Street Vendors and Restaurants

I cannot count the eating establishments in my immediate neighborhood. From street vendors to fancy restaurants there must be hundreds of places within a mile in any direction. Hundreds - I exaggerate not!

And yet - I don't frequent them that often. Usually I am by myself to eat. I feel conspicuous going into a restaurant alone, so I usually don't, especially if it's a Korean place (I do occasionally go to Western places.) But when I have company I love going to these restaurants. If any of you come to visit, we'll go!

It's easy to order because there are usually pictures of the food posted in front. And many of these places are cheap! One thousand won (the Korean currency) is worth about 85 cents, so a 4,500 won meal is just a

little under $4.00. Many delicious and ample meals can be had for 5,000-10,000 won. Lots of side dishes usually go with the main dish - many times at the end of a meal uneaten food goes back to the kitchen.

So here is a sampling of just a few of the places along a main thoroughfare in my immediate neighborhood. (On the little back streets restaurants are even more crowded together and more numerous.)

Language Learning Behavior That Drives Teachers Crazy

All those language learning behaviors that drive teachers crazy? I do them all!

For example:

• I nod and smile when someone is talking to me in Korean - even when in actuality I don't understand a word they're saying. How many times have I done that! I'll meet someone in the apartment elevator, say; we'll greet, and the person will start talking to me. I smile, nod, say "ne, ne" (that's "yes, yes") and at the end say goodbye. I wonder what I'm saying "ne" to?? Sometimes this is easier - it gives the illusion that we've just had a nice conversation in Korean, which is better than the sometimes endless and hopeless exchange of "What?" "I don't understand" "Please repeat" etc.

• I don't yet have a Korean "um" or "yeah" or other filler phrase I can comfortably use between thoughts when I speak. So what do I do? At home, Spanish speakers will sometimes repeat the word "pero" in between thoughts, even when their English level is high enough not to need any other Spanish; some students seem to preface every sentence with the word "because" - even when there is no cause relationship; it too seems to function as a filler, annoying as it sounds to the listener. I find myself saying "and so" in between sentences. How annoying that must sound - sticking "and so" between each Korean phrase. But even when I notice it, I can hardly stop doing it - it just slips out. The mind - or the tongue - really seems to need to put something there. (I also sometimes fill with "y" - the Spanish word for "and" - a typical phenomenon where you start filling in gaps with words from a different foreign language you've studied. It's gotten me in trouble since "y" is also the pronunciation of the name "Lee" in Korean and happened to be my Korean teacher's name. Someone asked me why I was talking about my teacher.)

• And I incessantly translate. There was an older Russian woman at SJCC who used to come into the ESL lab for help. She absolutely had to analyze every sentence she read or wrote and translate it into Russian. It's the only way she could understand. I wanted to shake her, to tell her to tolerate some ambiguity and try to get her mind functioning in English. Relax, and let the English sounds and structures penetrate. And here I am, finding that I cannot tolerate ambiguity either, and I can't just relax and let the Korean penetrate - it doesn't go in! I hear the sounds, I know I've heard them before, but often they don't mean anything until I think through the translation.* And my Korean texts are filled with the English translations of words I've written above the Korean words. I tell my students not to do that - to gloss the words at the bottom or on a separate page - but they want the translations there and so do I.**

• I have little patience with proofreading. I've mentioned this in the posting on error correction. Proofreading in Korean is nothing like proofreading in English. When I look at a page of Korean text that I've written, it still just looks pretty much like squiggles to me. I'm still at the stage where I have to sound out most words - like a first grader learning to read (Can't you hear the parents? "Just sound it out!"). As with translation, I have to think through the spelling of every word.*** I understand the effect of misspelled words, but going through a text word by word is so tedious and does not seem very rewarding in terms of learning. So sometimes - I skip that part!****

*In our classes at Yonsei we have a test on about 100 new vocabulary words every week. and I've always done well on those tests, but I use mnemonic tricks, associations, mental pictures etc. to remember the words. Of course, we use the words in conversations and exercises, but that's not how I remember them. So I do well in reading comprehension and writing and vocabulary tests because I have to time to think and translate and remember my tricks, but very poorly in listening and speaking because it goes too fast and I haven't really internalized the learning yet. (Learning vs. Acquisition! Oh, so true!)

**Does this slow down learning? I think it does. But in class I have to be ready to answer a question about a text at a moment's notice. What if I forget a word and can't answer the question? I will be embarrassed in front of all my classmates! I will be on the spot, sweating and squirming, trying desperately to come up with some kind of answer. So - I use translation and any other trick, like predicting what exercises we might be asked to perform orally and copying the answers into my textbook ahead of time. I've been known to read a previously copied answer without knowing what it meant!

***An example: compare these two words: "지하절" and "지하철." The first is an incorrect spelling of the word for "subway" and the second is the correct spelling. I have to force myself to remember which "ㅈ" has the little line above it and which doesn't. "ㅈ" and "ㅊ" do represent different sounds, but I can't yet distinguish them in rapid speech, so pronunciation doesn't help. To a Korean, spelling "subway" the first way immediately sets off their mental red pencil - just as someone spelling "friend" as "freind" sets off mine.

****So I love keeping my learning log, which I write in Korean but just for myself - so I write as I would speak, without worrying about correctness, and it's very enjoyable. I wonder - which way is the more efficient for learning?

