2009 SMOE Workshop Day 1 – Unrealistic expectations?

Let me preface this post by saying teaching is one of my passions and that I take improving myself as a teacher seriously.  The intent of this post is to make some very needed observations and criticisms about how workshops are designed and how presenters are chosen and presentation materials vetted . . . or, unfortunately, to illuminate the lack of vetting and the lack of supervision . . .

I arrived at Korea University  at 8:40am Monday . . .

I signed in, got my name tag, and picked up a workshop booklet.  After that I headed into the auditorium and found myself a seat.

Some Koreans were testing the microphones and prepping things for the opening ceremony.  The usual items were being prepared . . . national anthem, big Korean flag power point slide, and an overview of the workshop schedule power point slides were readied for the 200 or so native English teachers slowly filling up the auditorium.

As I sat in the audience waiting for the usual hoopla to be finished . . . I thought about how I always find it amusing that foreigners are asked to stand and salute the Korean flag and sing their national anthem.  I have no problem paying my respect to the Korean flag, and standing while their national anthem is played–I am after all at work and on their dime–but I still ponder these things from time to time.

National anthem and flag respecting done the supervisor says some opening remarks, and begins introducing the SMOE office co-ordinators . . . and unfortunately can’t remember all their names.  I am terrible with names so I feel some sympathy for him because I’d probably have been lucky if I could remember 2 and I think he got through about 4.

The supervisor then goes over our schedule for the two days.

Monday December 21st

8:30 to 8:50am – Registration

9-9:20am – Opening Ceremony

9:30-10:20am – Co-teaching (Steven Austin, SETI)

10:30-10:50am – Reflection Session: Classroom Issues and Professional Development

11:00-12:20 – Reflection Session

12:30-13:20 – Lunch

13:30-14:20 – Reflection Session

14:30-16:00 – Co-teaching Demo Lesson and Q&A

Tuesday December 22nd

9:00-12:50 – Co-teaching Workshop

13:00-15:00 – Lunch Party Buffet

16:00-17:30 – Go to see “Jump” (Show)

I had already seen the schedule because my co-teacher is awesome and when she got the memo she printed out a copy for me, and then when I asked her to she translated some of the info written in Korean.  There wasn’t really a lot of info to translate but what there was she did with no hesitation or complaining.  My co-teacher rocks, and I’m insanely lucky to be working with her.

After the supervisor finished going over the schedule a coordinator got up and kind of did the same thing, lol, and then pointed out a map we had been given in our schedule booklets.   Finishing that we had a ten minute break before the first presentation, “Practical Co-teaching,” began.

I walked around and chatted with some people I knew, and then sat down again for the first presentation.

Now this is where I have to talk about expectations.  I’ve learned in Korea that expectations are deadly.  I’ve learned that  I have to identify my expectations, and then unpack all of the unconscious norms and values that are embedded within them, and then think about them within the Korean cultural situation I find myself in and see if what I expect is still reasonable or not.  If it’s not then I have to change my expectations and not try to impose my expectations on the situation and people involved . . .

That being said I found that my expectations for the first presentation were disappointed, and definitely not unrealistic or unfair.  Let me explain.

The first presenter was a MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER.  He was an excellent presenter.  Well spoken, well organized, and at times funny.  He knew his material well, and did a great job.

The issue here is that he was presenting to an audience of HIGH SCHOOL teachers at a workshop that was taking place four months into their contracts.

I expected that SMOE would have avoided making the same mistakes as it did during the August orientation where the presenters for the high school group of orientation attendees were from middle schools.  I expected that the presenters at the workshop in December would be from high schools so that they could present materials targeted to high school teachers, and use stories and examples from HIGH SCHOOL situations they had experienced.

(To be fair I need to add here that the co-teaching demo later in the day did actually have a high school teacher presenting.)

I also found it odd that the title of the presentation, “Practical Co-teaching,” was not what the presentation was really about.  The content of the presentation did begin with a definition of ‘co-teaching.’   But it was a very brief one and after two minutes the focus shifted to the real theme of the presentation: “Co-teaching culture and relationships with a dash of advice for new foreign teachers adapting to Korean school culture.”

