Expanding My Horizons

Due to something unfortunate, I got a chance to try something new as a far as my Korean speaking and job at the English center goes.

The unfortunate thing is that all last week, Ridia started getting sick. When Monday rolled around, she was at her worst. She texted me while I was walking to school saying she couldn't come to work. In more than a year -- my entire time at the school -- she has yet to miss a day. Now, Geoff and I haven't missed either, but a number of other Korean teachers have. Even some of our other native speaking teachers have missed a day.

Either way, it's a rarity for someone to miss work in South Korea, so she was pretty sick. She asked Geoff and I to teach her class, so we sort of scrambled to come up with some worksheets and games. It wasn't a big deal. Geoff came through big and found a great dinosaur measurement worksheet that fir in with both of our lessons.

The big thing for me was that Ridia asked me to do orientation. That's basically the only part of class that she speaks Korean to the kids. She explains about the English center, the equipment, our lessons and so on.

Now, I speak Korean almost fluently at this point, but I still get nervous speaking in front of a lot of students whom I don't know. Students are the harshest and meanest critics of a Westerner's speaking ability. Their initial shock (which all Koreans have) turns to rude comments if they can't understand you. Never mind the fact that you may just know their grammar better than they do. Haha.

I have heard Ridia do the orientation a thousand times, so I knew what to say and how to do it. But I knew I wouldn't be as smooth. So I decided to do it Korean and English. That makes sense being at the center.

On Monday I was actually pretty nervous, but the kids took to it and understood me right away. So that felt really good. The difference is that what takes Ridia 15 minutes to describe, I buzz through in less than 10. It's part nerves and part that my speaking is not as elaborate or in depth as hers.

Well, she was still feeling sick today, so Geoff and I split up the class in two and did the first two lessons, and Ridia only had to worry about teaching one class in our third time slot. She asked me to do the orientation again. I was feeling more confident about being in front of the kids, but I didn't want to sound like a dummy in front of Ridia.

I definitely did a better job of it today. I spoke my Korean more smoothly, and explained things better than I did yesterday in both languages. I even stretched it out a couple more minutes. Ridia said I did a really good job. She would tell me that anyway, but it's still nice to hear.

She's told us before how sick of it she is that she has to give that opening speech almost every day. And we would be, too, I'm sure. I told her awhile ago I'd be willing to do it for her. I just never really expected her to ask me to run the show.

But it's been a success, and I'm guessing she'll let me do it on a more regular basis now that she's heard me do it. I don't mind showing off a bit. I think it even helps me connect to the students a little bit better.

So it's been an exciting week so far, and we have big things to come. Get ready for Christmas pics from both our afternoon classes and my time Jeong Mi and friends. It's going to be a fun month.