::A Geek in Korea::

All of my students successfully completed their first unit test of our new book after a month of study. The test I gave them this week was identical to the test they took to get into their current level. We used the first unit as a placement test to see what classes the students would be suitable for in our school. Since this was the second time they had seen this test, I expected marginally better scores from all of my students.

One of my new students scored a 3 out of 53 questions. This is only because he was able to guess correctly on some true and false questions where he had better odds to come up with a correct answer. Anything he wrote himself was entirely wrong. Not "Oh, close but not good enough for partial credit" wrong, but "What the hell is this?" sort of wrong. He didn’t know how to use the past tense, or the idea of "the past tense" as a concept. He didn’t know how to correctly use the "Be" verb, which I’ve taught to kindergarten students with enough time. Simple stuff that he had to have learned in multiple levels multiple times hasn’t sunk in. The fact that he couldn’t write simple sentences should have been a clue he wasn’t ready for a class that has "weekly journal writing" as a requirement.

He’s not a rotten kid, he just doesn’t know any English. He’s got a good sense of humor about his complete cluelessness. I’ve seen students act much more poorly than he has when confronted with a test where they didn’t know a single thing.

The boy has been studying at the school for several months. I know who the previous teacher was, but I don’t know what kind of score he got on his placement test. I also don’t know what that other teacher spent his class time doing. Nothing "stuck". Whatever his score was the last time he took this test, there was NO way he was prepared to be in this class. He’s never completed an assignment, done his homework, or been able to answer a simple question on his own. I spent class time I could have better used helping teach other students so that I could catch this student up on his work. Whatever he got on his placement test ultimately didn’t affect where he ended up in our school. The whole placement test schtick we got from the manager was complete crap.

I actually called out my manager on this, and he acted surprised to hear the student had done so poorly. He’s gotten to be know as a very poor liar around the school, so I held up the test as evidence. He seemed to get the point, what with all the red marker on the page. There is now evidence that he isn’t in the right level other than his total lack of effort.

The student doesn’t have a clue what is going on, so moving him down a level or two would probably be best. The age problem will probably be the biggest stopping problem, as he’s already too old to go down any farther than he is, and to get him on the right level would mean he was learning with students three to four years younger. This is a huge no-no in Korean culture, and I can just imagine what it would do for class dynamics. This is less than ideal for anyone.

The only other options are for him to either stick in the class for the six months he was promised, failing every test, wasting my time, only to be told to repeat the material again, or quit the school. I’m not rooting for him to quit, because every student helps pad the bottom line, but I sure as hell don’t want him in my class with his current classmates who are really good. He’s like an iron anchor bringing down the whole class.

I was feeling good walking down the street on the way to get a taxi. I had just eaten at a local restaurant that had a graffitti wall where bored patrons could scribble. I had spent the time while I waited for my meal reading the wall and was satisfied that I could understand lots of the messages. I was feeling good about the amount of Korean I was able to process.

As I crossed the street, I noticed there were organized pairs of Christians handing out small packets of tissues. People use this as a way to get a map to their church with you. They print out the maps, messages, and pictures on the packets of tissues, then hand them out on street corners. You keep the tissues with you when you throw them in your bag or put them in your pocket as you walk by. I personally found that they are good emergency tissues if you run into a bad bathroom somewhere.

99.9% percent of the time I’m annoyed when someone hands me some religious doctrine on the street, especially when they stop me, dig through their purse, then hand me some English version of some strange religious tract. Keep it to yourself. I don’t bother you, don’t bother me. The thing is, I haven’t had a spare set of Jesus tissues (as I call them) in my bag for a while, so I was actually kind of hoping to get offered some. You can never be too prepared if you need to use a public toilet in some bus station some where.