PS I think I've got some good language learning behavior too! Stay tuned.

Food at Home Part 1

I do eat. For most of my meals, I cook and eat at home. Today I will take you on a short excursion to my local grocery store, kitchen and dining table.

The store

I actually have many places where I can shop for groceries. There are little convenience stores everywhere; this one is actually on the ground floor of my apartment building:

But my main store is located on the bottom 2 floors of a department store half a block up my street. I walk up, go into the back entrance, and down the escalator:

Down on the bottom floor there are the vegetables, meats, fish, and other "fresh" food: here's a sampling:

The upstairs has canned and boxed foods, breads and snacks, drinks, dairy products, cleaning products, etc - not as exotic as downstairs.

Each time I go shopping I just buy one bagful of groceries - as much as I can carry home comfortably. So I shop every couple of days. Here is a typical single bag's worth of groceries brought home from the downstairs section:

Food at Home Part 2

The Kitchen

And here is where I cook. This is it - 2 burners. No oven. No microwave. (That's a washing machine, not an oven, underneath the stove!)

So every meal is pretty much a variation of the same thing. Some kind of base (rice, noodles, potatoes, spaghetti, beans, Korean dumplings etc) and some kind of stir-fried or boiled topping made with vegetables, meats and whatever ingredients I feel like throwing in. Accompanied by something - fruit, a salad, a store-bought side, crackers, bread and peanut butter, etc.

The Dining Table

Actually, I usually just eat at my desk (!), but here is a typical home-cooked meal (not quite like the rather large restaurant meal shown in previous post) laid out on the dining table:

Looks pretty much like what I'd eat at home!

A long-handled spoon and long, thin metal chopsticks are the standard Korean utensil set. Adult forks are nowhere to be found. Another blog, another day, will have to be devoted to... Korean chopsticks!

Also coming (I hope) ... local restaurants and street vendors.

Language Study and Age

In my sabbatical proposal, I said I would explore the experience of the older language learner - so I thought I'd better put something in here about that.

It is different being an older learner. The biggest difference: it's harder to meet peers my age. For young people, there are parties and gatherings and lots of chances to meet Koreans and people from other countries, but I don't fit into that now. So for language practice I mostly rely on my weekly encounters with young Korean students and my conversations with shopkeepers, people who work at the apartment building etc. It's not as much fun, and not nearly as constant as having that daily interaction and practice with social peers.

In my sabbatical proposal I anticipated some other differences:

I have spoken to many older learners and observed them in class. I have learned that these students may have accomplished a great deal in their lives but they may feel that due to age, they cannot remember as well or make the same progress as their younger classmates; they may tend to stay in the background so as not to expose their weakness to the younger students; they may feel lost because they cannot make the emotional adjustment to the new culture and language as younger students can; they may feel they have lost the honor and prestige that should come with age; they may feel that they have been left behind. I expect to have similar feelings and experiences..."

I have had some similar feelings, to be sure. As far as memory - it's hard to tell. It's definitely harder to memorize vocabulary now than it was when I learned French and Spanish in my teens and twenties, but then it's one thing to learn that, say, the French word for "to begin" is "commencer" and something quite different to learn that the Korean word is something like "shi jaek ha da." Every new word is just sounds that have to be memorized. And I clearly can't memorize as well as my younger Japanese and Chinese classmates, but lots of Korean words have Chinese or Japanese roots, which helps them out. Yes, I struggle with memory, but is it due to age???

As far as staying in the background, feeling bad about lost prestige, etc. in the classroom - I'm glad to say not so much. In the classroom I feel pretty much like any other student, I think. None of us can maintain the positions we have in our own environments, and we all feel self-conscious about our fledgling efforts. Equally!

And I AM learning and making progress, even if it's slow. Conclusion: we older learners should not give up! (Duh - of course, I had already made that conclusion before I started this project - just wanted to prove it, for myself and my students back home.) And I'm sure the mental activities I'm doing - memorizing, practicing new language patterns, opening my ears to new sounds, etc. are really good for my aging brain. How did Kato Lomb learn a new language at age 86? Probably because she had kept her brain nimble through years of learning new languages - always striving to learn something new.

It was fun to read this passage in Shakespeare's Richard II, in the scene where Thomas Mowbray is banished from England for life. Does he lament the loss of family and friends, his lands, his wealth, his position, English food, English music, customs, activities.... no! He only complains of missing - his native English language:

"The language I have learnt these forty years,

My native English, now I must forgo,

And now my tongue's use is to me no more

Than an unstringed viol or a harp,

Or like a cunning instrument cased up,

Or being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,

Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips,

And dull unfeeling barren ignorance

Is made my jailer to attend on me.

And then this aged 40-year old (!) dismisses his chance to remedy the loss:

I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

Too far in years to be a pupil now;

What is thy sentence then but speechless death

Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

Well, it IS hard to be a pupil at an older age - to have to "obey" a young teacher, to perform at her command, to make my mouth move in uncomfortable ways whenever she decides it's time to do so... the loss of command, of control, of competence, of confidence.... being reduced to self-conscious giggles and apologies and fretful nervousness. Many times I long to be back in the teacher's role and forget this uncomfortable learning. But... it's better than "speechless death!"

The First Term is Done!