In terms of the ‘practical’ nature of the presentation and co-teaching I really didn’t feel like the presenter gave us any concrete tips on how to co-teach more effectively.  And this leads to my next point–if the presentation was about ‘practical co-teaching’ the case studies used might have been about the typical situations native teachers find themselves in while co-teaching in HIGH SCHOOLS . . . but I’ll get to that in a moment.

The presenter structured his presentation around four things: 1) What is co-teaching? 2) Why Co-teach? 3) Personal Qualities of the Successful Co-teacher in Korea, and 4) 5 Case Studies: “Monster Students,” “Zombie Students, “Less-than-enthused” Korean Co-teacher,” “Unhappy, Depressed Native Co-teacher,” and  “”Slave Driver Principal/Vice-Principal.”  The general pattern the presenter followed was to identify his topic, describe the general idea and conditions, and then suggest what to think about the topic with general suggestions about how one might behave . . . unfortunately not much to do with actual co-teaching in a classroom was talked about . . . not, at least, in a way that native teachers could leave the presentation and think to themselves, “I’m going to use that X-idea/method the next time I co-teach.”

The case studies used, if they were to be in line with the ‘practical co-teaching’ title, might have been the following: 1) Classroom Behavior Hell: the students don’t pay attention and fall asleep . . . and my co-teacher doesn’t seem to care, 2) My co-teacher is absent even when they are in the classroom–what can I do?, 3) I make lessons and send them to my co-teachers but they don’t read them, 4) Communicate with my co-teacher/s? How?  and 5) How can I communicate and negotiate with my co-teacher when they operate under the assumption that they’re ‘my senior’ and I should respect Korean culture and do whatever they say?

There is a fundamental pattern that I’ve learned about from doing my own presentations, and attending workshops through public school education offices, and attending the KOTESOL conference every year . . . talk about theory, talk about ideals, talk about anything you want to . . . but then bring the presentation into the real lived situations directly related to your presentation topic and after identifying real lived teaching issues that your audience of teachers can relate to then present coping methods, problem solving methods, and concrete things that the teachers can leave the conference with and individually develop to work for them according to their specific school and teaching situations.

Unfortunately, this didn’t seem to happen in the first presentation–and I think that perhaps the primary reason is that there was a disconnect between the title of the presentation and the actual content . . . actually, there was something even bigger that needs to be talked about . . .

The final thing I noticed about the first presentation was that at the end there were some slides for Korean English teachers–yes, I just said there were slides for Korean English teachers . . . and this is when I began to get a little pissed off.  WHY would there be slides for Korean teachers in a power point presentation for native English teachers?  I’d really like to know if there’s a valid reason for this . . .

My theory, and if someone knows the truth and I’m wrong please post a comment here, is that the presentation was actually designed for a Korean English teacher workshop or even more likely an orientation.  My suspicions led me to revisit some of the content in the presentation.  A key example being the question, “Why Co-teach?”

For most if not all new native English teachers there is no doubt, no resistance, no questioning of their need to have a co-teacher in the classroom.  The group of teachers that generally have doubts about co-teaching and why it is necessary at all are KOREAN co-teachers . . . was it possible that the presenter was using a presentation that had been made for Korean English co-teachers?  I’d suggest that there is a strong possibility that the material had never been designed for native teachers . . . and while some of the material overlaps, and was relevant to native teachers because of how the presenter spun the language he used it was also information that really should have been given during the August week long orientation BEFORE the native teachers went to their schools–not four months into the contract after many if not all of the issues addressed in the power point content had happened to unprepared new to Korean school culture and co-teaching native teachers . . .

I also suspect that the presenter tried to tweak his power point slides to erase references to Korean teachers (but missed the last few slides somehow) but didn’t realize that the workshop booklet was using the original power point slide content printed out for the native English teacher attendees–oops . . .

In the first presenter’s section of the workshop booklet lies the evidence for my theory.  Under the question, “Why Co-teach?” the first reason is “the Law.”  Now why would you need to use ‘the law’ as a selling point with native English teachers?  Well, you wouldn’t because new foreign teachers walking into an alien culture, with no Korean language ability nor understanding of Korean school and language classroom culture, would NEVER even question the necessity of having a co-teacher . . .

