Sense of History in Gyeongju

Pre-20th century Korean history, at least as I've seen it represented in Korean dramas and museums, seems to represent for many Koreans a time of glory, a time when Korea was unconquered and bold and at a cultural high. In the dramas I have seen depicted over and over in highly positive ways values of reverence for nature, service to country, fierce loyalty to a superior, deep ties to family ancestry and descendents, lifelong friendships, love of art and architecture and the spiritual and physical properties of food and drink, clearly defined social roles, physical prowess for men and soft poise for women, carefully enacted rituals, the nobility of sacrifice, and so on. Even in Seoul, and all around, the preserved and restored palaces and temples and traditional villages and houses and historical reenactments in traditional costume seem revered and loved.

So I wanted to visit Gyeongju. This historic city is known as the "museum without walls," and many Koreans told me I should visit it. It seems most Koreans I talked to had been there, even if it was long ago on a school field trip. In Gyeongju there are numerous temples, tombs, monuments and the like dating from the time Gyeongju was the capital of the Shilla Kingdom, which for a time during the 7th-9th centuries AD ruled much of southern Korea.

And so we went and saw lots of things like these large numbers of ancient royal tombs:

And this particularly famous and revered Buddhist temple, Bulguksa (now on the UNESCO World Heritage List):

I now see why most of the pictures of Bulguksa you see in the tourist brochures are taken from the left side. Anyway, if you would like to see some really nice pictures of Bulguksa without a dominating sign that says "TOILET," just google it!

And these turn out to be the only pictures I took in Gyeongju. But maybe that's appropriate. Of course, not being Korean, I don't know what it really feels like, but there must be a sense of enormous separation between that history and life today. Unlike American history, where today's government is still a continuation of that formed at the beginning of its national history, this seems, in practice if not in feeling, a broken and abandoned history, remembered nostalgically, imagined, mourned perhaps, but left behind, with little that seems applicable to today's world.

But I'm a foreigner looking in. I appreciate the professionals who restore the buildings and take the beautiful pictures and perform the traditional arts and wear the traditional costumes and create these historical scenes and provide a glimpse of what life was like back then. And I'll continue to watch the dramas and enjoy spending some time imagining life in this ancient Korean world.

For a really nice article on the sights of Gyeongju, see SJCC's own Charles Montgomery's article, printed in 10 Magazine - an English-language magazine published in Korea. You'll notice that Charles took his picture of Bulguksa from the left.

My Korean Classes are Done!

Wow! I have completed all the study required for my sabbatical.

This picture was taken at Adroit College on Saturday night, Aug. 21. I have just given my final presentation, in which I showed a few pages from my blog (visible on the screen in the back.) In this picture I am receiving my certificate for having completed the Intermediate Course.

It's been fun. Really really fun!

"Hometown," Ideas of Travel and Lake Chungju

In 1945, at the close of WWII, Seoul's population was less than 1 million. It's now over 10 million. So many Koreans during the past half-century have left their "hometown" and moved to Seoul.

I was in Seoul during "Chuseok," a 3-day Korean holiday in October something like our Thanksgiving. Many many Seoulites return to their "hometown" during that time. I stayed in Seoul, and it became noticeably less crowded that weekend.

The Korean word for "hometown" was one of the first words we learned in our Korean class. In dialogues, people were always asking each other about their "hometown." Americans sometimes had trouble with the question. We usually picked the town where we happened to live in the US, but for most of us, that was not the place where we "originated," where our ancestors are buried. But that seems to be what it is for Koreans. And when they visit their hometown, they do indeed, it seems, even today, visit the ancestors' graves and perform some acts of respect and remembrance.

And it's easy for Koreans to get to their hometown because the country is small. There are no sleeping cars on regular Korean trains. There is no need for any. It just takes a few hours to cross the whole country by train.

And Koreans do have places they seem to love to visit besides their hometowns. Especially mountains! And beaches. And Jeju Island, the most famous tourist island, known as the "Hawaii" of Korea (I unfortunately did not make it there.) I think every Korean I had talked to had been to Jeju Island. It seems even school kids take school trips to Jeju Island.