I survived the first 10 weeks of Korean study - and passed the final exam! So did almost all my classmates (a good rate, as the average fail rate, I learned, is 30% - sounds like SJCC! I guess the method worked on us - at least as far as it satisfied Yonsei's requirements.)

Here we are celebrating:

We're actually in the outdoor area of the restaurant, now wrapped tightly with plastic walls for the winter - nice and cozy, but very smokey!

Now I have a couple weeks to rest up, try to catch up with this blog (!), hang out around Seoul, travel a little around Korea, and get ready to meet my family in Japan for Christmas.

Thanksgiving at Ewha Womans University

Within a mile or so in each direction from where I live there is a university - 4 in all. I attend Yonsei, and the next one over is Ewha Womans University. (Yes, it is spelled "Womans" - no plural, no apostrophe.) Every day after I finish class at Yonsei, I now head over to Ewha and go into this underground building:

Here I meet a different student each week for conversation practice (Korean and English). I met these students through Myong Hee, a health education teacher here whom I had met earlier through Clara Song. I hope to write more about this conversation experience later. But now I just want to report that through Myong Hee and her students, I was invited to this real American-style Thanksgiving dinner:

The precooked turkey, sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping and cranberry sauce apparently came from the US army base here in Seoul; the rest was made from ingredients found at Korean markets. Forks didn't make it, though. Here I am with Myong Hee:

And these are two of my conversation partners who were at the dinner, Ji Min and Shi Yun:

It was fun to be with a group of Koreans and for once understand everything that was going on! It was an interesting mix of Korean and American - a good evening.

Final Exam - and Error Correction

Next Friday and the following Monday are final exams. Wow - can the first term be almost over already??

My blogging has fallen way behind! It's not for lack of thinking of folks back home, nor of things to post - just feeling busy, I guess. I will try to catch up with things soon.

For today, rather than whine about the final exam (at least for now!) - I shall post some thoughts on...

Error Correction!

There is one and only one error correction method used at Yonsei:

Yes, errors are corrected for us in bright red ink. That's it. There's no highlighting, no hints about how to correct our own errors, no writing center where we can discuss our errors - we can study the errors or not as we will.

And I often find the will is lacking. The value of studying the errors is nowhere near as valuable as doing the writing itself. That's where the real learning takes place. The teacher will never know how many times I look up words in the dictionary, how many times I check over my writing before I hand it in, how long I think about what content to put in my sentences - the pride I feel each time I finish a writing assignment.

If the teacher could be beside me while I am writing, and help me see the errors as I put them on the page, that would be helpful. That's the time the brain would be receptive to the feedback. But getting the feedback the next day, after the brain has gone on to other things, is really too late.

By far the majority of errors are "careless" - that is, I know how to spell the word or apply the grammar, but when I am thinking of so many things at once, I still make a mistake with it. Several times, I have made an error, and the teacher has taken the trouble to write out the rule I broke. Each time I felt sorry for the teacher, because I already knew the rule. It was wasted time for the teacher and actually felt insulting to me, presuming ignorance I didn't have.

I understand the teacher's goal for me is to write without errors, just as it's my goal as a teacher with my students at SJCC. The student can't feel the irritation errors cause the native reader, so the teacher must do something about that. But I wonder if focusing on the student's errors is really the way to help students avoid them.

When I write, my goal as a student is different. I want to communicate. I want to function. I feel real satisfaction when I do those things. How much sympathy I now have for some of our students at SJCC who are new to the Roman alphabet and have tremendous spelling problems. On different days they may write the word "friend" as "fiend" or "frind" or freind" or... yet they actually have learned how to spell the word. It's just that ... to them, the word looks just fine any of those ways. They know how to use the word. They just want to tell the reader something about their friend and are willing to work hard at that - but not to look up and double check minutely every single word.

Would spelling lists help? Would charts of frequent grammar errors help? I 'm not convinced. Making charts of my stupidity doesn't really seem to be that inspiring! I'd rather use the time to read some more and listen some more and study some more. That, it seems to me, would be more fruitful, and lead to better writing in the long run.

I am feeling more enthusiastic about things like journal writing - writing activities where content, rather than correctness, is emphasized. It would not bother me at all to turn in some writing and have just my content - and not my errors - commented on by the teacher. It would be refreshing! And fun!

And that will be a topic for another time - can language learning be... fun???

Food

I've had some queries about what I eat. There is much to write about food here, and I hope to post more soon. For now, just thought I'd post this picture of me sitting down to dinner.

(I hope no one was expecting a movie (maybe watch me eat the whole thing?) This was just supposed to be a photo but somehow the movie button got turned on...)

A Robot - or a Teacher?

Yes, all the teachers follow a script and use the same process, but I'm glad to report that one of our new ones has what is to me the spark of a "teacher." The other teachers basically present - and then test. They may be nice, or funny, or clear; they may write beautifully on the blackboard; they may have great diction and the ability to keep their oral speech more or less within our vocabulary level - but when they start the "go around the room" Q/A check, it is the same for everyone. Teacher asks; student either answers or squirms. Student gets nervous as his/her turn approaches; student breathes a sigh of relief (and probably stops listening) after his/her turn has passed. If student can't answer, teacher repeats question; eventually, if this goes on long enough, teacher gives the answer and student repeats. Student may not understand the answer, but his/her turn is blessedly over.