 I walked by and heard them say "Jesus saves" to each person in front of me. Then, right as I was about to be offered a set of tissues to keep for myself, the two ladies look up, see I am a foreigner, retract their arms, and refuse to give me the "Jesus saves" speech in Korean or English. They just act as if I wasn’t there and set on giving out the tissues to the person behind me. It happened at the same time for both ladies, so someone had trained them to react that way. I continued walking by, as this was the first time I ever was left alone by any religious person as I walked down the street. I actually laughed out loud on the street (a bit of a faux pas here), turned around, and watched them continue to hand out the tissues.

I realize I wouldn’t have gone to their church had they offered me the tissues, but neither were any of the other people that went by most likely. They clearly weren’t discriminating with the Korean people on the sidewalk. Why did I get special treatment? Because the didn’t think I could figure out what they were saying? "Jesus saves." How hard is that? Is it because Jesus wasn’t saving non-Koreans with the tissues? Did they assume I was already Christian, which many Koreans tend to do, and think I wasn’t worth their time?

What are the particulars of tissue distribution that I don’t grasp? I really had an urge to walk up, claim a set of tissues for myself, then give them a nice stare as I walked off stuffing them in my bag. Instead, I just walked away to avoid getting involved in a scene. If I get stuck in some bathroom somewhere and end up suffering for them because they withheld their message tissues, I’ll remember it for a long, long time.

I have a child in my kindergarten class that is dependent on me for attention in unbelievable ways. He is the boy in class that will talk to his neighbor when I hold up a picture and say "Color this!", then ask me to repeat the instructions for only him later. When someone asks a question, I answer it for everyone, yet he’ll ask me again and only respond if I talk directly to him.

This boy is four or five years old, and he acts like he’s never seen or done anything on his own before. While he might not have been in a classroom setting before, he has interacted with his environment. I think that anyone could push in a chair and realize it’s hitting a table leg without needing my help.

Today he raised his hands and said (in Korean, of course), "Teacher, I don’t know how to use scissors. Come help me!"

We’ve been using scissors in class for a week, and I didn’t see him ripping or eating the paper before today. Perhaps he didn’t know how to use scissors "well", so I decided to show him. I made an effort to explain it to him. "One hand on the paper in front of you, one hand on the scissors. Move the scissors, not the paper."  I held his wrist and navigated the first shape he needed to cut out. He pretended that he didn’t have the muscle coordination to pull the scissors up and down, but I sort of let him know I wasn’t going to do it for him.

I had to move on to another student who needed help, but when I came back to this boy, he had turned his paper into thin ribbon like strips sliced from the outside. He hadn’t figured out that you could slide the scissors up the place he had just cut to continue cutting out the shape. I showed him what he was supposed to do next, and he picked up the paper.

When I got around to him again, his shirt was covered in confetti. He had cut out the shapes, but all the scrap paper had fallen on him. He looked at me and said, "What do I do now?"

I told him, "Throw it away in the garbage can." He stared at me, then started shaking all the paper off onto the floor. I gave him a look that would have melted iron if I had heat ray vision. I yelled at him that he was going to pick up his mess, not me. He looked at me like the concept of "cleaning up" or "garbage can" was a new word to him in Korean and English. I was shocked.

No basic problem solving skills. No coordination. No focus. No listening. Unless this boy has some sort of mental problem, his mother has so completely taken care of him that he’s never done anything remotely responsible or difficult in his entire life. He’s absolutely impossible to have in class, because he requires the time of five other students to do anything. He’s not bad or mean spirited, just hopelessly time draining and exhausting.

I had a wart on my hand that had grown to be a nuisance over the past few months. Directly on my palm, it was just waiting to get burned off with a laser. The last place I went for outpatient laser surgery was really very expensive for the amount of time and the care provided. For the same basic treatment, I had to pay 50,000 won(~50.00 USD). This is all entirely relative. It’s probably nothing compared to what I would pay in the United States, but in Korea, there are excessive numbers of doctors willing to burn off things with lasers, and it tends to keep the prices down.

