In Seoul

I made it this far! This is the view from my hotel room - there is Namsan (or "South Mountain" - the hill behind the buildings) and the Seoul tower right there in the hazy background. Somehow I managed to get my tons of luggage and myself to this hotel last night, had a good sleep, and spent this morning walking around. Now this afternoon I'm sitting in my cool hotel room and contemplating next steps.

Some early observations:

Traveling alone: not easy! Things that seem easy with a partner seem daunting when doing them alone. Fortunately, the need for food, and money - and coffee! - and the need to learn - force me out the door.

Speaking Korean: Day 1: Total failure! Every time I tried to say something to someone in Korean, they either just looked at me and said "huh?" - or acted as though I hadn't spoken at all. In the end, it was just easier to use English - almost everyone I spoke to had at least a smattering of English, and I became too intimidated to try any more Korean. Day 2 (today): partial success! I could not figure out how to set the air conditioning in my room - so with a combination of English, Korean and sign language I asked a maid about it. Turned out I had been monkeying with the floor heating settings instead of the air conditioner - when she saw what I had done she looked aghast, punched a bunch of buttons, said "hot, hot!' and "No touch, no touch." The air conditioner control turned out to be a remote control device I had overlooked. In all this I did keep saying things in Korean like "It's too hot" and "I don't know how." Whether she understood my Korean words or just the gestures I don't know, but at least she didn't say "Huh?"

Seoul: Wild and crazy! Traffic like Guadalajara (ie it doesn't move; lanes are narrow with no shoulders; taxis, buses, motorcycles, cars all vie with each other over any possible space that opens up to move forward). Layout of the city seems complicated with hills and tunnels and twisting roadways seeming to separate and intertwine sections. Lots of standard, block-style high-rises, and a few spectacularly dramatic modern buildings, art work, arenas, bridges, etc. Lots of pedestrians. In my hotel area, there is a mixture of main thoroughfares and big buildings and places like Starbucks and KFC and Dunkin Donuts and signs in English, and little alleys with little shops and sidewalk venders and mysterious stairways and nothing in English. So far I have only ventured into establishments on the main thoroughfares, but time and growing (hopefully!) confidence may lead me down some of those alleys...

Night comes early here in Seoul; it's now almost 4 o'clock and daylight will end soon, so I'll be off for one more foray.

I'm Off

I'll be catching the plane in a few hours and arrive in Seoul tomorrow evening. This week has been busy with all the packing and gathering of documents and advice and saying good-bye and whatnot. Someone asked me how I was feeling. Excited? Yes. Nervous? Yes. But mostly amazed - that all the preparation and anticipation is over and the actual journey about to begin. I am also feeling that I will miss dear friends and family and home... but onward to Seoul I go.

Packing

Somehow all of this:

Has to fit into this:

Hmmm...

How to Learn Korean

How to learn Korean? I wish I knew. I teach students how to learn English as a second language, but I am not at all sure I can apply what I teach to learning Korean myself. So for now I turn to a different expert .

Kato Lomb supposedly was proficient in 17 different languages. She began learning languages as an adult and took up her last language, Hebrew, at age 86. Wow - she even impressed Stephen Krashen, who was inspired by her to take up a new language at age 54. How did SHE do it? The main thing - she taught herself! The drive, the methodology, the persistence, came from her own invention. So that's the main thing I picked up:

• It's not really HOW, it's the inner drive to learn, to question, to figure out, to try, to communicate that makes language learning successful.

I also picked up this:

• Lomb is supremely confident. She KNOWS she can learn. She isn't daunted by the difficulties. So CONFIDENCE really helps.
• Lomb suggests jumping into hard stuff right off the bat. Start reading a book even if you can't understand much of it. If you take a class, try to get into a class more advanced than the one you placed into. Start with a full, thick (even monolingual!) dictionary. Then actively try to figure out what is going on; make your own discoveries about how the language works.

For most of us, this goes against the grain. We want to start at the beginning, go step by step. We want "comprehensible input." We are overwhelmed and frustrated when the material is too hard. But perhaps for the student with enough MOTIVATION and CONFIDENCE, this is a shortcut to faster learning. It worked for Lomb. (Should we give our ESL students who want to take a higher class than they placed into a chance to do this too?)

For me, I do not yet seem to have sufficient motivation and confidence to make this work in learning Korean. But perhaps when I get there...

Colleague Scott Alkire is the one who managed to get this book translated and published in the US, and he wrote a wonderful preface to the book comparing Lomb's experiences to modern Second Language Acquisition theory. The book is available online at TESL-EJ.

What a Sendoff!!!

July 25 - Friends from San Jose City College provided an amazing send-off with banners, balloons, BBQ ribs, chicken, wine, beer, cakes, pies, brownies, candles, flowers, Paul Anka, Stardust, Irish jigs, Korean books, presents, hugs, laughs, talk, comraderie, good will, deep friendship...and more and more! My heart is full and I can only feel deep gratitude and love for such a level of generosity. I loved the party!! I can't wait for Korea - and I can't wait to come back! Thank you!!

A link to pictures will hopefully be added soon.

Takeoff

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Asiana Airlines   12hr 10min |  5639 miles

So there it is - scheduled takeoff and arrival in Korea.  

The Korean Consulate

Well, I managed to get... a 3-month student visa.    So I will have to get it renewed in Korea.  But that's fine - it will give me an activity to do!  Here's the Korean Consulate in San Francisco - a lovely spot atop a hill on Clay Street overlooking the bay.  They were not encouraging, though, about my plan to study AND teach.  If I study - no, no, I cannot teach.  If I get a teaching contract, I can get a teaching visa - but then, no, no, I cannot study.   So, I will begin by being a temporary student, and see what happens after that.