But this new teacher....actually teaches during Q/A. She listens to the student's effort. If the student has trouble she breaks down the question into parts. She writes a word or two on the board, giving the student a visual hint and time to collect his/her thoughts. If needed, more words go on the board. More hints are given. The student is not left floundering; instead, the student is patiently lead to the answer. The teacher uses the Q/A to figure out what the student doesn't doesn't understand and targets that. Wow! This is what it means to teach the student, not just the material. Not only do we get that moment of individual help, but the stress of the Q/A is much reduced. So simple....

This was the same teacher who broke us into groups of 3 and gave us conversation time with students from another class, and today set us up with a little team competition to practice some vocabulary - such welcome variety!

We did something...different!! today

This week starts the second half of the first term. At this point they change teachers around, so we have two new teachers. But that's not what's different. These new teachers follow the same script as the old ones, so they know exactly what we've studied, and they use the same procedure to go through each lesson. Oh, there are differences - one teacher always starts with the first student on the right when we take turns around the room; another teacher starts in the middle. One teacher has us read long passages out loud and spends a short time explaining the passages while another teacher has us read short passages out loud and spends a longer time explaining the passages. But basically, the teacher could be a robot.

No - here's what was different. In the fourth period of class today, the teacher put us in 3 groups and sent two of the groups to different classrooms. Meanwhile 2 groups of students from different classes came into our room - thus mixing up the students from 3 classes. Then we paired up with a new student we didn't know from a different class, were given some conversation questions to use as starters, and were instructed to have a conversation with our partner.

Wow! We actually got to practice talking with a partner. No particular questions we had to ask. Nothing we had to report to the whole class afterwards.. No - we just got a chance to practice - stress-free - for about 30 minutes. The teacher was there to help us with whatever we wanted to ask. It was wonderful! How lively everyone became.

Was this in the script? I don't know, but I suspect so. I suspect it's Yonsei's attempt to be a little more modern. I think every Level 1 student did this today. Ah, lucky us. To just be able to practice, and to use our new skills to get acquainted with someone new, to actually communicate, without the pressure of having to perform in front of the class - I must remember how good this felt.

Itaewon, Insadong, and Ehwa Womans University

I don't have pictures, but here are 3 more meaningful places I have visited:

Itaewon

This is an area not far from where Charles Montgomery lives, and I spent an evening with him and Yvonne here. There are lots of foreigners in this area. The famed "What the Book" English-language bookstore is here. The American Army base is next to here. There are restaurants from all over the world here. Really great for a little diversity! We browsed the book store, wandered the streets and went to a delightful rooftop cafe for drinks and food. I'll be returning to this area!

Insadong

Clara Song was here in Seoul last month, and one evening she invited me to join her and a friend to visit this special "cultural" area. Lots of artisans have shops here, there are old-style homes here, tea houses, narrow cobbled streets, galleries and so on. The friend was Mi Kyong, the one I later went to Seoul Forest with. We walked around, visited various shops, and ended up at this small specialty restaurant Mi Kyong knew about. Amazingly, we walked in, and there at the next table was a famous Korean actress Clara and Mi Kyong recognized - in her 70s now, but apparently well-know in her youth. (Her name for any Korean readers: Eom Aeng Ran or 암앵란). There was a fair bit of conversation between our two tables and I was even introduced and greeted. So what a great evening - Insadong, great dinner, meeting an actress, being with Clara, and making a new Korean friend.

Ewha Womans University

Yes - it's spelled without the apostrophe. This university is very near Yonsei, and one evening Clara Song (yes, Clara, once again, who has introduced me to so many people!) invited me to this area for dinner with another friend of hers, Myeong-hee, who teaches health education at the university. At dinner we got acquainted, and since then I have met with Myeong-hee several times and gotten to know Ewha a bit. Myeong-hee even invited me to go an excursion with her and a colleague to the DMZ, and I really wanted to go with them - but alas, they were going on the day of the midterm!! Amazingly, 4 of her students have volunteered to meet with me once a week to practice speaking Korean. Wow! I have already met with one student a couple of times, and will meet another one tomorrow.

So - my days have been full. It's a good thing I'm not teaching!!

Excursions

I realize that the last time I wrote about any excursions was a month ago. I have actually had some kind of outing every weekend since then. Rather than have people think all I do is study for midterms, here is the run-down:

Oct 10: Evening at Namsan and N'Seoul Tower followed by rainbow lightshow on the Han River. Namsan is a small "mountain" in the middle of Seoul with a tower built on top. I took this excursion with a classmate and Yvonne Dominguez, Charles Montgomery's fiancee. We rode a cable car up to the top of the mountain - where there is a teddy bear museum! At the top of the tower - I look wistfully across Seoul - to home.

Oct. 17: A lovely day spent at the Korean Traditional Village in Suwon, about 40 miles south of Seoul, with a classmate. Gorgeous fall weather, wonderful day spent wandering around this multi-acre recreated traditional village - many many houses and shops and paths and shows and interactive activities and people in native dress pretending to go about business the old way - no crowds - really a nice day.