Also, anyone who has been in Korea for at least a couple of years knows it’s ludicrous to suggest to native teachers that they cite ‘the Law’ to try to reason and/or motivate a Korean English teacher, a vice-principal, or a principal to listen to them and/or do something.  Korea is a society ruled by relationships–not laws.  A presenter who doesn’t understand that . . . well, I think he does understand that so I’m lost as to why he’d use that while speaking to an audience of native teachers . . .

I’ll cite two more examples and then try to let this go.  Under the first “Case Study: Monsters,” in the Approach section (a kind of ‘what to do’ section) one of the recommendations is, “Be firm and take control early.  Help your native teacher to establish boundaries and routines” . . . wait a second, did that just say “Help your native teacher” . . . ? And the second example is found under “Less-than-enthused” Korean Co-teacher” in the Signs section (a ‘what to watch for’ section), “You are always “too busy” to help your Native Teacher or to come to English meetings” and “You feel frustrated because you have to always speak English with your NEST,” “You feel you have to explain everything to your NEST,” and “Your NEST is constantly confused” . . .

YES, I am confused–isn’t this presentation supposed to be for native English teachers???! Why is the presenter using materials OBVIOUSLY DESIGNED FOR KOREAN teachers?!

I had intended to write about this with some degree of tolerance because I know presenters are often asked to do work for education offices at the last second, and instructions from supervisors can often be vague to non-existent . . . but there has to be some degree of professional responsibility and dare I say ETHICS?

But the next bit from the booklet materials on the first presentation pretty much destroy any ‘understanding’ I might have for whatever the background excuses might be for why a native English teacher would use a power point designed for Korean English teachers when he is actually presenting to native English teachers!  The following sentence was pretty much the last nail in the coffin, “As a Korean, you possess the trait of extreme loyalty . . .” blah blah blah . . . is this for real???!

I’m sorry sir, but you owe the native English teachers who attended your presentation an apology for the use of materials that were never designed for us.  Unbelievable!!!

Perhaps the most ridiculous content of the first presentation was the part where Korean English teachers are given specific signs to look for if they suspect they have an “Unhappy, Depressed Native Co-teacher.”   The following signs are listed: “lots of complaining,” “every conversation includes, “In America [Canada], we . . .,” “Minimum effort; lesson quality drastically drops,” “emotional distance,” and my personal favorite, and I also think every other native teacher at the workshop felt the same, “Constantly looking at Facebook.”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Facebook is the Anti-Christ of native English teachers in Korea.  If you see your native teacher worshiping FB make sure to have a teacher office exorcism and destroy the SOCIAL NETWORKING and support lifeline the native teacher is clinging to because they are homesick, have co-teachers abandoning them to teach alone in the classroom, co-teachers who show no interest in preparing lesson plans together, co-teachers who have low level language skills and no understanding whatsoever of Western culture, and co-teachers who do not understand communicative language learning and teaching methods therefore thinking and assuming that the native teacher with a MA in TESOL doesn’t know how to teach (yes, I was sitting by a native teacher with that situation) . . .

NOTE: I am NOT saying here that all Korean English teachers fit the above descriptions.  What I AM saying here is that about 50% of the native teachers, if not more, talk about these things as a part of the normal range of issues faced in the day to day realities of teaching in a Korean public school with Korean co-teachers.

Given the tendency by many Korean teachers to overly simplify ideas about native English speakers I now imagine that Facebook has become public school enemy number one.  I have to wonder now what Korean teachers must be assuming about me because I have FB up on my computer every day at work.  “Is Jason depressed? He’s on that foreign website called Facebook, and I was at this workshop where another native teacher said looking at Facebook means you’re lonely and depressed . . .”  Great.  Thank you.  Fortunately for me  I have a co-teacher who knows better than to take something one native teacher says and blow it all out of proportion and make it into a generalized truth about all native English teachers . . . and in case you think I’m over-exaggerating think about how often you hear Korean English teachers express shock that you can eat kimchi cause EVERYBODY knows that foreigners don’t like spicy food, right?