But most of them I talked to had never visited, and didn't seem to know much about, Lake Chungju. It's true that it's but a man-made lake, but on a map it appears to be the largest lake in all of Korea, smack dab in the center of the country. As American travelers, we tend to read things like the Lonely Planet guide to Korea, which says: "The two-hour, 52 km boat ride along the large articicial lake from Danyang to Chungju is a highlight, with constantly changing scenery that on misty days looks like a sequence of Joseon-era landscape paintings" and calls it "Korea's most scenic waterway trip." So we took the trip.

But I didn't meet a single Korean, other than on the boat itself, who had taken the trip. When I mentioned it in Seoul, or to Korean friends here, most didn't know what I was was talking about. (Of course it could've been my pronunciation. Korea has Chungju and Cheongju, Gongju and Gyeongju and Gwangju - who knows where they thought I was talking about!) On the boat there were lively groups of older Koreans (affectionately called "halmoni" and "halabuji" - grandma and grandpa - although, having been so addressed a couple of times myself, I feel a little ambivalent about the term) - anyway, groups of older Koreans talking and drinking and laughing and sharing their food with us and seeming to have a great time! They were evidently local people, not visitors from out of the area, well familiar with the routines and sights and places to go.

It's hard to understand the feelings modern Koreans have for their "homeland." With the long history, the small size, the homogeneity of race and language and culture, the strong ties to the extended family and ancestors, the closeness to mountains and islands and sea, the particular attraction to one's particular point of belonging (the "hometown") - maybe these determine a person's desire to "tour the country" in a different way than it does for Americans.

But tour we did, in the American way. Here are a few scenes from the trip.

DMZ and North Korea

This spot marks the demilitarized zone - the DMZ.

It looks a bit like going into Disneyland, doesn't it? These days it's a tourist destination.

Still....

Because of the current tensions between North and South Korea, all tours actually going into North Korea have been canceled, but we took the tour that got us as far as we could go.

The picture above marks the spot where a tunnel built under the DMZ by North Koreans was discovered. You actually take a tram car ride underground and see parts of the tunnel.

At another spot, we were allowed to look over into North Korea (but not take pictures past the yellow line!)

Another part of the tour took us to the beautifully built but empty train station at the end of the South Korean line. A rail link between North and South Korea has been completed but currently no trains run. There are signs (literally!) of hope:

And here we are in Panmunjom (or the Joint Security Area) on the south side of the DMZ but looking over at the big gray building on the north side. It was here that the armistice ending the Korean War was signed in 1953.

Here I'm standing next to a South Korean UN soldier in that central blue building where talks, when there are any, still occur between the two sides.

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak has just proposed that a reunification tax be levied on South Koreans in anticipation of reuniting the country one day. It is predicted that reunification will cost the more economically-robust South Koreans billions, maybe a trillion or more dollars. I spoke to South Koreans who are ambivalent about reunification, fearful of its economic impact.

Meanwhile, this tragi-comic place endures, off limits to Koreans themselves, but open to gawking tourists.

Travelogue: Incheon

Three different times during the past year I flew into the International Airport at Incheon, and twice I left from there. It's a fabulous airport - spacious, with many friendly helpful people around to guide you and answer questions, directions clearly marked (and of course in English), wonderful restaurants and shops, a spa, a culture center where you can make Korean handicrafts, a museum, lounges, a hotel... but, that's not what I want to write about.

Away from the airport, completely out of sight and earshot of the airplanes, is the town of Incheon. Twice I spent a day there with my friend Cheng Min - once in the fall, and again with my brother and sister-in law during our trip in June. It just takes an hour to get there by subway. It's where MacArthur landed with the Marines in 1950 (there is a statue of MacArthur there.) It's now a relatively quiet spot away from the hustle and bustle of Seoul.