Oct. 23: A visit to "Seoul Forest" with a Korean friend, Mi Kyong, whom I met through Clara Song. On that day I disappointedly forgot my camera again (picture is from the internet) - not that I wanted to capture Seoul Forest, but I wanted to capture my friend. Oh well - next time. Seoul Forest is not quite a forest - trees have been planted to try to make a park out of this old race track area, and as you can see the trees haven't grown too much yet. But we had a great time walking around. Mi Kyong speaks a little English but mostly we talked Korean for about 3 hours! Most of our talk went like this:

Me: What is that?

Mi Kyong: That's a tree.

Me: A tree. And what is that?

Mi Kyong: That's a bird.

Me: A bird. Oh, and what's that?.....

And so on. I don't know how Mi Kyong held up for 3 hours but it was great practice for me.

Oct 31: Another excursion with classmates. In the town of Icheon, about 40 miles south of Seoul, is a hot springs spa attached to that big hotel - you can see a water slide jutting out. We spent a couple hours in the coed sauna section, and then a couple hours in the women's only hot springs pool room. You walk around and go in all the pools ... naked! Those are a couple of my classmates in the picture. Hazy gray skies.

Believe it or not, we spoke mostly Korean the whole day on this trip. There were 3 Japanese women, 2 of whom speak little English, and 3 English speakers (one from Hong Kong, one from Singapore, and me) who speak no Japanese, so Korean was our language. Very elementary conversation, but fun and useful to practice with each other.

Actually, I've been having a very good time.

Celebration Time!

I passed the midterm!

And I forgot to bring my camera to the celebration party at a local restaurant Friday night.

So this picture is from the internet - but our food and drink looked pretty much like this. There were 11 of us students from the class and 2 instructors.

Here's what you do at this kind of gathering: you grill the meat at the table and attempt to pick it up with chopsticks (more on that in another post!) and put it in a lettuce leaf and pick up more stuff that's all over the table (kim chi and all kinds of sauces and side dishes) and put bits of things on the meat and roll it up and eat. Then you pick up more stuff from the table with chopsticks and pop it directly in your mouth - there's no individual plate at your place. Then you pour beer and soju (the ubiquitous Korean cheap alcoholic drink) rounds continuously and talk and laugh really loudly and just have a good time.

And you try to do it all in Korean.

Ah, the midterm is over. Don't have to start studying for the final exam for 3 more weeks!

The MIDTERM

Wow - the first half of the first 10-week term is almost over already. We had 2 tests today (speaking and reading comprehension), will have 2 more tomorrow (listening and reading comprehension), and 1 more on Friday (reading aloud).

And I am not pleased.

No. If I had reservations about high-stakes tests before, I have them even more now. How nerve-wracking. How undignified. Previously friendly teachers suddenly have this monstrous power. They know. We don't. They're out to get us, to find our weak spots, now to judge us rather than teach us -even though they already know all that because they are with us for 20 hours every week.

I'm pondering ways for a more humane kind of evaluation, where students have more say, more chances...

Of course, if I pass, I'll feel better. Tomorrow is my worst one - listening!!

KOTESOL

KOTESOL - Korea Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages - is having its annual conference in Seoul this weekend (Oct 24-25), so I went to check it out.

In scope and size it is similar to a CATESOL conference. I was surprised to see that ALL the featured speakers - all 13 of them - were white - not a Korean among them. Some of the names were vaguely familiar to me (David Nunan, Scott Thornbury, maybe some others) - the one I noted particularly was John Fanselow, so I went to his presentation, entitled, interestingly enough for a student at Yonsei:

"Huh? Oh. Aha! - Difference between Learning Language through Rote Memorization and Predicting"

Well. Here's a teacher the exact opposite of teachers at Yonsei. His message is something like this (his words copied from a website):

I have rededicated myself to supporting change; breaking rules; having contrasting conversations, and trying the opposite. Supporting change and supporting different perspectives is the only way to move forward.

To illustrate, here's from another website:

The ways he suggested we break rules were simple:

􏰀 If you normally ask students to underline words they don’t know, reverse the procedure and ask

them to blank out such words and ignore them. Notice your normal practice and do the opposite.

􏰀 Notice the difference between the way people do an activity in a classroom and outside in

ordinary life. In classrooms people sit at desks to read – there is silence. At home people

sometimes lounge on cushions and listen to music while reading. Have reading happen this way

in class.

􏰀 Take a traditional practice like reading aloud in class and change some detail about the way it is

done. Ask the student to read silently, to look up from the page and then to say what she has read

to somebody in the room. The change in detail radically changes the whole.

Fanselow’s message in that lecture was “For goodness sake do something different next Monday

morning”.

In the session, he gave us a lot more of these "change the way we do things" examples - all of which were basically puzzles (ie students presented with incomplete or incorrect information and asked to figure out or predict the complete message). As a teacher, these things make (made?) great sense to me. I too would have thought such ideas, such efforts to "shake up" the learning process and engage the mind more actively, would be productive. They would have excited me.

But as a student - I just felt irritated. Why do I have to waste time figuring out puzzles in a language class? Why do I have to indulge this teacher in his idiosyncratic approach to teaching - an approach that I know will not be repeated in the next class? Will I really learn more than by just plugging away at the words and structures I need to know (ie repeat, memorize, practice etc.)? How can the teacher convince me, the student, that this puzzle-solving effort will pay off? If the teacher doesn't do that, then motivation, trust, confidence etc - all those really important things - are lost.