Moving on to other things . . . on the Friday before the workshop began I posted on Facebook the following comment, “I’d suggest dressing warmly just in case the rooms they put us in at Korea University aren’t heated properly….”  Sadly, my prediction came true.  The auditorium where the opening ceremony was held was unheated.   And the large lecture hall my group went to for the rest of the day was also unheated.

When asked about why there was no heat, two coordinators said they had contacted the university administration about the problem–this was around 3pm . . . apparently calling again and insisting that the heat be turned wasn’t a priority.  During the winter one of the first things I do each time I teach a class is to go five minutes early to the classroom to see if the heat is on because all too often if there is no class before mine the heat is not on.  To me this is just a basic leadership skill: check to make sure the environment a meeting is being held in is comfortable to facilitate the actual purpose of the meeting being successful (instead of attendees focusing on the temperature).  I really don’t know why the problem wasn’t solved earlier in the morning but I also have to suspect that because the coordinators are  young and have little to no social rank in the Korean cultural hierarchy that they really couldn’t do anything about it in the first place.  I wonder, though, why they didn’t pass on the problem to the SMOE office supervisor who had been at the opening ceremony . . . not calling him about turning on the heat could be symptomatic, however, of the common notion that you don’t bother the powers that be with complaints originating from the grunts, er, native English teachers cause . . . well, we’re just not important enough.  I do believe that if the supervisor had been told about the no heat problem that he would have made some calls and I imagine that the heat would have been turned on . . . so unfortunately this puts the onus back on the coordinators . . .

The second session of the day was called, “Reflection Session.”  The group I was in headed over to a different lecture hall . . .

A red flag had gone off in my head last Friday when I saw the schedule for the first time because I really wondered how the reflective session would be structured.  Also, in my teacher training readings I’ve basically come to the conclusion that reflective sessions are a euphemism for thought and attitude manipulation and control.  That sort of thing can be positive if a talented and experienced teacher trainer is prepared and knows what they’re doing . . . if they don’t it ends up being . . . well, you’ll see.

The “Reflection Session” began with a woman identifying herself as a ‘teacher trainer’ and that she’d be ‘facilitating’ our reflection session.  No real explanation of what a reflection session is, and what it is intended to accomplish, was given.  I slowly sank deeper and deeper into my seat, and became more and more frustrated with . . . oh god, where does the list begin?

I expected to hear a definition of what a ‘reflection session’ was because a good teacher trainer knows (and if they don’t know they do some research) what kind of training and experience the group of in-service teachers have that they will be working with.  In the workshop reflection session  the group was comprised of native teachers with only 4 months of teaching experience, probably a 100 hour TEFL or TESL certificate gotten online . . . and then the other side of the spectrum with teachers who have a Master’s degree in TESOL, or CELTA, and extensive teaching experience in Korea and Asia in general.  It would have been very useful to just give a brief definition of what a ‘reflective session’ is and what it tries to accomplish so that there could have been sound kind of framework within which us native teachers could have tried to focus our efforts . . . but that wasn’t given.

Our facilitator then rattled off that we’d be talking about 1) Classroom Issues and 2) Cross-cultural Issues.  Again, neither of these terms were defined, and no guidelines were given for how we might want to talk about them.  I halfheartedly hoped that our ‘teacher trainer’ and ‘facilitator’ might have prepared a power point slide with a list of common classroom issues in Korean language classrooms, and common cross-cultural issues, but she popped off a couple of vague examples of each and then went on to other things.

I sat in stunned disbelief.  No power point, no handout (and no materials in the workshop booklet), no small lecture with content to prepare us to engage in a reflective exercise that had a clear goal?  I thought for sure that something like cross-cultural issues might warrant a 10 minute mini-lecture about things like, oh say, the 4 stages of culture shock, or talking about how native teachers perceive cultural differences and the common mistakes made and then provide some models of how to reframe misperceptions . . . or something along those lines . . . but nope, it was time to organize and divide everyone into groups.