Some highlights:

The Sudoguksan Museum of Housing and Living is a recreated village, totally encased inside the relatively small museum, depicting the life of the poor people of Incheon in the years following the Korean War. It is interactive; you can walk through all the rooms and try out various tools and furniture and clothing (and, of course, go to the gift shop):

There is a Chinatown in Incheon, supposedly the largest (and some say the only) Chinatown in Korea. If you sound out the Korean spelling of the word on the wall behind the big plate of food in the picture below, it says Cha - i - na - ta - un, or "Chinatown."

Actually, after WWII, and especially after anti-Chinese repressions by Korean dictators in the 70's, most of the Chinese from this area either left or were living in poverty. Then the Korean government saw tourist possibilities here and put in money to revitalize the area. Apparently most of the merchants now are Chinese who bought in from the mainland - or Koreans! Anyway, it's colorful. The big plate of food in the picture is jajangmyeon, noodles covered with a black bean sauce, which Koreans call a Chinese dish but is actually a Korean - and very popular - version of a Chinese dish. (In fact, the dish is so popular and well-known we had to memorize the name of this dish in our Korean class at Yonsei.) Apparently the dish originated here in Incheon. Cheng Min and I had a great meal of it on my first visit.

Wolmido is a seafront area of Incheon, very "vacation-y" with a promenade, nature park, amusement park, ferry docks, and many seafood restaurants. We had a HUGE seafood lunch at a restaurant with a window seat overlooking the harbor:

So we took a couple of ferry rides, and ended up at Jagyak Island (or Jagyakdo). There are no cars on this island. No roads, no houses, no hotels or restaurants - just an island you can walk around, or walk over, and lots of shoreline where you can fall asleep, or play games, or set up a barbecue and have a good time as a number of Korean groups were doing. We mostly walked around and over the island:

Visiting these sights in Incheon, I feel a stronger sense of some particular aspects of Korea - its long and ambivalent relationship with China, the effects of the war tragedies engulfing Korea in the past century, and the strong influence of sea coast and island life on the culture of Korea in particular. I really enjoyed all I saw and learned there, and really thank Cheng Min for her help in getting us around, finding interesting spots to visit, and sharing her Korean insight with us.

Travel Reflections: Houses

We have our suburban little boxes all in a row, and Koreans have their urban big boxes all in a row. In Seoul and all the big and, as I discovered, all the medium-sized cities as well, these nearly identical-looking huge apartment blocks are everywhere.

I was invited inside two of these apartments while in Seoul, one somewhat small and modest, the other larger and more lavish, but both furnished western-style - although in one, when snacks were served on the coffee table, we got off the sofa and sat on the floor to eat them. Clearly the high-rise is space efficient, and the Koreans I met seem quite happy to be living in them.

My vision of what a Korean house would be like was somewhat different, originating in - you guessed it - Korean dramas. The historical dramas showed the very traditional Korean house (like this one at the Korean folk village in Suwon):

But even in the dramas showing modern life, many families - especially the good families, the ones who are honest, and generous, and loyal, and who love Korea - are depicted as living in traditional Korean-style houses. These houses, like the old ones, generally have a gated entrance leading into a court yard or reception area with a series of rooms built around it, all opening into the central area, something like this:

In these houses the inhabitants still conduct most of their living (visiting, watching TV, eating, etc.) sitting on the floor; mats are rolled out at night for sleeping on the floor as well. There is always a low table in the reception area, and eating and visiting with guests is conducted there.

The bad guys in the dramas - the power-hungry, the deceivers, the connivers, the ones careless of Korean virtues - they tend to be richer, and live in western-style houses and apartments. They don't usually sit on the floor, unless they are conniving to hoodwink the good innocent Koreans.

In my travels around the country, I wanted to see if people outside the big cities still built, and lived in, traditional-style houses.

In my very limited time, my only means of seeing this was from a train window.

And in every town, yes, I saw groups of traditional-style housing from my window, usually surrounded by fields of crops. I tried taking pictures as the train whizzed by:

This particular township actually looks more prosperous than many I saw. Many of these areas with traditional houses seemed seedy and run-down. Here seem to live farmers, people who have, by choice or necessity, not partaken so much of the financial benefits of Korea's economic boom. Everywhere near these townships, on flat patches of ground and up hillsides and along riverbeds and surrounding the houses there are fields, big, medium-sized and small, with an amazing variety of crops. There are large, mechanized farms to be sure, but also many of these small farms where family farmers still appear to be working the land and eking out a living.

