Field Trip to Gangjin!

Every few weeks, all the teachers at my school get together to do something like go hiking, have supper, whatever. I love going with them - when it's during the day (raw fish suppers just ain't my thang, ya know). Not only is it a great bonding experience, but it allows me to visit places in Korea that I wouldn't have gotten to otherwise.

This time, I was particularly happy to be invited along because I still needed to bond with the new staff... here are the people I work with now:

Back row: 1st grade, 6th grade, head teacher, island school principal, principal, 3rd grade, secretary, 1st grade (last year), special education
Front row: 5th grade, 2nd grade, 4th grade, custodian, special education (last year)

Wonder why I haven't introduced them by name? Well, it seems, in my school anyway, that you can address each other by your position - I get called Yong-a Sonsaengnim (English Teacher) by my younger students all the time. I think it has to do with the fact that certain last names are super common here (1st grade, 6th grade, 3rd grade are all Mrs Kim!) so, to avoid confusion, why not just use the title?

Anyway, it was a gorgeous day and we drove about an hour or so to Gangjin, a town made famous for traditional Korean celadon pottery (Meron, your cup is from here, Ann, your necklace thing, Mom, your saucer). Our first stop was the hospital (!) to visit Mr (4th grade) Yun's father (I didn't go in) before continuing on to Baekryeonsa, a temple known for, apparently, flowers and being really old.

We arrived and immediately piled into a wee tea shop for some very pricey and very good Korean green tea, then had (arrrgh) 5 minutes to explore the temple grounds.


I asked Mr (2nd grade) Pak about the huge bell and he, being the joker that he is, ran up and rang it. Such a lovely clear tone, followed by me and Mr Pak giggling together like little girls. Mr Pak is one of my favourite teachers - and one of the few staff members that I still know from last year.

Anyway, some pictures from the day:

View from up top

Through the tea-house window

Mrs (6th grade) Kim strikes a pose

The buildings

It had been a while for me since I'd last visited a Korean temple. Last year, I used to go all the time - like every other weekend - to hike and take pictures and stuff. This year... well, they just aren't as easily accessible here as Songwangsa and Seonamsa were in Suncheon.

The trip was special for another reason... I suddenly realized that I was understanding bits and pieces, words and numbers and things that my co-teachers were saying in Korean. I was trying to figure out just what I can do, after almost 2 years of pretty much just absorbing whatever comes to me in an informal setting...

• I can read and understand quite a lot... For example: signs around town... I know if a business is a florist, a pharmacy, a restaurant, a fish market, a hardware store etc (this is probably what I'm most proud of).
  
• I can understand numbers and count pretty high - tens (ship), hundreds (baek), thousands (chun), ten thousands (man)...
  
• With a bit of mental gymnastics, I can tell someone what time it is, as long as it's between 1:00 and 5:00. After that, I'm screwed.
  
• I can understand when someone is talking about me, or if someone is talking about something I did earlier (context context context), but if someone arrived and just started blabbing at me, I'd be lost.
• I can take a taxi, order in a restaurant, shop, understand if something is out of stock....
  
• I'm starting to be able to recognize the Korean language, which was gibberish for so long, as a sequence of individual sounds and even words.
• I can write (slowly)... the vowels still mess me up a lot
• I can "Romanize" a Korean text... for example, take a Korean name and write it in English - I had to for all my students.
• I have a bunch of catch phrases that I can use appropriately (I understand, I know, Let's go, I'm full, It's okay, Really?, Thank you, Hello, Goodbye (2 forms), I'm Canadian, I'm an English teacher, Sit down, Repeat please, Give it to me, Go away, etc....), and individual words like yesterday, today, tomorrow, months and dates and the like that help me function in an all-Korean school.
• Random vocabulary like certain animals, fruits, vegetables, school supplies...
  

As someone who has studied second language acquisition and worked to come up with ways to evaluate how much someone understands (or not) of a foreign language, it's really neat to find myself on the inside of this experience. I'm conscious of what stage I might be at, and when I'm in the middle of a full-on burst of language acquisition. I'm also aware of how hard it is to learn a new word, and how easy it is to fall back and lose what I've acquired. When I look at friends like Alex and Emanuel, I'm amazed at how able they are to communicate - they can read, write, use grammar. Jessica and Nicola, who took a Korean language course in Seoul in February, are also miles ahead of me. But, it's a start (A start? After two years... it's about time!).

... and next Monday, I start working with Rena's friend Sunny to (finally) start formally learning Korean.