After we’d been divided into our reflective session groups our facilitator said we should start . . . everyone kind of looked at each other wondering what we were supposed to start with and how we should do it–you know, kind of like what you might imagine a room full of teachers might look like when asked to do a task with no instructions, no preparation on what to do and how to do it, no modeling, and no new content to think about and use . . . . that sort of thing.  I think this was when she added that we should choose a secretary for each group who would write down a summary of what we discussed so that we could use that later for what I tentatively call the ‘goal’ for the reflection session group discussion: we had to give group presentations after lunch for TWO HOURS . . . oh god.

For an hour and twenty minutes, in an unheated lecture hall, nine groups of high school foreign teachers talked about whatever they wanted to, however they wanted to . . .oh, loosely under the topics of classroom issues and cross-cultural issues.

Our facilitator toured around the room and stood next to each group for a couple of minutes.   While standing next to the group I was in she didn’t say anything.  I’m not sure if she said anything to any of the other groups either . . . maybe she did, I don’t know.

And then it was lunch time.

We all had our workshop booklets and the maps inside them telling us the building name where lunch was supposed to be held.  For some reason, however, our coordinators didn’t seem to think it’d be a good idea to come along and make sure we found the cafeteria, and that everything was okay.  Instead, the mass of teachers went to one set of doors to the cafeteria, and then whoever was at the front either couldn’t get in because the doors were locked or a Korean told us we weren’t allowed to go through the doors, so we all headed back outside to try and find the correct set of doors . . . and couldn’t so we headed back to the first set of doors . . . and finally got inside the cafeteria.

I took one look around the cafeteria and quickly calculated that the odds of there being enough seats were iffy at best.

I don’t know if this actually became a problem because I decided to go off campus and get some food and just avoid having to walk around looking for someone almost finished their lunch so that I could sit and eat my own–no thanks.

The menu here has an item that people from Boston will find particularly amusing: Boston Butt Steak, lol.

After lunch, the group presentations began . . . and everyone did their best considering we were given no directions whatsoever about how to present.

I continued to sink lower and lower in my seat, again, as I realized that all 9 groups were going to talk about the same issues NINE TIMES.  If our facilitator had actually prepped the reflective discussion properly, and had had a list of common classroom issues and cross-cultural issues, she might have organized our groups to each focus on a different set of issues, or one classroom issue and one cross-cultural issue so that a broad range of topics would be covered . . . or whatever organizational idea that would pre-empt all NINE GROUPS DOING THE SAME DAMN THING . . .and then forcing us to sit through NINE 10-15 minute presentations about NINE GROUPS presenting about the same general issues NINE TIMES . . .

I kept hoping that the facilitator would actually do some kind of moderating and facilitating after each group presenter finished.  But all she did was pick up the microphone and pass it on to the next presenter/s and occasionally make a small comment or joke about what the previous group had said.

Due to the complete and utter lack of structure to the reflective discussions when it came time to do the presentations things had pretty much become a ‘fine-I’ll-do-this-but-I-know-it’s-simply-meaningless-work-for-works-sake’ atmosphere.

People began making jokes, and by the end of the 2 hours things had gotten so out of hand that one presenter made a joke about students asking him if he watches porn, and some teachers in the room began making comments and jokes about it–and our facilitator did what she had been doing all along: sat in her seat and just watched us.

And what was the ONE THING our facilitator actually took time to comment on and explain? One of the presenters had talked about a Korean children’s game where one student stands against a wall, and other students line up and put their heads between the student in front of them’s legs, and then another team of students run and jump to land on the tops of the bent over students’ backs . . .

Instead of commenting on the classroom issues, co-teaching issues, and cross-cultural issues that came up time and again, over and over and over . . . instead of commenting on these things she chose to comment on a children’s game–nice.

The 3.5 hours of reflective group discussion and then presentations simply turned into a repetitive litany of describing the problems native teachers face in the classroom and the cross-cultural issues that native teachers face regularly in Korean school and classroom culture.  Some of the presenters made efforts to suggest ways of coping, problem solving methods, and some possible solutions–but how can a teacher trainer expect new native teachers with FOUR MONTHS IN KOREA to do this competently is beyond me; how a teacher trainer could expect new teachers with only four months in Korea to have the cross-cultural awareness and to have done research and reading on this topic (when they didn’t know what the workshop topics would be) and then to do something productive after discussing topics they themselves chose–how they could come up with new ways of positively framing cultural differences and come up with cross-cultural coping methods and ways to reframe their native cultural biases . . . I really don’t know what this ‘teacher trainer’ was thinking . . .