My mind was absorbed with speculating on the lives of the people living in these places. From the dramas, it would seem there is enormous camaraderie, lots of visiting back and forth, lots of gossip (!) lots of hard work, lots of strict roles between men and women, old and young, bosses and workers, lots of intergenerational living. Home life is lived half indoors and half out - sinks for washing and teethbrushing are often outside in the courtyard, a lot of food is prepared outside, etc.

A translator of Korean into English commented on the cultural difficulties of translating. For example, to write "He entered the house" may conjure up a very different image in the mind of a westerner and the mind of a Korean. The Korean may think of the courtyard or reception area, and open air, and almost public visiting space, and not the private interior of a home, with the door closing behind, as a westerner is likely to imagine.

And so, with no time or sufficient language skills and perhaps without the courage to actually go to small villages and seek to interact with the people, I speculate on the different houses and how they affect our relationships and activities and values and lives. And I watch out the window as the train whizzes by:

Time Now for Reflection

The Korean adventure is drawing to a close. In the end, I spent more time in California than in Korea, so it turned out quite differently than I expected. Still, I pursued the goal of learning some Korean, and I did have some grand times and met some wonderful people.

In the coming month, to fulfill the requirements of the sabbatical as well as my own desire, I must comment on the following:

• Experiencing language learning as an older learner
• Comparing the different approaches and methodologies used in second language instruction from the student's perspective
• Finding ways to have immersion practice when not living in the country where the language is spoken
• Developing relationships with Korean individuals
• Finding ways to maintain connections to life in Korea and the acquaintances I have made there
• Observing Korean culture through travel
• Reflecting on Korean literature through translation

I will try to make these comments here on the blog during the month of August. Stay tuned.

Back to Korea One More Time

On June 9 I'll be returning to Seoul to meet my brother and sister-in-law, who are now on a 5-week trip traveling around Japan and Korea. We plan to spend a few days together in Seoul and then travel to Gyeongju, Busan and Jeju Island. I am looking forward to being back one more time and having a chance to see more of the country. - and in warm weather again!! It'll be short; I'll be back in the States June 19 - just in time to take my final exam in my Korean class at De Anza. But the real final test, for me, will be to see how well I can communicate in Korea. Should be fun!

What Teaching Method is the Best?

"The superior teacher has regularly gotten superior results regardless of method."

In my year's journey as a student I have experienced these sets of teachers:

• teachers at Yonsei Korean Language Institute who were thoroughly trained in one particular method and had to rigidly adhere to it;
• teachers at De Anza Community College who had complete freedom to choose and execute a method (though still required to use a particular text);
• teachers at Adroit College who were loosely trained in one method and had freedom to adapt and apply it, using the required text as much or as little as they saw fit.

Through these experiences I have learned that:

• sometimes a method that seems bad can bring out good learning;
• it's very difficult for a teacher to change her method for the better (though somewhat easier to change it for the worse!);
• a teacher's commitment to her chosen method and attitude towards her students matters a great deal.

I will illustrate with some examples.

Teacher A. This was my favorite teacher at Yonsei. Committed to the Yonsei method (described in detail earlier in this blog, with its plusses and minuses) she executed it with liveliness and enthusiasm, sweeping us along, giving us no time to question it, making us committed too, inspiring us to work hard. She paid attention to the individual student, helping or challenging each of us at our particular level. It was good, and I learned a lot!

But there was a mystery toward the end with this teacher. I still think about it - the student who crumpled. It was another American student, the only one who was having more trouble than I was. For some reason, she stopped helping him out. When he had to perform a dialogue he couldn't remember or answer a question he didn't understand, she started letting him squirm in front of everyone. Sometimes she laughed at his struggles. The student started to be absent, started to do worse and worse. Another method might have worked better for him, and he did begin to complain about the Yonsei method, determined to go to another institute for the following term. But I don't believe that's the reason his learning stalled. How could he possibly do better, with any method, when he worried about being humiliated every day?