The best part - I met a Korean English teacher at the bus stop; we rode the bus to the conference together, talked a while, exchanged contact info, etc. Once that was done I felt my day was made. I met a Korean. He offered to help me with my Korean. Wow.

I don't think I'll go to the conference tomorrow. I think I'll stay home and keep "memorizing" what I need to know for the midterm next week.

More on classes at Yonsei - the bad!

So what's negative?

• The classes are stressful!! I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. There is no relaxing. The teachers speak very fast and the brain spends 4 hours desperately trying to understand everything and keep up. Am I learning more than if they slowed down a bit and made it easier? Does the tension get in the way of learning or stimulate it?

• The high-stakes exams! The teachers are with us 4 hours a day 5 days a week and know our level very well- but they are not allowed to evaluate us. No. The TEST will decide that. Next week we have our midterm - 2 days of separate tests for listening, speaking, reading comprehension, reading aloud, and writing. At the end of the course we go through the same thing with the finals. Those scores determine 80% of our grade and whether or not we pass. What if I get a mental block from nervousness, or there's some freaky vocabulary that makes me misunderstand a whole reading or listening passage, or ... I feel the same way our writing students at SJCC feel when facing board-graded exams - IT'S NOT FAIR!

• For a teacher, this has got to be deadly boring. (On the other hand, teachers are relieved of the stress of having to grade the students, and they have almost no preparation to do other than correct the daily homework.)

Of course, there are other little negatives. We had to memorize long lists of Korean food dishes - more than we really needed to learn how to order food in a restaurant. We never have group work or much chance to practice together in class (though we do try to practice when we're together after class). But these things are minor. The material seems to be well-sequenced, and there's no doubt we are learning a lot. Actually, all the negatives have a plus side. The relentlessness of the class sessions and the midterm exams make us study even more. We are forced to do the work of learning. Our brains feel like they will explode. At the end of every class is the same refrain - my head hurts! Yesterday one student asked: "Can we review this material next week?" The teacher just said, "Sorry, no time!" The schedule is set; we have to finish a chapter a day. We even have a new lesson to learn the day before the midterms start.

But - I guess this is how they get students ready for Korean university in a year and a half - for those students who can survive!

I do wonder - as I wondered and hoped when I started this - if there isn't a less painful way to acquire a second language at an older age. Is all this needed to force the older brain to accept new sounds and structures and learn new words?

It does help tremendously that I am in Korea and can practice on real people! More on that later.

Thank goodness I didn't stay in Level 2.

More on classes at Yonsei - the good!

So - the program is traditional, teacher-centered, and highly standardized. And - it's fast! The claim is that if a student takes all six levels one right after the other, which they can do in 6 quarters or 18 months, they can go from being a total beginner to being ready for Korean university courses. 18 months!! Does it work?

These things I have found quite positive:

• No time is wasted! Class starts on time and breaks are never longer than the alloted time. Each hour is packed! No time is spent trying to get the Internet to work or looking for sites, no time spent passing out handouts, getting students into groups, giving complicated directions, etc. It's just language, language, language.
• There is a great deal of recycling of material and varied practice with the same vocabulary and structures. The 3 books really support each other. We listen, repeat, memorize, copy, pronounce, and use as speaking or writing models the same or similar material over and over.
• Homework and study is efficient because we know exactly what we will need to know for the next class, exactly what will be on any tests or quizzes, and exactly how to do the exercises, since they're always done the same way. It isn't boring because we're always using new language, and that's enough novelty.
• The constant focus on individual daily performance (written homework, listening dictations, Q/A etc.) assures that all the students stay attentive and keep up.
• We use every page of every text. The texts were developed here at Yonsei, and there is clearly an enormous pride and confidence in the value of these books and in the methods used here. This helps us to accept the books and methods, to trust that if we do all we're asked, we'll learn!

There are certainly drawbacks, which I will try to list later. But actually, I am so deep into studying and trying to keep up right now that it's hard to sit back and make a detached judgment. It's too early to tell what the results are going to be. But I have lessened my resistance to a program like this. I'm sure I will take some of these advantages and try to work them more into my own teaching when I get back.

Classes at Yonsei

Sue Wilson asked some specific questions about what classes are like at Yonsei, and I did want to write about that. So here goes. About homework - yeah, we have a lot, so much that I haven't been posting as many blog entries lately. But now I'll describe - in detail (!) what the classes are like. Later I'll try to share more of my personal experience and reaction being a student in these classes.

Period 1: 9:00-9:50: Room 534 (see picture previous entry), first teacher

• The fourteen students sit in a semi-circle around the room with the teacher in front. There is a chalkboard and large TV monitor that plays CDS and videos - no other AV or Internet.
• The teacher begins by asking a few questions about the previous lesson and usually goes around the room asking each student in turn to answer a question.
• The new dialogue is introduced, always in the same way: teacher reads the dialog while students listen; teacher reads the dialogue line by line while students repeat; teacher goes around the room after each line and has each student speak the line; teacher speaks a line, students in unison speak the next line, etc; then roles are reversed; we repeat the dialogue with books closed; we go around the room as pairs perform the dialogue - student 1 and student 2 recite the dialogue, then student 2 and student 3 recite the dialogue with student 2 taking the second part, etc.
• The new vocabulary is explained (yes, after, not before, we memorize the dialogue).
• We go through various Q/A and book exercises practicing the new vocabulary.
• The teacher begins explaining the grammar, always in the same way: She writes the pattern of the new structure on the board with blank lines for the nouns and verbs, then gives lots of examples of different nouns and verbs that can fill in the blanks and use the new structure. We often have to take turns (going around the class one by one again) making sentences, answering questions, etc.
• We have to keep 2 homework notebooks; at the end of this period we hand in the notebook with the homework we've done for this day, and she returns the notebook we had turned in the day before with the homework corrected and maybe a short comment; otherwise she doesn't talk about the homework at all.

