Life teaching as a Fulbright recipient in Korea

by: anna anderson
Guest Writer '05

Editor’s Note: Anna is currently teaching English in South Korea as part of the Fulbright program. She graduated from SAU in May ’05

It’s been about eight weeks since I became, abruptly, an English Teacher’s Assistant (ETA) at an all-girls high school in southeastern South Korean. I’m slowly settling into a routine. Too early in the morning I struggle out of bed to eat breakfast of rice, kimchi, and numerous other steamed or fried vegetables with my host family.

I catch a ride to school with one of the office administrators and on the way we practice English and Korean vocabulary.

From my point of view, the part of the country I’m in looks like it’s unfinished. Shops and restaurants perched in the middle of a small field, and the start of apartment complexes long ago abandoned.

Often I feel restless or stressed because everything seems to be in a constant state of flux, always hurrying, trying to catch up with the rest of the developed world.

Although the title "Teaching Assistant," might imply that I assist an actual teacher, I am in charge of 14 classes, in addition to a few teachers’ workshops that are discussion-based. This project is orientated around the individual teacher and Fulbright does not tell me what to teach or how.

A few other Fulbright teachers were given textbooks or outlines to follow by their schools, but I have full control of my classes and have found lesson planning to be somewhat of a challenge.

One thing that makes lesson planning difficult is the way the classes are set up. At my school the classes are grouped by educational track, such as sciences and liberal arts, but not necessarily by ability in any one area. Because of this, in each of my classes there may be one student who can comfortably converse with me, and another student who cannot understand a word I say.

The students stay with the same class and the same 29 other students for the entire semester. They have their own room, homeroom teacher, and hierarchy of leadership—a captain, vice-captain, etc.

They interact with other classes during lunchtime and breaks, but for the most part, they are together all day from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 or 11:00 p.m., every day with the exception of Sundays and one Saturday a month.

Around noon I head to the cafeteria for more rice, kimchi, one or two fried vegetables, fruit, and soup. After lunch I either return to my desk to catch up on e-mail, or join other teachers at the school gym to practice badminton or lose a game of ping-pong.

I finish my work around 4:30 and start for calligraphy class, language class, or on the rare day, home, where my youngest host sister runs, screaming, to hug me hello. My language classes are in another city an hour away and I catch a ride with the French teacher who lives there. Her accent is a beautiful combination of French and Korean sounds and we spend a comfortable hour chatting.

Adjusting to life here has been an adventure, from the pop-star welcome that I received the first days of teaching, to being mistaken for Russian (although there have been no propositions, to be mistaken for a tall, blonde, Russian means only a handful of things), to trying to figure out where I, as the youngest teacher, yet a tall, fair-haired native English speaking American, fit into the school’s system of hierarchy.

In my effort to adapt to and understand the culture, I try to do things the "Korean" way as much as possible.

During the first few weeks however, I noticed that I was starting to pick up what I saw as the overly apologetic posture and attitude of some of the other female teachers at my school.

I have to be culturally sensitive, but I need to also remember that this project isn’t about becoming Korean, but about being American. I don’t need to lose what I see as the positive aspects of my own culture.

There’s so much more to tell—like the different systems of Korean language romanization, the drinking culture, what it’s like behind the language barrier, which is a comfortable but false defense, eating with thin metal chopsticks, and getting socks from the principal.