I wonder why the teacher changed with this student. Was there pressure on her to have all her students meet the standards of the class and pass on to the next level, and she felt frustrated at her own failure? Did she just feel he wasn't studying enough and lose patience? Why would she take what she did best and chuck it at the end?

Teacher B. This teacher, also from Yonsei, was the only one I felt I didn't learn much from. Why was she a teacher? Maybe she just hated the Yonsei method and was in despair because she couldn't develop her own teaching style and method. Who knows? She was so lifeless, so robotic, so unseeing of the individual students, so unable to match what she was teaching to what we were understanding, that I would mentally go to sleep during much of her class. She didn't dwell on us too much if we couldn't answer her questions, so we didn't worry too much about feeling humiliated, but she was unable to inspire us because she didn't show interest in our learning. She showed no desire to get student feedback on her teaching, seemed anxious to leave the classroom as soon as possible at the end of class, called in sick when she obviously wasn't - I believe the possibility of improvement was too far away for this teacher, and she knew it and wasn't interested in it. She used the same method as Teacher A but with a radically different attitude, so learning was stalled.

Teacher C. This teacher at De Anza spoke in English for 99% of each class. The only times we heard Korean were when she read a dialogue and had us repeat lines after her or when she said sentences in Korean to exemplify a grammar point she had just explained in English. She simply talked about Korean - in English. She focused primarily on grammar. She often repeated and repeated her explanations. She almost never had us speak and rarely had us do anything except occasionally write on the board. No pair or group work. No in-class practice. Mostly we just listened to her English.

Anyone would say this is poor language teaching.

And yet... I found the audio files that go with the book on the internet and so was able to supplement class instruction with listening. And she did make the grammar explanations very clear.

And she was very clear about what would be on the exams and exactly what we needed to know. And that required us to...study! The study we did at home was intensive and focused and productive and rewarding. And through that study, we learned.

Did the teacher know her in-class method was not the best? I believe so. She often apologized for being "very boring" and "talking on and on." At the beginning of the first semester I had her, she tried to have us do pair work and activities that were suggested in the text, but she soon gave it up. I don't think she could see the learning we were getting from our struggles. She was a lecturer. That's what she was comfortable doing. Her greatest teaching value seemed to be unambiguous clarity, and the learning outcome she valued most was correct grammar use. She knew we wouldn't understand grammar explanations clearly if she used Korean, so she used English. She saw the students falling asleep, typing on their IPhones, passing notes.... but she didn't change.

She did have a secret weapon. She showed the students, every day and in many ways, that she cared about them. She cared that we learned. She cajoled us, nudged us, praised us, gave us pep talks. She came to the class every day 30 minutes early so she could meet with any student who had questions. She was the only teacher who expressed such a passion for learning.

So even though the in-class methodology was disappointing, I learned a great deal from the work I was inspired to do for this teacher and this class.

Teacher D. This teacher at Adroit College used Korean in the class all the time, so we really got to hear it, and that was great. Classes at Adroit are quite small (3-6 students) so we had some opportunity to speak ourselves, and we talked about our lives and what was going on in the world and many things of interest to us besides what was in the text.

But unlike the teaching at Yonsei or De Anza, there was little structure in what was being taught. The teacher seemed to feel that just using Korean, any Korean, constituted teaching and learning. So - she gave us lists of vocabulary words to memorize, and even tested us on the words, but we rarely saw these words in context, rarely used the words in class. She gave us exercises to do in a workbook, but only spent about 15 minutes in a 2-hour class going over the workbook and introducing the next week's exercises. We rarely practiced with the material in the textbook or did anything except give the answers. And for 90% of the class, even though the class was so small, the teacher talked.

The students weren't too happy about some of this and twice gave the teacher suggestions to change. One student suggested we try to use the vocabulary words we studied during the class. The teacher gave a long defense on why she does the vocabulary the way she does, saying, in part, that she has to do it that way because students are lazy and won't learn any other way.

