The Deeper Hole I Dig

It seems no matter how hard you try, no matter how many times you swear up, even if you resort to swearing down, the thing you avoid latches on to you. You become more and more indebted to this thing until it controls your life, affords the very air you breathe and floor (quite literally) you sleep on.

I'm speaking again, of course, of how my life has taken not just a turn but a plunge into teaching. I am now currently the jovial proctor of an unsuspecting four students ages six to forty-three. Ever the glutton for punishment, it would seem that one private student and five weeks of 8 hour per day teaching wasn't enough for me. No, I am now teaching a mother and her two children as well. In a way it's good practice for teaching the young children that I'll be handling in January, something I have very little experience with. While I do need the money of added tutoring, this job did not come without extraordinary pressure.

When I first met my new students, it was a week ago Sunday. I went to their home in ApGuJeong (the wealthy portion of the city) and was greeted warmly. Unfortunately, it didn't take me long to realize that none of my three new students were fluent enough for my previous teaching style. The children, 6 and 8, barely knew any English. They new a little grammar and a few words and greetings, but that was all. Their mother, on the other hand, has zero grasp of grammar but knows more vocabulary. In all three cases, it is not an option to teach these people English in English. Some of you by now have already realized that indeed that means I am teaching English in Korean. I, incapable of buying hangers and towels, am teaching in Korean. Needless to say, I was outrageously concerned about the weight of this job.

After meeting and determining schedule I came back that Tuesday (Halloween) for my first session. Every session is three hours long. I have not spoken three hours of consecutive Korean since I stepped off that plane on August 13th, or in my life for that matter. I have never had to think outside English non-stop for more that two hours, and that's in Korean class, mostly reading and listening and little individual production. Teaching means that I do the majority of the production, and unlike a need for bed spread this is not something that I can blunder my way through with out consequences. I am being paid good money for every session so that this woman and her kids learn English. The pressure was enormous.

On assuredly the most terrifying Halloween of my lifetime, I rose to the sixth floor of their apartment, new textbook in tow for the mother, heart pounding.

Each student poses unique challenges and benefits to me. The 8 year-old, their daughter, has had one more year of English than her younger brother. She can read children's books and recognize 85% of the words and is a calm child. She'll sit and focus on what we're working on, but she is shier than a nun in the red light district. Her English voice is mousy at boldest, and she refuses to tell me if she doesn't understand a sentence or a word without my badgering it out of her. Her brother is the exact opposite. Though he's studied less, he's thrilled to shout what English he does know. He's receptive to knew words and phrases, but not to correction. He lacks all focus and discipline. When I first walked in the house, he was jumping about at my legs, and as I spoke to the parents about scheduling he was busy scaling walls or vaulting the ten thousand dollar sofas. The mother is very dedicated to learning. She is not in school, doesn't have a job, and has no defined reason to learn English other than sheer interest. Because she's driven by desire to learn she's a very hard worker. Unfortunately, it's going to be much harder for her than for the children to pick up a second language. I can tell already that she's frustrated with the grammar, but she's willing to accept that frustration. She's also really interested in the speaking and idioms that we talk about, the interesting part, the living English. Not slang, per se, but odd uses of verbs like to "hang up" a phone or to "take" a test.

All in all I guess I'm happy with what I've got. They are at the very least the most challenging Korean experience thus far, pushing me to use what I didn't think I even had. After the first day I was relieved to realize that the parents were happy with the job I was doing and the children were enamored already. The first meeting, the "test," was over, and now they too will become part of my routine. At the end of our session on Tuesday night, the children came up to me and gave me a piece of candy each, proclaiming proudly "Happy Halloween!" A little backwards, to be sure.