The reason I came to Korea was to teach English, so let me talk about that experience.

Goheung Elementary School

I work at Goheung Elementary School, the county’s largest elementary, teaching 4th through 6th grade. I have about 300 students, and teach 21 classes a week and I work 8:30-5 PM every  weekday. Koreans go to school every other Saturday, but fortunately native English teachers (NETs) don’t have to teach on Sat.

I have two co-teachers, although I only teach with one at a time, depending on the grade level. My co-teachers prepare the lesson plans, taken from a standardized curriculum throughout Korea. The plug me in during the class, basically as a pronunciation machine. That is really one of two of the NET’s most valued asset – pronunciation. The other is cultural knowledge. Grammar is a close third, but it’s really the first two that make us so much in demand. I’ll talk about the bigger picture of NETs, later.

I’ll quickly note that virtually every NET’s experience is different, since Koreans who teach English have diverse experience, support and philosophies about teaching English. At least a couple of my fellow NETs don’t have co-teachers.
Also, I only teach at one school. Most other NETs here in Goheung county teach at several schools. One teacher, Lisa, teaches at 4 different middle schools, and while she loves the people and students she works with, does NOT like the traveling, since she has no car and depends on buses.

I’ll also mention that I’m the first elementary NET that has been hired in Goheung county (population approximately 90,000), and so there is likely some scrutiny of how well I do my job. Most NETs work at the middle school level, which is ironic since I wanted to work at that level, and was told by my recruiter I would be. He “misspoke”, but I don’t regret being the first elementary NET.
The office I work in is shared by several other teachers. We are the non-homeroom teachers – English teachers and gym teachers, who don’t have just one classroom as homeroom teachers do. I have my own desk, as do most of the others, but I don’t have a computer yet, although

I’m told I’ll get one in June. Currently I use my laptop at work, which is a lifesaver. Theoretically, all the computers in our small office are shared, but as a practical matter, they are at people’s desks, who use them.
My typical day is getting to work at 8:30ish (teachers in my office show up at different times – it’s somewhat loose). Some days, I have a 9:00 class, other days my first class is 9:45. Classes last 40 minutes, and on some days I go to 3-4 different classrooms, on other days I just stay in one classroom. I hope to videotape a lot of my experiences in and out of the classroom in the near future, so stay tuned for that.
Most of my classes are in the morning, and then I go to lunch at the cafeteria, along with several hundred students and a handful of teachers.

The word, cacophony often comes to mind as I sit there, eating my meal. I sit with other teachers, but even if I’m sitting next to them, it’s so loud that we can’t have a one paragraph conversation without us yelling to each other, often with the word, “What?” punctuating our communication.

Money is taken out of our paycheck for eating in the cafeteria, so I almost always go, and it is my one certain Korean meal of the day. The food is for the most part, very healthy and to most Americans, it would be considered exotic, if it weren’t served in a prison tray.

Actually, you would have to probably pay around $15 at a Korean restaurant in the U.S. for what we pay about $1.35 (depending on the exchange rate). I hope to have a separate entry about Korean food soon, but suffice it to say, you won’t find any grilled cheese, hamburgers, pizza or macaroni and cheese (although once a month we get spaghetti, oddly enough) on the school menu. I can neither remember nor pronounce the foods we get, but almost every meal includes at least one kimchi (there are several hundred types), and plain rice. Fresh fruits, seafood (which I am inclined to not eat), meat stews, curries and other items are frequently found on our plates.
Depending on the day, I might have another class or two in the afternoon, and then we leave at 5 PM.
More in the next entry.

Happy children eating healthy Korean food

Students eating a typical Korean school lunch

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