The wife and I went to another office, without an appointment, at lunch, and showed our medical card to them. We filled out one small slip of paper, told them I didn’t have any complications from any previous surgery, and waited for the doctor to see us. Total paperwork time: 5 minutes. We waited for the doctor for another ten minutes, then went in to get examined. The doctor spoke no English, but basically said, "Laser it off! No problem. It’s even covered by your health care." Instead of 50,000 won, this surgery cost me 10,000 won, after check ups it’d probably half the cost. The reason the covered the surgery was because the wart happened to be on the hand, meaning it was a work related impairment.

We got to wait some more, then got into the laser procedure room.The doctor came in, put on his surgical gloves, then went around the room looking for something he had forgotten. Whatever it was, he went around touching several objects, returned to his office, then came back. This made us wonder why he bothered putting on the gloves in the first place.  I was told to lie on a table, then they jabbed two needles, with no real warning, directly into my palm. This wasn’t exactly pleasant to experience. I think I know what a fish on a hook must feel like.

After the anesthetic was working, they set to work burning off the skin. They took a good five minutes or so, and the room was smelling like "long pork". It was rather nasty. After the laser was finished, the doctor went to a cabinet to look for something else, but couldn’t find whatever it was he was searching for. A nurse was called over, and then a second nurse, which was the entire staff of this clinic.

It seems I went to the only hospital in the city that was out of gauze. They dabbed some sterilizing goo, then slapped some sort of adhesive over it. I got my prescription and I was out the door. I have to go the entire recovery time without getting my hand wet, which seems like it’s going to be very difficult to do. I have a check up I have to somehow fit into my schedule tomorrow as well. While this place might have been cheaper, and closer to my house, I’m starting to think that money spent on laser surgery might be money well spent.

The problematic basic adult class that gave me the "Children or Food" ultimatum got a dose of their own medicine today. I came into class prepared with a sign up sheet, an attitude, and a plan. Since the students decided they didn’t like what I chose for a topic of discussion, I decided to make the article for the articles they wanted to talk about will be their choice from now on. I gave them a weekly list and let them chose the week they were going to be in charge of finding an English article.

The idea is that if I can’t find something relevant, they will have to find something on their own. This is partially a jab at them, as now they’ll have to see what it’s like trying to find a topic lots of other people will have to talk about in class. It will also act as a sort of homework, where they will have to read English at home to find something to discuss.

Their responsibility is to bring me the article on the Monday so I can copy and distribute it for Wednesday so everyone else can prepare.  On Wednesday, the student who chose the article will have to lead a short introduction about why they decided on the topic, give some background, or lead the discussion group. I’ll be there to help, explain the article, or ask questions.

The last time I tried this experiment, every single time the person that was responsible had to produce something for class, they were absent. I was in a class with 10 students, and suddenly we had a weekly flu problem. We never talked about articles they chose, because they never gave me any. This is why I started preparing articles on my own. I called my class on this behavior already today, and told them that if they start skipping classes each week, I’ll know why. They laughed, but I think they had all considered it.

I sent the sign up sheet around the class three times before someone was bold enough to sign it. Eventually everyone signed, and this will into affect next week. If this turns out to be the cure for their current quiet natures, I’ll be surprised, but having them take more stake in their class would make them realize that it’s their responsiblity as much as mine for them to improve.

Metroid Prime: Hunters is a game I’ve been waiting nearly two years to play. Announced when the Nintendo DS launched, and included in the American package as a bit of a "tech" demo, it’s taken nearly two years for this title to be released. Initially slated to be a simple side story that featured only local wireless play, it was then delayed to add full on WiFi Interent multiplayer content. The single player story line evolved from a simple "side story" about a bounty hunter tournament into a full on single player Metroid adventure nearly as long as the console counterparts that spawned the Metroid as three dimensional shooter concept. The game was released in the United States last Tuesday after several months of delays in which new bounty hunter rivals were added, WiFi was added, and the focus of the gameplay evolved into a Quake 3 style game wrapped around a solid single player experience.

