in maggie's shoes for a day
i got a little taste, today, of what it would be like to be an english teacher abroad. it's always been in my head a job of no consequence -- i knew it was difficult, and that the spectrum of good to bad was broad, but i always sort of assumed it would come naturally. today gave me a slightly different view.
when in southern china, i was surprised once when we showed up at a rural middle school and were told to teach a class for a few hours (!!). we wound up singing "mary had a little lamb" and such, listening to them rock out bad-ass chinese songs, and talking about differences between america and china in the simplest terms possible. the students only spoke when addressed directly, which made it pretty rough.
here in busan, maggie33 took me to two of her classes: one of 17 year olds (?), and the other of 14. the second class (the younger) was a blast. they spoke pretty good english (stellar considering they were, as maggie33 explained, not quite as privileged as many other kids in the country).
we talked about some pretty interesting stuff, stuff that i'd have a difficult time vocalizing even to native english speakers (like the korean virginia tech student or the subject of school violence). and, though i told myself i'd not, i pulled out my iPhone and played around with it for a bit. they were pretty impressed, which is funny because the phones here are incredible (and 3g, which means super fast data connection). but only iPhones are iPhones!
all in all, it was quite a ride, and a super blast. i've been wandering around busan for a bit now, searching for wifi, but to no avail. every time i find an open network, there's no place nearby to sit down. meh. different story.
thanks, maggie33, for letting me be show-and-tell!
comments:
oh Mountain Nose: what exactly did you talk about? That intrigues me
klcomp | February 12 @ 7:20am
Apparently you had a lot to say yesterday: 3 posts in 30 minutes!
Benji! | February 12 @ 9:37am
yea that's what i was thinking, finally worth stopping by peterdot
Saulemander | February 12 @ 10:40am