.  It has been a challenge for me to work with so many different Korean English teachers and adjust to their teaching methods and classroom management styles.  I just have to keep in mind that flexibility is key, and they know what their students need better than I do. 

     GREETINGS. All of the teachers, administrators, and students have been so welcoming to me.  The students greet me in the hallway, usually by bowing and saying "hi teacher!"  I am the only westerner in my school.  They are very curious about me and interested in knowing me!  What a blessing this is, and what a place of influence I am in.  They are watching me, more than I know.  I love feeling so wanted in my school.  I only wish I could memorize all 1000 names of my students!  It's even more difficult because their Korean names sound very different from the names I'm used to hearing.  

MY FIRST LESSON--YOU WANT TO READ THIS!!! Speaking of names, part of my first lesson with the students was having them create English names and nametags for their desks.  This way I at least have a way to call on them in class.  I gave the students a list of English names that I compiled to choose from, both boys names and girls names.  Did I choose the most popular names to put on my list?  Well, some of them are, but mostly I just gave them a list of my friends and family!!!  I had so much fun with this.  That means I have a few students that chose the names Ryan and Tory--my brothers names! I will think of them every time I see these students' nametags. :-).  On the list, I also included some friends' names from my childhood, and many names from my friends at Taylor....ha ha. I will keep you all in my heart somehow, even if it means I'm practically naming my students after you!!! 

The students didn't have to choose names from my list--so here are some of the most eccentric names that were chosen: Forest Gump, BUSH, Joker, troublemaker (I made him get a name change), superman, and Mr. Nari Park (Nari is his pretty Korean teacher). Also, a few guys tried to choose girls names like Elizabeth and Abby.  They thought they were so funny.

LESSON PLANNING.  I teach basically the same lesson to the entire 7th grade, and the same lesson plan to the entire 9th grade.  This means I teach the same lesson 13-15 times...yuck.  It makes for easier planning, but it's obviously quite repetitive.  They didn't give me any curriculum to use, so I have a lot of freedom.  They want me to find fun and interesting lessons for them which is great.  I am learning to be more creative in my lesson planning, instead of teaching straight from a book.  I find my lessons on ESL/TESOL websites and I get ideas from other people.  Sharing is a beautiful thing.  

STUDENTS.  What really gave me joy during student teaching last year was getting into the lives of my students...knowing who they were, their likes/dislikes, their home lives, and their struggles and triumphs both academically and socially.  So far I am having a tougher time with this because I see each student only once a week or every other week, and there are almost a 1000 of them!  Please pray that I have the opportunity to get to know a few of them on a deeper level--this is what reels me in, and makes me want to be a better teacher!  Next week I might get to go out to eat with two of my students, Hee Sook and Jee Sue.  These two wonderful 7th grade girls have been God-sends to me.  Out of the near 1000 students that I have, they have sought me out.  They come into my office often just to chat.  Hee Sook tries so hard to fumble her way through the English language just to form phrases and sentences to talk to me!  I'm grateful for them. 

I am thankful that God has placed me at this school.  I see many answers to prayer through it, and I'm excited to see how he will continue to show his purposes for me here.  

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!  You are in my prayers too!  Let me know how I can be thinking of you.

All for now.  More escapade-writings to come...slowly but surely.

Teacher Training with Native English Speakers from Across the Globe!

Hi Everybody!

   thanks for reading. I have much to catch you up on.  Two weeks ago, (Sept. 1-6) I went to an Orientation/Teacher Training program for the English speaking people that have come to South Korea to teach English in Seoul.  The orientation was put on by our employers, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education.  The week was well done.  I learned a lot of creative teaching ideas that I can actually use in my classroom with my Korean students.  I was very grateful for this, because I will not be using any of the school's curriculum to plan my lessons.  They want me to create all of my lessons on my own, which means I will be searching the internet for many useful lesson plans and other resources for those teaching English as a foreign language.  At the orientation, we spent many hours listening to speakers, and attending other training sessions.

    I could not talk about the orientation without mentioning the food.  We ate "cafeteria food"  all week at our training center.  For most people, this is their introduction into Korean food.  I, however, had already been in Seoul for a week, and knew a bit more about what to expect with Korean food.  Many Koreans love spicy food, like kimchi.  Kimchi is the national dish. There are many types of kimchi, but most often it is pickled/fermented, spiced cabbage.  I am getting used to eating more spicy foods than ever before.  I do have to say though, I'm very thankful for rice to balance out all the spicy food!  During that week we ate a lot of rice, kimchi, many forms of radishes, other vegetables, various types of fish, some salad, a bit of squid, among other things.  On the first night at orientation, Holly and I and a few friends of ours decided to visit the convenience store at the orientation center to buy some chocolate.  I don't mind the food here, and I really do like most of it.  It's just that I miss other things sometimes.  We had a chocolate party that evening...yum.