After waiting two years for a copy, my local game shop told me they were getting it in next week. Seeing no other alternative than a trip to Youngsan in Seoul to check to see if anyone imported it, I went downtown by subway hoping that my backup sources might have scored a copy. For once, the poor exchange rate that the United States has with Korean currency helped me, as I got the game a little cheaper than usual. I’ve been playing it more or less no stop whenever I’ve had any free time, and I’m amazed at what they pulled off on a system I didn’t think could do a First Person Shooter (FPS) game like Metroid justice.

Impressions:

I played the first Metroid Prime on the Gamecube, but got fed up with the fetch-quest back tracking that made up most of the second half of the game. I had a hard time revisiting an area and still getting lost and eventually lost interest with some of the aspects of the game. The level design was as if an adventure game like Metroid was thrown into 3D, but the perspective wasn’t  "free looking". Targets were acquired with a "lock-on", which meant that you couldn’t just look around like on a console first person shooter. This made some aspects of the controls a little awkward and was part of the reason I stopped playing.

In Metroid Prime: Hunters, you use the stylus and touch screen for aiming. This may seem odd, but the bottom screen works as a sort of radar and menu, allowing to you shoot and look freely, while the top screen displays the action. This is as close to a portable has come to a workable replacement to the keyboard + mouse set up that most computer FPS games use. It recreates the accuracy and the freedom to explore very well. I’d go as far as to say that Metroid Prime: Hunters is the best game in the portable FPS genre to date in terms of feeling like you are actually interacting in an environment.

The environment in question is a remote set of locations on the edge of the galaxy populated by creatures and fellow bounty hunters. The other bounty hunters are seeking the same goal as you are, and will set up ambushes to try to impede  your progress. As you battle new bounty hunters in single player, they are unlocked in the multiplayer for later use. These bounty hunters are a really cool addition to the Metroid universe, but they pop up at the worst times, like when you trigger a security alarm for stealing a valuable relic and are fleeing a planet before it’s destruction. This leads to a tense deathmatch all while a timer counts down the time you have to return to the ship. Awesome.

I got to play the multiplayer against both bots and my DS owning cousin by marriage. All the different bounty hunters play differently, and have different weapons they excel at using. There were a wealth of options and different modes, but I’d say that this game requires a few people, and possibly a few game cartridges to fully enjoy. Having no connection to WiFi (at the moment), I still need to see how the online battles work, but the lobby/voice chat with friends they included seemed to make it a worthwhile thing to look into.  Wireless internet chat with voice would be perfect wat to talk about the games as you spend the day shooting your friends. I’ll have to put up with shooting the multiplayer bots and practice against the multiple skill levels to be the best bounty hunter in the 25 levels included (!).

The only downside in the gameplay at the moment that I’ve encountered about 50 percent of tthe way into the game is a lack of cool boss battles. The Metroid games are known for unique and difficult boss battles that require a multitude of skills and tactics to defeat. This game seems to repeat two or three bosses. They require a different weapon to take down, but don’t vary like some of the battles in the past.

The control scheme has caused me a few serious cramps after some tense sessions. Finding a way to hold the system that doesn’t put weight on your wrists and arm are important. Remember to take breaks between all the shooting to relax your eyes and arms.

It was worth the wait to have a game this well polished and thought out. The time and effort can clearly be seen in this game. It’s another shining addition to anyone’s Nintendo DS library.

(Next predicted purchase: Tetris DS, or New Super Mario Brothers.)

On the board at work, we have an "hour" score sheet listing the names of all the teachers and their class loads. At one time at the begining of the year, I was the teacher with the least hours. This means I was the first in line for any new class. My manager quickly found a class for me to teach that put me at the "top" of the schedule, meaning that I worked the most hours in a week without having any overtime. There was no room to add any more time to my schedule, so the next lowest person was going to have to take the next class our manager created.

