Heading into our third week at Jiguchon, our group should have been imbued with a long-awaited sense of relief and belonging. Instead, we were the most anxious we had been the entire trip. Although we had finally settled into a groove after teaching for two weeks, the daunting prospect of teaching recently immigrated students weighed heavily on our minds.

Ethically, we had to grapple with our role in the school. It was obvious to us that these children’s main focus should be learning Korean. What then was the point of us teaching them English? We feared that we would just burden them with unnecessary knowledge or distract them from their present schooling. Yet, over the course of the week, our concerns were abated as the children responded extremely well to the materials and games we provided.

Logistically, I was also scared that my inability to speak Korean or Chinese, the two dominant languages of the school, would be exacerbated. The multicultural class presented the unique challenge of being relatively new to the country, whereas the other classes were able to speak Korean. This was just one less avenue for our group to communicate with the kids and I could not rely on others to translate for me. This week has by far been my most creative in terms of physical movements, Google Translate, and random Sino/Korean terms I have picked up in the past few weeks.

I was able to connect with the kids with my very limited Chinese and a common goal of learning Korean. As they learned English terms, we really stressed the repetition of their Korean equivalent, killing two birds in one stone by reinforcing their Korean recollection as well as teaching English. This was easily accomplished when I found out the mainly Chinese speakers had been given Korean flashcards to help them learn occupations. We quickly adapted our occupation study set to match theirs and this really helped the kids work on their Korean as well as their English. This forced repetition also made it easier for me to learn Korean as well. It was important that I stressed to the children that I was also learning at every moment. Our relationship evolved from teacher and student to peers striving towards the same goals. Being on equal footing really motivated both myself and the children.

For the past two weeks, I had been able to bond with the children through energy and comedy, whether it be by playing with my hair, burneying through the cha cha slide, or introducing thumb wars to a very enthusiastic demographic (I carry hand sanitizer at all times now). Although it is deeply fulfilling to bring a smile onto the faces of all the children, I felt like I could not connect personally with the children as my classmates who shared common languages with them. Yet now that I was able to work with kids that were not only extremely proficient in English but also extremely motivated and engaged. Our small class already had dreams of becoming translators (Gordon and Forjune), doctors (Hanly), and even MD/MBAs (looking at my girl Eunice).

Another thing that worked extremely well was splitting into smaller groups based on proficiency. The English disparity was extremely obvious from the beginning as younger students like Ki Hyung and Mi Ju did not even know the alphabet while Eunice and Gordon were able to form complex sentences and carry conversations. Our advanced class was filled with the best English speakers in the school and they stumped me at every game I threw at them, from word scrambles, crosswords, and even Hangman.

Middle school

Although we only had two days with the middle schoolers as usual, it was quite an eventful week. We had to make the difficult decision of allowing our most proficient student, Yo un, graduate as Thomas noticed that she was comprehending and responding well in his optional English block. Although Yo Un was extremely important for motivating the others in our class as well as translating tough phrases into Chinese for the non-Korean speakers, her growth was undeniable and her “graduation” was bittersweet.

As for the curriculum, Leandro and I have taken to polling the students about their favorite movies and songs in order to hold their attention. This has worked extremely well in that regard; however it is difficult to account for the unpredictability of their requests. Explaining love and longing to middle schoolers have led to our best and funniest conversations yet.

Our last week at Jiguchon will be very bittersweet but I cannot wait for the end of the year celebration.

Lisa braiding my hair during one of our breaks

End of a successful week! (Kim Mi Ju is sad to see us go though)

Celebrating Huong’s Birthday and Learning about everyone else’s!

Taught the middle schoolers how to tie a tie in English!