Another day another student suggested the students would like to have more time during class for "conversation." The teacher gave a long defense of why she doesn't have students speak more, saying, in part, that she has to do the talking because we students don't know Korean well enough to say anything well.

It was only when the teacher's teaching method was challenged that she showed any negative feelings towards the students. Normally she was very supportive and encouraging, always came to class early and stayed late, talked to us during the breaks, etc. Perhaps she was just frustrated with our inability to learn faster and thought that throwing a lot of language at us was the best way to help us, and the best she could offer.

Did we learn anyway? I wasn't so inspired to do a lot of outside study and preparation for this class, and I agreed with the students she could have made our learning more efficient and rewarding. Yet, because of the small class size and opportunity to use (or at least hear) Korean for actual communication about things we cared about, I was always mentally active and engaged during the class. The teacher was skillful at keeping her language to a level we could more or less understand, and I certainly improved my listening ability, which I desperately needed. And amazingly, I did learn - and still remember - a lot of vocabulary from memorizing those lists. So yeah, we learned.

We teachers pick what our particular study and experience has shown us to be the best method(s), or what helped us most when we were learning another language, or what best fits our own personalities and values, or what seems the easiest or most fun, or... there are many reasons why we choose to teach as we do.

For me, the greatest lesson is:

Whatever method we choose, if we teach it with passion and caring, most students will choose to learn.

What's in a Name?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" says the enamored Romeo.

Samuel Coleridge Taylor expressed a similar sentiment:

Ah! replied my gentle fair,

Beloved, what are names but air?

Choose thou, whatever suits the line:

Call me Sappho, cal me Chloris,

Call me Lalage, or Doris,

Only, only call me thine.

But these were supremely confident lovers, secure in what they had. In Toni Morrison's Beloved, her character expresses something quite different. When Beloved comes to lie down with Paul D, she cries, "And you have to call me my name....Call my name...Please call it."

If you are alone, or unrecognized, or searching for an identity in a foreign environment, the assurance of having a name, your own name, can be important.

At Adroit College, we are required to use Korean names. If we're not Korean, the teacher makes up a name for us.

The Korean name I was given at Adroit College is 민백영, pronounced something like Min Baek Yeong. I have been called by that name for the past 2 years that I have been taking classes there.

In Korea, though, the name I went by was 마가넷, or Ma Ga Let. No one suggested I should go by any other name. That was fine with me.

Perhaps I'm lucky that I have a name that exists - and/or sounds good (to me at least) - in other languages. Living in France and Zaire I went by Marguerite or Maguy, and Margarita in Guatemala. When I hear one of these versions of Margaret, including the Korean MaGaLet, it still sounds like my name, like me. When I hear Min Baek Young, it sounds like someone else.

I understand the teacher's thinking - if we have a Korean name, we will feel more "Korean," we will immerse into the culture more, we will get used to Korean names, and so on. But I don't think it works. I think it backfires. It adds an additional tension, an additional insecurity, to a situation that is already difficult and tense.

I think now about the names of our students, and how some of them have taken the step to adopt an American name, and what it might have cost them to do so. I think of others who have no wish at all to adopt an American name, and I sympathize with them.

I also recognize something new. Sometimes, when I, as a teacher, would ask students their name, they would pronounce it in the "American" way, using English sounds. This would confuse me, or irritate me, because I wanted to try to pronounce their name "correctly." But now I see that maybe the pronunciation of their name using English sounds IS their American name, the name they want to use here - an American twist on what still remains their own name, a comfortable way to bridge the gap between the two cultures and languages.