We just heard what that new class will be. To fill up his schedule, the new teacher with the lowest hours will now have to travel to a near by elemetary school and teach two fifty minute kindergarten classes each week. I can’t tell you how happy I am that I didn’t get stuck with that assignment. The "Kindergarten whore" as the rest of the teachers now refer to the poor soul pimped out to other schools, has to go to a school that has no English program and attempt to get thirty kindergarten kids to sit still for fifty minutes while they teach speaking. Good luck with that.

The program will be given a "test run" this month, and then put into full effect if proven successful. There is no reason it will stop, barring some unusual circumstance, as it is a win-win for our school and the kindergarten school. Our school uses the hours they already pay the teacher in their salary to make more money on the side, and the kindergarten can boast it has an English teacher on staff to boost their attendance, thus easily covering the cost of hiring the person through our school.

The only person that loses is the poor teacher getting pimped. In contracts there are always stipulations that say that you can’t work at other schools unless it is approved by your current employer, and that anyone caught working at two schools, or teaching privately will immediately be fired. This is to prevent someone from finding a better school, doubling their hours by working between their split shift, or moving to a university position before a contract is finished.

If your school sends you to work at another place, you don’t have much of a choice.  It’s going to suck, as you can’t get your own manager to listen to you, let alone someone that has no idea what is required for an English program. It’s an extremely bad position to be in, and so far I’ve avoided it through complete luck when it’s happened at my two other schools. I’m in no danger of having this happen to me, but the teacher I work with is probably going to have to put up with a lot because of this, and I sympathize.

Now that I have much larger classes, the typical ideas as to what I can do as a game activity need to be changed. I decided that I’d try something new, and made a "Battleship" style game for my classes to see if I could teach them how to play something new. The results weren’t as good as I hoped. I created two grids in a word processor program, then went about writing down the rules. The students had to draw four shapes on the grid of various lengths, then find their opponent’s shapes by calling out grid coordinates to "hit" the hidden shapes. Just like the classic game "Battleship", except it’s done on paper, and I replaced the boat names with space ships and Starcraft related words. It would work with pairs of children, but that means you need even numbered classes, with the proper mix of boys and girls every time.

My first class was bright enough to understand the rules, but one girl wouldn’t pair up with a boy. I made the decision up to the students with a game of rock paper scissors to determine who would go into the mixed group. There was only one boy in class, and he didn’t care who he played with. When the girl refused to play with the boy, I made her sit out a round and played the game as his partner instead. I told her she was being unfair to him, and that he shouldn’t have to miss out on a game because she didn’t want to play with a boy. She is usually a very good student, so I was a little shocked at her behavior. She waited until the next round started, then asked if she could play with someone else. I didn’t object.

The second class is much, much larger and didn’t have problems with pairing up, except their was an odd person out. I was going to play with them, but it turned out that half the people didn’t understand the rules after I explained them. The problem was they would yell out their own coordinates, trying to sink the other person’s ship, but wouldn’t hit anything, because no one had the same placement as they did. Then they would basically just copy what they wrote into their "enemy territory" grid and think the game was over. Some of the students took several explanations, a test game, and other examples to understand how to play. Some of the slower students never figured it out. It was really tough, as this was the first game I’ve had that just completely flew over the heads of some of my students so badly.

I think I’ll work on making the demonstation better if I ever play it again, and when the classes had an even number of students while also high enough a level to understand what was going on. Live and learn. Some of the best activities are the ones where you hope you can get your students to understand, and they figure it out with you as you work. Occasionally, and much less than before, this doesn’t happen. It’s part of being a teacher you just learn to deal with and get better at.