Period 2: 10:00-10:50 - same teacher, same room, same semi-circle, same seats

• It's pretty much a continuation of the first hour - more grammar, more practice questions, more workbook pages to do in class. The teacher has some printed material (vocabulary, prompts) that she shows the whole class - there are no handouts for individual students and the printed material is exactly the same for all the teachers of Level 1. She also has some pages with prepared questions and prompts to refer to for oral practice - again, exactly the same pages all the teachers have.

Period 3: 11:10-12:00 - same room, same semi-circle, same seats - different teacher

• This is supposed to be our pronunciation/reading class, and we use a different companion book to the main text.
• First the teacher gives us back our corrected homework from the previous class and the corrected dictation we took in the previous class; then she gives us a new dictation, taken from the reading we studied the previous day. Then she collects the dictation and home work we had been assigned.
• A new short reading (short paragraph) from the text is introduced, always in the same way: teacher reads while students listen; we go around the room, each student in turn reading out loud all or part of the reading; new vocabulary is introduced (this teacher does not use any other prepared materials); we go around orally reading and answering questions from the textbook about the reading.
• Then we have a short pronunciation lesson, not so much to pronounce sounds correctly as to be able to read Korean orally. There are certain letters in Korean whose sounds change depending on what letter the following word begins with, so each day we learn a new rule about how to pronounce such words together. These words are in the book; we just listen and repeat.
• The teacher has "conversations" with us using vocabulary we've been learning - and a lot of new vocabulary as it comes up - just to help us practice oral conversation (and probably to keep herself from being bored silly).
• She assigns the homework which is always the same: copy the new reading twice; write all the sentences from the previous day's dictation in which we made errors, and study the new reading for the next day's dictation.

Period 4: same room, same semi-circle, same seats, back to the first teacher again.

• Pretty much a continuation of the first and second classes. We have a third book that accompanies the other two - a workbook - and if we have finished all the grammar and practice from the first book we do workbook pages - sometimes on the spot, and sometimes she gives us time to read and write the answers first, and then answer one by one.
• She assigns the homework, which is always the same: copy the dialogue we learned in the first period twice, write the dialogue a third time substituting different verbs and nouns, write sentences using the new grammar structures but our own nouns and verbs 3X each, and then either more workbook pages or a short paragraph to write - or both.

After every four lessons we have a vocabulary test - we are given the words in our language and have to write the Korean word. The same test is given to every Level 1 student.

We will have a 2-day midterm exam in two weeks; I believe there are separate listening, writing, reading and speaking parts. It will be the same test for all Level 1 students.

Both our teachers know English, as well as most of the students in the class (and there are students to translate for those who don't), and they occasionally give a meaning in English, but 99% of the class is conducted in Korean: directions, grammar explanations, side comments and jokes, announcements, whatever.

There is no lab. There are CDs that come with our books with the dialogues we have to learn and other listening exercises; they are not assigned, and those with good listening skills probably never listen to them at home (but I spend a great deal of time with them!)

There are 14 Level 1 classes, and students were placed in their Level 1 class according to their placement test. Our class is Class 14, which is a "high" Level 1 class. Everyone in the class had taken at least some Korean before, and several are quite good (ethnic Koreans who have heard Korean all their lives, etc.). I think this is why we get the extra conversation practice, side comments etc. - and why our teachers speak extremely fast!! I cannot even imagine how the students who have not had any Korean before could keep up; most of us in this class, even the good ones (not me!), are mentally exhausted by the end of the four hours.

And that's how I spend my morning, 5 days a week.

My classmates

There are 14 of us in the class - 4 Americans, 7 Japanese, 1 from Singapore, 1 from Hong Kong and 1 from Indonesia. About half are young college-age "kids," about half are young (late 20's to mid-30's) career professionals - and then there's me. A couple shots in class and out:

So far ---- it's been great! Every single classmate is friendly. I've had lunch with classmates, gone sightseeing with classmates, and been included in various activities with them. I had been fearful that my age might make it hard for me to develop relationships with classmates, but such seems not to be the case. We all have different reasons for studying Korean, but at this stage we're all in the same boat, struggling with basic communication and taking our baby steps into Korean life; age seems not to make much difference...

3-week Observations

Good friend Sue Wilson asked how things were going now that 3 weeks have passed. A few observations:

• The first week was pretty hard. There were so many decisions to make with so little knowledge. Many times I felt lonely and anxious. I questioned whether I would be able to do this Korean adventure. How could I approach people, and present myself, and get what I needed? Each foray out was was filled with anxiety. Each time I felt that way, I thought about the newcomers in San Jose and how they must feel when they first get here and don't know how to do things and can't speak the language. Each smile, each word of encouragement, meant so much to me. I will always be grateful to Young Kim-Park and Mrs. Park, the contacts provided by John Song and his wife Clara, who I was able to visit with during those first few days, to Kyoung-min You, the real estate agent who showed me how to set up everything, and to Charles Montgomery and Yvonne Dominguez, who provided real company and friendship at the end of that long week. Without their help, I don't know what I would have done. How much power each of us has to make or break a newcomer's day. Even the smallest bit of help or encouragement means so much.

