Classes begin - again

I'm starting to prepare my students for the midterm, so the semester is well underway. However, I did start a new round of classes today. This time, I was a student, not a professor. I think that I've talked a little bit about starting a master's degree on this blog, but due to some extenuating circumstances, I've had to defer that for a year. So the class I started today wasn't related to that.

Today I started Korean class. I debated for a long time if I actually wanted to put in the effort to learn Korean while I'm here. I mean, I know enough to get around. I wasn't sure if I wanted to learn to do much more than that. I even contemplated finding a way to learn Chinese instead of Korean while I'm here. But in the end, I decided I was going to try to learn at least a little more Korean.

Having made this decision, I was excited when I heard that my department sponsors free Korean classes for the foreign faculty. It seemed like all of the pieces were falling into place. Then it appeared there were going to be scheduling conflicts, and I wouldn't get to take Korean classes after all. But we finally got everything straightened out, and today was our first class.

This is the second language I've formally studied in a classroom. I've dabbled in various languages by myself over the years, but that doesn't really count. When I started studying Italian at Purdue, I didn't really have any thoughts of coming to Asia to teach. By the time I had decided this was what I wanted to do, I knew enough Italian to carry on moderate conversations. Today was my first language classroom experience from a beginning level with the added perspective of a language teacher. It was most interesting.

I really don't know if our teacher speaks much English, or if she speaks any at all. The entire class, she didn't speak anything but Korean. Somehow, we managed to get through the lesson and actually understand everything that she said. It's interesting how much meaning can be conveyed through body language. I need to think through more carefully how I communicate with my students in non-verbal ways to try to help them.

It was also a little bit frustrating. My classmates and I have never studied Korean before. We've all picked up a bit here and there, but we don't really know much of anything in a systematic way. However, by the end of the lesson, we were able to pick up enough vocabulary and grammar to not only introduce ourselves, but to introduce a third party to the class. We were able to ask questions and understand grammar. Granted, it was ridiculously simple grammar and questions. We sounded like a class full of two year olds. But we were able to speak a little bit.

My students have been studying English for, on average, ten years. They know so much vocabulary and grammar, it's ridiculous. But for all their technical knowledge, they can't speak English. I simply don't understand how the system can be failing so dramatically that students who have studied a language for a decade struggle to make sentences such as, "Do we work together?" or, "I went to the doctor." Even when I model sentences for them and write the grammar structure on the board, students are still unable (or probably unwilling) to speak. It boggles my mind.

So. Hopefully, I will become more competent with the Korean language than I currently am. Hopefully I will be able to improve as a teacher through once again sitting through a classroom language learning environment. And hopefully I won't have to listen to more American politicians talking about how wonderful the Korean education system is, and how we need to adopt it in America, because then nobody would speak English ;)