I thought i finally had my basic adult class figured out. As per another teacher’s advice, on Monday I had printed out an excellent article over at the English in the News at the BBC. I found this article about global warming, which has a nice breakdown of the words in the article to explain what they mean in easier terms. Then, there was a set of questions I gave them based off this article, provided in the PDF file on the site. That’s new material, new writing work, and new vocabulary to talk about. I gave this to them two days early, and told them I was going to discuss it on Wednesday with them. I expected them to prepare for class by translating the words they didn’t know, write the work out, and ask me detailed questions when I returned to discuss it with them.

I got silence.

I spent forty-five minutes basically talking to myself as I went over, sentence by sentence, each item in the article. Detailed examples. Extremely simple English. Slow word count. I waited for their questions. I asked them questions to see if they understood. No one tried to say anything. At the end of class, after we did some book work, I stopped and asked if anyone was going to talk. I had about five minutes until my class was officially over, but I hadn’t had anyone really talking the entire time. I answered a few questions, and if someone wanted me to repeat something, I had, but no one had even attempted conversation. I wasn’t going to spend the last five minutes talking to myself, so when no one spoke for a minute, I walked out.

I was a little annoyed, but it was clear everyone had something to say, but no one was willing to say it to me. I waited around, and soon two women came into the office for a chat. They said they felt the topic "Didn’t relate to them."

I wanted to say,  "Yeah, silly me. How the hell could global warming relate to someone LIVING ON EARTH?!"

Instead, I calmly replied, "Ok, so what sort of topics would you like me to talk about in class?"

The women thought about it for a little while, then replied, "Children, or food."
This is total bullshit, as I had spent an entire class trying to prod them into talking about childhood obesity , which is children and food condensed into one topic and they didn’t say a damn thing.

It seems the teacher that shares this class has more success with them, as she is a woman and can get them gossiping and sharing small talk. It’s not like I have some sort of overtly masculine personality that prevents me from talking about something relative to shut in housewives. It’s just that I can’t narrow my view to as small a cone as to create "Korean Housewife tunnel vision".

I’m starting to dread the class, as I really haven’t found a way for them to speak outside of small groups that don’t involve me. if it comes to them breaking up into groups every time we do something to get them to talk, it takes me out of the conversation. This is fine, as it’s less strain on me having to speak, but it doesn’t make me feel like I’d doing much. If they want to speak English, but don’t want to speak to me, I don’t see the point of everyone coming to class.

Today we had to make "cards" for fake parties the students wanted to have. I told them it could be a real party, like for their birthday, or a party of their own creation. I gave them construction paper, some ideas, and let them do whatever they wanted.

For an example, I made my own card. On the outside, it read "Fun Party!" with lots of balloons and fun images. On the inside it said, "Just kidding! Time to study! Homework party!" It was inspired by this comic. I used this example to detail the different things needed to complete an invitation. Then the students could write their own without me needed to watch over them to make sure they included the date, time, place and everything else.

I told them to make up whatever they wanted as a reason to have a party. This particular class has bad spelling, so I was always adding things to the word bank of vocabulary we had on the board. They would shout out a word, in English or Korean, and I would write it up on the board for them if I knew what they were talking about.

One girl wanted to have a "monster" party, where people would get killed. I told her she probably wouldn’t get anyone to come to her party. Another boy said he was going to have a "beer" party. I told him he’d be showing these cards to his father, and he quickly changed it to as "water and juice" party. He even had to change his pictures.

Another girl wanted to write she was hosting a "Beautiful and Hot" party, but instead ended up writing she had a "Butterfly and Hat" party. It could still be fun, I guess. Her twin sister asked me how to spell "sausage". Despite the name, in Korea, children eat horrid tasting cheese "sausages" that are sold without refrigeration at shops. I told her how to spell the word, then came back to check on what she was writing. She told everyone to come to her "Sausage Party" after math class. People should supply their own sausages. I was too kind to explain to her that the word "sausage party" has a slightly different meaning at times.

I liked the fact that the children were willing to be silly and still do their work and practice their English. Not everything has to be serious as long as they continue to study.