There are some books I’d like to recommend to the ‘teacher trainer’ that might be useful for future reflection session workshops she might do.  In terms of prep there is very little to do other than choose the reflective exercise type you wish to use, and then think about what what particular goal/s this exercise will be used to accomplish.

Training Foreign Language Teachers, A reflective approach.

Wallace, Michael J.  Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Cambridge Teacher Training and Development, Series Editors: Marion Williams and Tony Wright.

W26 000

Teach English, A training course for teachers.  Trainers Handbook.

Dorff, Adrian.  Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Cambridge Teacher Training and Development,

W29 000

Language Teacher Education.

Roberts, John.  Arnold, 1998.

W25 000

Tasks for Teacher Education, A Reflective Approach.  Coursebook.

Rosie Tanner and Catherine Green.  Addison-Welsley Publishing Company, Inc.1998.

W9 000

Crossing Cultures in the Language Classroom

Andrea De Capua and Ann C Wintergerst

University of Michigan Press, 2004

W49,000

Let me say again that the primary purpose of this blog post is to make some very needed observations and criticisms about how workshops are designed and how presenters are chosen and presentation materials vetted . . . or, unfortunately, to illuminate the lack of vetting and the lack of supervision . . .

I considered going back through my post and trying to use more neutral and diplomatic language because I think the argument can be made that my use of sarcasm and the scathing tone that comes out don’t necessarily help me present my case but I’m tired of trying to be diplomatic, and trying to ‘understand the unique situation’ that I seem to constantly be bombarded with when I attend workshops . . . being polite and diplomatic doesn’t seem to be accomplishing anything so in this case I’m going to leave the writing style as is.

I hope future workshops don’t repeat the same patterns that I saw in this one because native teachers, for the most part, really do want to become better teachers–the unfortunate truth, however, is that the workshops don’t facilitate this desire . . . and in the reflection session case in particular simply create a forum in which a list of problems and issues were raised over the course of three and a half hours with the end result being that native teachers walked away without any new ideas, perspectives, teaching methods, and resources . . .

At least that’s how Day 1 ended . . . in my mind.

Day 2 looks a bit more promising because I think I saw a teacher trainer I recognize from the August orientation is going to be running the co-teaching practice session in the morning . . . and at the orientation she, and her partner teacher trainer, were awesome.  They were fully prepared, knew their materials and goals, and came across as highly competent professionals who are passionate about teaching and teacher training . . . if I’m right and this particular teacher trainer is running the Day 2 morning session things will take a dramatic upturn and native teachers will leave the workshop with something new that they’ve learned, and something they can actually use back in the home school classrooms while co-teaching.

Keep your fingers crossed . . .

J

p.s.  Oh, one final observation . . . I’m not sure what kind of budget and or other restrictions may have been at play with the designing of the workshop booklet but I would suggest that 2 pages be added in the future to all workshop booklets.  One page with suggested EFL/ESL methodology books, lesson plan and resource books.  A second page with useful teaching websites.

Flugun Gate at Snow Jam, Seoul 2009 — What is a ‘flugun gate’?

After the final match was finished at the Snow Jam event I began to walk home . . . and came across a Flugun Gate . . .

Since I’ve never seen one before I did a Google search for “flugun gate” and came across taryn’s korea adventure blog posting, Incheon Global Fair & Festival. She writes about how she had to wait “in line first to be spritzed with hand sanitizer, and then to pass through the so-called “Flugun” gates where a machine doused us in some kind of germ-fighting mist.”

Another blogger, With Backpack, also went to the Incheon Global Fair and writes,

“Along with the hundreds of hand sanitizer machines, there are also many “fluguns” installed where crowds are expected. This is a device that is suppose to kill flu germs, I think. I doubt that it works, since after being “flugunned” about three times in Songdo I had a cold the next day.”