• Each of the last two weeks has been better (and certainly easier) than the first one. Settling in the apartment was huge; getting started in class, and finding the right class, was a big boost too. Now a routine is starting to settle in. I know where to shop for food. I'm slowly getting pans and plates and making most meals at home. I've found where to get scotch tape and a dictionary and contact solution and an iron and all the little things. I'm getting to know the city better each week. I have friends for an occasional outing or meal. I have something important to do (ie homework!) every day when I come home. And the weather has been great!

• However, I am not immersing into Korean as much as I had anticipated. Actually, the need for company is too great. I really don't know how to make Korean friends right now, so I have been spending most of my human-contact time with the English-speaking folks I have come to know. It is so comforting! How sympathetic I feel towards our ESL students back home who continue to hang around with each other, even when they know that it is at the expense of their learning English. I hope I will find a way for more Korean contact as time progresses, but for now I am grateful for the English-speaking company.

• About learning Korean: Actually, it is coming along, certainly at a much faster pace than at home. This Yonsei Level 1 class seems perfect for me. Most of the material is at least familiar, but only now do I feel that I am really absorbing and using it - at least in class. We spend the whole 4 hours hearing and using Korean - at my level. This was the pitfall of the 2 places where I studied Korean at home. At De Anza, the classes were conducted primarily in English, so I had little practice with speaking and listening. At Adroit College, the teachers used Korean in class, but it was usually at too high a level for me, and so I couldn't learn efficiently from it. I think Krashen is right (sorry, Kato Lomb!) - the value of just-right slightly challenging input (as opposed to overly challenging input) is enormous - so it seems to me now. The words and meanings just stick in my brain in ways they didn't before. And I feel so proud to be able to sit through 4 hours of class almost totally in Korean. And even though I'm not speaking a lot of Korean, I am surrounded by conversations I overhear, signs and notices I try to sound out, TV shows I watch - the whole environment certainly helps reinforce whatever learning is taking place in class.

• The best part of all: the endless surprises. Three weeks ago I could not possibly have imagined all that has fallen my way. Each discovery, each success, each kindness, each "aha" moment - each one brings a thrill of excitement. Wow!!! Like just this minute!!!! Clara Song just called this minute - she's in Korea, and has invited me to meet her and a Korean friend for dinner tonight!!!......................... I just got back from the dinner. Wow! One of the best surprises of all just happened as I was writing!!! We had a great dinner and great conversation; I met a wonderful Korean (!!) friend of Clara's and we have plans to go to a concert together on Thursday night. I will end this entry as I bask in the wonder of this evening.

A Professor in Korea

This is what it's like to be an English professor at a university here in Korea. This single office is about the size of 3 or 4 double faculty offices at SJCC (here you only see the back end of it.) There's a sink in there. The professor's nameplate is on a plaque by the door. Those from SJCC would recognize the name- yes, it's Charles Montgomery! He's teaching English and writing literature reviews for Korean English-language magazines and doing all kinds of amazing things. I've already written about the first time I got together with Charles and his fiancee Yvonne here in Seoul - since then we've gotten together two more times. Through them, I've gotten introduced to...bookstores!! with books in English!! Why am I so excited about that? Didn't I come here to learn Korean?? But it feels really nice to hobnob with folks from home. And they have been so helpful with advice about living here, and things to read, and food to eat, and..... it all fits in, and I am very grateful for their friendship here.

Being a Tourist

I've had two fun outings going around to some of the tourist spots with recent friends I've made in my classes at Yonsei. It's great to have some friends (of course!) and people to go around with. They are from France, Hong Kong and Japan - and all speak English perfectly! So did we practice Korean??? Well... a little! Not exactly immersion, but a good time. We walked around, saw palaces and traditionally-garbed Koreans and learned a lot of history and saw and heard some traditional music and dance performances - and best of all, I had someone to go to restaurants with (a real treat!) As I look at these pictures, I realize that in both these and earlier pictures, I have on the same shirt! I think I'd better go clothes shopping!

LARGER apartment view pics - per request

Here's a shot facing up toward the school (up the tree-lined street just left of center):

And one facing south toward the Han River (just follow the curve of the road between the buildings; a couple poles of a bridge and a bit of water are just visible):

That's the best I can do for now. Trying to select and position pictures and add text on this blog seems to get harder all the time! Is it Korea?? Anyway, come and visit and see the views for yourself!!

And now...With Furniture!

A trip to the Recycle Center and $400 later (a bargain, I thought), the apartment looks like this:

I'm in a corner room on the 15th floor, so there are views! I'm on the west side of Seoul, and the windows face west and south, so I don't get to look toward the city center, but if I look to the northwest, I can see Yonsei University (though not the building where I study); if I look to the south, I can see a corner of a bridge that crosses the Han River. If I look down, I see a huge, ever changing world of shops and streets and people and rooftop living; at night there are bright lights everywhere. Some views going around, starting by looking toward the northwest and ending by looking toward the smoggy southeast: