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!

A Stab at Korean Literature

Luckily for me, Charles Montgomery introduced me to the Portable Library of Korean Literature - a collection of short translated works by modern Korean authors. He even loaned me a bunch of books. These, together with a few I bought, are all short, so I started reading - well, skimming - them all.

The books were often interesting reads, but they often were a bit mystifying too. So many stories seemed symbolic - but of what? I felt I lacked the background to even guess what the writer was trying to communicate. I also felt a "sameness" about so many of the works; the themes, the plots, the characters, the style, the use of language all seemed repetitive. Being unable to discriminate, I was clearly missing a great deal!

So I'm going back and reading some of them more carefully. Acknowledging I lack the background to actually understand these books, I'm going to comment simply on how the books affected me.

First work: The Wings (or Wings) by Yi Sang.

I'm already troubled by problems of translation. Should the title be Wings, or should it be The Wings? (It's variously translated as either.) It makes a difference in English.

Soon the story reveals itself as a whole lot of often surrealistically-unrelated sentences - basically, a puzzle to try to figure out. But to figure out a puzzle, the clues (ie the words) have to be really clear. On page 1 we get this:

"I again plan a life with a woman. I am a spiritual straggler who has been, so to speak, after a momentary peep at crystalized intellectualism, alienated from the strategies of love."

(Hey, does that sentence make anybody want to read the book??)

But I find elsewhere a different translation:

"Again, with a woman, I draw up a plan of life, a scheme of one whose spirit has gone mad after a glimpse of the ultimate reason, a man whose lovemaking technique has grown awkward."

(At least now we know "strategies of love" refers (apparently) to sex - so maybe we do want to read it after all!)

Just contemplating the the different possible meanings in these two translations could take a year !

OK, translation is always a problem. So let's forget it, and assume every word is as Yi Sang intended.

Actually, there are 3 stories in the book. All have a similar narrator - an alienated, maladjusted, confused, powerless, sickly - but imaginative (!) - protagonist who tries to make sense of the incomprehensible world around him. In each story he has a young "wife" whose main quality seems to be that she has sexual relationships with other men, usually for money, and all the "action" of the stories centers around dealing with this situation. Repeated themes or images that struck me in all the stories are the elusive passage of time and memories, the contrast of day and night, deception, hunger and fatigue, not understanding the world before one's eyes - even having/shaving facial hair! (Examining the references to facial hair in the different stories could make a nice student essay). In all, the narrator seems Hamlet-like, trying to figure out what he should or shouldn't do to deal with the deception around him, but ultimately ineffective, powerless. His imminent death - whether through disease or self-destruction - seems to lurk nearby in all the stories.

SPOILER warning.

All the endings of the stories touched me.

The Wings ends with a seemingly simple poem, simple cry for freedom:

"I stopped my pace and wanted to shout.

Wings, spread out again!

Fly! Fly! Fly! Let me fly once more.

Let me fly just once more."

When did he "fly" before? Not clear. But in the penultimate paragraph he describes his "wings" as "the deleted phantasms of hope and ambition" that "flashed in my mind like the flipping pages of a pocket dictionary." That image - all those words tossed out of the dictionary and thrown on the "sheet of white paper" that "opens in my head" on the first page of the story - maybe he just wants the white sheet again, the creative possibilities where, even though "the body sways from fatigue" (and so he may soon die), "the soul sparkle(s) like a new, shiny coin" (ah, the money symbol, with all its hope and promise).

The end of the second story specifically refers to the grand theme of deception:

"It is but a dream to deceive,

But so too is being deceived,

Twisting, turning, wandering life,

Set fire to your shadowy heart-"

For me, a searing, haunting final line.

At the end of the last story, he is presented with a knife and choices (ah, Hamlet):

He can kill someone in revenge (presumably to repay deception)

He can kill himself and get out of it all.

Or...

He can use the knife to peel an ordinary round, lukewarm tangerine, and just go on. As he anticipates the taste of the tangerine, "tears like the vaporous steam forming on a cooling glass well up in my eyes." Wow - hot tears on cold eyes. Fire on a shadowy heart. Night and day. Passion and alienation. Truth and deception. Unbearable. Irreconcilable. Such is our existence.

Yi Sang lived and died (at the age of 27) during the Japanese occupation of Korea, during which he was imprisoned and presumably mistreated for "thought crimes." Supposedly much of the content of the stories is autobiographical, including the descriptions of poverty and ill health and a woman in his life similar to the one(s) in the stories. A sad, short life - but filled with creative passion and a gift of reading for later generations.

I may have totally misunderstood this book, whether because of the translation or my ignorance of the context in which it was written, but I had a good time searching for its meaning for me.