Another day in Korea blogger writes, “It’s misty and apparently kills the flu.”  And Annyeong! writes, “Of course, before entering we had to walk through the Flugun Gate, just in case we were carrying H1N1. The swine flu scare is getting ridiculous – so many festivals have been cancelled because people are scared to gather in large groups because of the flu.”

After doing several different searches on Google for about 20 minutes I finally gave up on finding an expert source defining what a “Flugun Gate” is and whether research has been done that proves there’s any degree of effectiveness in H1N1 prevention . . .

I suspect the gate is more for a public display of ‘Look! We care about you and we’re doing something about H1N1″ than anything to do with a medically sound preventative measure.

Did anyone see people, or families, using the gate?  Did you go through the gate?

And if you happen across a website with info about the gates could you please post the link here?

Thanks,
J

Snow Jam Seoul 2009 / LG Snowboard FIS World Cup BA — Awesome snowboarding with huge air and a few wicked wipeouts

This past Sunday afternoon Julianne and I headed back to Snow Jam for the afternoon qualifying match, which was scheduled to run from 1-5pm, and then we planned to hang out for an hour till the final match that would happen from 6-7pm.

We got to the snow ramp at about 3:45pm and I snapped a few pictures of the scaffolding with my Canon D400 and Sigma 10-22mm lens . . .

I think the white bags here are the ice or snow or ? that the workers used to feed the snow blower up on the ramp.

When we walked to a spot where we could see the ramp there was nothing going on . . . I’m not sure if the afternoon match finished early but . . . yeah . . . arriving at 4pm, 2 hours before the final match starting time (6pm), actually proved to be a bonus in disguise because I was able to get a good spot inside a barricaded area just across from the ramp.  If we’d arrived at even 5pm we would not have been standing at the edge of the street.  Even so, it was FREAKING COLD and standing in one spot for 2 hours was not exactly the most fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon.  The only thing that kept me motivated to ignore the cold was that I was pumped about it being my first time taking pictures at an international sport event!

Waiting for 2 hours was worth cause Monday morning when I went through the 500 shots I took during the final match on Sunday night I found a fair number of good shots.  Julianne then helped me select the 35 pictures I’ve uploaded here.

Last night while I was writing this post I noticed that The Marmot’s Hole has a link to Hermit Hideaway’s Korean Photography Blog and the Hermit’s post called Snow Jam Highlights. The Hermit has mad photography skills and if you’ve never taken a look at his site check it out.

From Hermit Hideaway’s Korean Photography Blog, Snow Jam

“drew an impressive crowd of 260,000 spectators, including 45,000 foreigners, to the center of the city over the weekend. A total of twenty-nine snowboarders from ten countries competed in the tournament. Switzerland’s Gian-Luca Cavigelli took first place, with Austria’s Stefan Gimpl and Finland’s Markku Koski finishing in second and third, respectively. The three-day event won considerable praise, with 92% of respondents (from a survey of 650) citing Snow Jam significantly helped raise awareness of Seoul to the rest of the world.

But all figures aside, the fact that a 34-meter ramp was set up right downtown along the newly revamped Gwangwhamun Plaza was reason alone to celebrate.”

The Hermit also posted a link where you can see pictures by a photographer named Oliver Kraus (who also has mad skills I might add) here, LG Snowboard FIS World Cup BA Seoul.

When I look at The Marmot’s Hole, The Hermit, and Oliver Kraus’ photographs I imagine myself doing this if I ever met one of them,

Anyways, back to Sunday afternoon and standing in the freezing cold . . . after realizing Julianne and I had a two hour wait where we’d have to stand in the same spot if we wanted a good location from which to take pictures I began killing time by shooting the crew prepping the snow ramp.  Oh, and I put my Sigma 18-200mm lens on my camera.

Here you can see the crane lifting up the white sacks of ice/snow to feed the snow blower.

The photographer on my right was an elderly woman.  I thought it was totally awesome that she was out in the cold with her camera and she stood waiting for 2 hours along with Julianne and I and about 15 other people.

I think the photographer in this picture might be Oliver Kraus.  He had full access to every part of the snow ramp and I could see him taking pictures of the snowboarders, etc.