    My favorite part of our week of orientation was meeting the other English teachers from around the world!  We all share the common bond of living in a foreign country, teaching our native language to Korean students, and spending the next year of our lives in the city of Seoul. I met people from all over the USA, Canada, Ireland, England, and Australia.  During that week I had an awesome time making friends with these unique people.  I see the potential for friendships with some of them...we will be meeting up throughout the year for some fun times in Seoul!  God totally answered my prayers on this one. I'm thankful for these people.  I'm thankful for Facebook too, because it's easy to stay connected with these people.  Most of them dont' have cell phones yet. 

    Do let me know about your whereabouts and happenings!

Sara

My First Pieces of Mail...

This is a picture of my first pieces of mail at my new apartment...pretty exciting huh?  It would have been, except those are all gas bills!  At first I was worried, but then I realized how horribly ridiculous this was...I had just received about 12 gas bills, summing up to the equivalent of hundreds of dollars.  I had only been in my apartment for 5 days!  Oh, I'm loving this.

    So I just showed the bills to my co-teacher, and she put them in someone else's mailbox in my apartment.  I found out there are 14 units in my apartment building, so obviously I received the whole building's gas bills...crazy funny.  

Fish out of Water

So, I feel like a fish out of water when things like this happen...I was trying to charge my laptop in the wall outlet.  However, the outlet accepts a different kind of prongs, circular ones.  However, I knew that my MacBook could handle the 220 voltage.  I just needed to find an adapter, right?  Well, only thing I could find in the store was a converter.  So,  I thought, "Hey, my laptop can handle either voltage--220 or 110, so it won't matter if I use a converter to bring down the voltage to 110."  I then plugged my laptop cord into the converter, and the converter into the wall.  A few minutes later, all of the lights in my apartment went out...I had blown the circuit.  And, as you can see above, the converter got so hot that it melted to the plastic outlet cover.  

Thankfully, a couple days later I was able to find an adapter, and my laptop charges just fine.  As for that outlet, the cover still looks like that.  :-)  

First Week Experiences

Hi Everybody!

     I'm having a good time here.  I'd like to catch you up on a little bit more of my first week.

Last Wednesday, Holly and I were able to meet up at a subway stop, thanks to instant messaging and internet at our schools.  (Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to contact each other.)  I was able to get a cell phone when I saw her!  Holly has a friend that is from her college, Bethel College, that has been here for a year teaching English.  Her name is Hillary.  Hillary had a couple friends that just left Korea, and so Hillary saved their cell phones for us!  I was so excited, because on my own it would have taken me at least 3 weeks to get a cell phone, because of random paperwork I would have had to complete first. A cell phone is completely necessary here.  Seoul is one of the largest cities in the world, so meeting up with people is much more difficult without cell phones.

On Friday night, Holly and I ate dinner with our new friend Hillary.  I am so thankful for her! As I said, she has been here for a year, doing what we'll be doing.  She has given us so much good advice, and has taught us some important phrases in getting around Seoul.  She also knows good places to eat, how to order, where some good churches are, etc...all of the things that I must learn.  

Saturday Holly and I met up with a wonderful Korean woman named Bok-jah. She and her family just moved back here from Arizona.  We were connected with her through a family friend of Holly's.  She took us out to lunch.  We ate bebeembop.  So far, this is my favorite Korean dish.  It is a bowl of white rice with mixed vegetables and a fried egg on top, and there are other sauces and things that go with it.  Then Bok-jah showed us her church that afternoon too.  We met some Korean women that were there practicing for a song and dance they were going to perform the next day.  I have to say that so many of the Korean people that I have met have been so friendly and welcoming!  They have been very accommodating to us.  It's hard for me to realize that I am at their grace and mercy...I mean, I don't speak their language, so any communication that I have with them will be in English, until I learn some more Korean.  I'm so grateful for this opportunity to be here and learn about their culture, while teaching them about mine and my language.  The best is when we have a sort of cultural exchange, learning and sharing openly about each other's cultures and languages.

Sunday I met up with Holly and Hillary, and we visited Hillary's church.  It is called International Worship in English.  The pastor is from the US.  There are Koreans and foreigners that attend the church.  About 150 people were there for the contemporary service in the afternoon.  I enjoyed being there, and hope to visit again.

Perhaps you can tell, that so far Holly and I have been able to see each other often.  The subways system is fantastic...I'm thankful that the announcements are in Korean and English.