Back in the US - the project continues

I've been taking time adjusting to life back in the States. But it's time to get serious with Korean again. I have an alternate plan to finish my sabbatical project here in the US:

Continue studying Korean for 200 more hours, including:

Elementary Korean 3 at De Anza College for 60 hours

3 20-hour evening courses at Adroit college

80 hours of self-study using any combination of:

-Rosetta Stone

-Yonsei Level 2 materials, which I brought back from Korea

-textbooks and audio materials I have at home

-private tutoring

-online courses and study material

Document 100 more hours of immersion activities, including:

doing homework for courses

watching Korean TV, dramas and movies

learning Korean song lyrics

conversing with shopkeepers at local Korean establishments

engaging in activities with local Koreans I may meet

exchanging emails with newly-made Korean friends in Korea

reading Korean newspapers, children's books, readers, etc.

Continue writing in the blog (so I better do it!), focusing on:
experiencing language learning as an older learner

finding opportunities for immersion activities outside of Korea

developing relationships with local Koreans

reflecting on Korean literature in translation

comparing different learning approaches and methodologies

maintaining connections to life in Korea and acquaintances there

Prepare an annotated bibliography of narrative literature written by immigrants from Korea to the the US - a project suggested by Cynthia Solem, who will be compiling an extensive bibliography of immigration literature from many countries (but not Korea!) for her upcoming sabbatical.

Take one more short trip to Korea (hoped for - but not required)

I obviously miss being in Korea, but it's good to be home, too, and these projects should keep me busy!

Final Entry from Korea

One more day in Korea, and then I'll be heading home. These last two weeks have been packed.

A sampling of some activities:

A culinary tour with friends Charles and Yvonne and others where we sampled a lot of traditional Korean foods at one restaurant and sampled a bunch of Korean drinks - and ate more food - at another with an intervening visit to a museum devoted to art featuring... chickens!

Saying good-bye to local vendors I have come to know, such as this one where I would often buy coffee and practice my sparse Korean:

A trip to the town of Cheon-An, an hour's bus ride out of Seoul, to visit a Korean friend's hometown and visit Independence Hall, a museum dedicated to independence movements during the Japanese occupation of Korea and all that happened during those years:

A hike on Bukhansan Mountain, just on the outskirts of Seoul...

with friend Yvonne...

and a large percentage of the Seoul populace!

Quite a few lunches and dinners with Korean, Japanese (former classmates from Yonsei) and American friends I got to know:

This is just a sampling! Many days have been full of activities, but I've also had time to sit in my quiet 15th floor apartment, look out over the wide expanse of Seoul that I can see, and contemplate these last months here. They've been good months, hard at times but always interesting, and I definitely will miss this place.

Listening/speaking vs Reading/writing.

Some learners are better with the oral language, and some with the written.

In Korean, I am definitely NOT better with the oral language.

When I was in California I picked up this book from the library:

Lo and behold - even though it's called an INTERMEDIATE (!) Reader - I found I could actually understand much of it:

Not bad, huh?

But yet ... here I am after 4 moths of living here and 10 weeks of intensive study - and I still can't carry on even a minimal conversation with most people I meet casually in shops, in my apartment building, etc.

I CAN kind of converse with Korean friends on a familiar topic; we sit down together and when we speak slowly and with the vocabulary that's familiar to me I can carry on a minimal conversation.

But not in casual encounters. I just can't catch what people say to me, and even if I do, I get so tongue-tied I usually can't get any words out. It just all happens so fast!

How frustrating.

I ran into a classmate the other day - an American who completed Level 2 (a whole level more than me) at Yonsei. She said she couldn't speak much either. We both agreed this was a problem with the Yonsei method. (Ah, it's not entirely OUR fault!!) Because everything was so controlled, we almost never had spontaneous conversation. We were taught to speak methodically, and always correctly, but not freely. We did a lot of classroom listening, and I listened to a lot of tapes - but I never heard anything like I hear in the casual encounters I have "on the street."

So now what? I'm leaving Korea in a week.

Well, I'll just have to find Korean folks back home and keep working to remedy this situation.

All of us ESL teachers have had students whose reading and writing skills far surpass their listening and speaking. Sometimes I get a student in an advanced class who writes beautifully - but can still hardly carry on a simple conversation. I now have great sympathy for such students. Maybe through my own struggles I will learn something new that I can pass on. Now that will be an accomplishment!