Since I’ve never been to a snowboarding event it was kind of interesting to watch the crew prepping the snow and evening out the snow on the landing area.

Around 5pm I hear someone setting up a tripod behind me and turn to see the MOTHER OF ALL LENSES looming behind me!!!

Around 5:40 the snowboarders began to do practice runs . . . and I started taking pics.

About five minutes into the practice run this ajumma shoves Julianne and some other Koreans aside to push her way up to the front.  Needless to say Julianne and I were NOT impressed . . .

I played around with my shutter speed and ended up selecting 1/250 with an ISO of 1600.  I wanted to use 1/500 or 1/1000 shutter speed but I was about 100 feet from the snow ramp and lighting so the shots I tried at those speeds were too dark.

Julianne and I were standing about 100 feet from the snow ramp.  While I’m very happy with my Sigma 18-200mm lens the distance, lighting conditions, and snowboarders flying at high speeds through the air were right at the performance edge of my lens’ capabilities.  That being said, I think I got some decent shots.

How do you make a crowd of about 100 photographers all yell simultaneously? Drive a bus through their line of sight while the subject is doing a kick ass aerial maneuver!  This happened about 8 or 9 times, maybe more, during the final match.

The Hermit has a killer fish-eye shot of what the snowboarder sees when looking down from the top of the snowramp–check it out at his post, Snow Jam Highlights.

Me on the other hand, well I got a decent shot from the spectator’s point of view looking up at the starting point.

After some hard landings the crew had to go out and fix up some patches on the ramp.

I was really impressed with how fast and professional there were.

And then the match continued . . .

One thing I thought about while shooting was that I wished the lighting had been aimed higher up in the air cause the snowboarders highest point in the air was not quite in the lighting.  This meant that many of the shots I got of the snowboarders doing their aerobatics were too dark or blurred.  I don’t know if the guys around with me with the insanely priced telephoto pro lenses were able to overcome this challenge with their higher performance lenses . . . I wonder if they were.

And then came perhaps the best wipe out of the final match . . .

Awesome!!!

I began to notice that depending on the line the guys took down the snow ramp they’d enter the lit airspace in ways that allowed me to get good shots–so maybe the lights were focused on a limited area high up in the air and the lines the guys were taking down the ramp and through the air were outside the lit space . . . I donno.

Wicked!

On facebook yesterday, while editing my pictures, I kept posting a pic here and there and writing “DUDE!”  Why is it that snowboarding brings out the ‘dude’ expressions? LOL!

Near the end of the final match I took one more shot of the uber lens of all telephoto lenses . . . oh baby!

The snow ramp crew lines up for a final trip down the ramp after the final match wrapped up.  These guys did an awesome job.

After standing in the cold and wind for nearly three and a half hours I was ready to go home.  Julianne had had to leave earlier as she lacks my Canadian DNA which combined with eating pancakes with maple syrup provides me with a natural defense against the cold and H1N1 (if you live and teach in Korea you’ll catch the irony here, if you don’t do a Google search about kimchi and illnesses and see what comes up–wink!)

On my way out of the area I walked past the Food Zone . . . I don’t know what they were serving but they had massive line ups.

To give you an idea of how big Ganghwamun Plaza is you can see the snow ramp in the background of this shot.  It’s going to be interesting to see what other major festivals, events, and what not take place here now–and it’s totally awesome that I can walk to the plaza from my apartment in about 25 minutes!

I really enjoyed the Snow Jam event and hope that Seoul continues to organize more things like it.

As I walked down the street towards Kyobo bookstore I saw this elderly woman sitting on the freezing cold ground cooking snacks she was selling to passersby.  I thought about how I’d been complaining I was cold while taking pictures of a sport event with my expensive camera.  I thought about how I was warm enough with my Northface Goretex winter hat, thick Thinsulate gloves, and winter coat . . . and realized that I needed a reality check.

If you’re out and about at events around Seoul and see elderly women selling snacks buy something from them.  Even if you don’t eat it yourself don’t worry about that–give it to one of the homeless you see near the subway stations.   This way you’ll be doing two acts of compassion for one small price.

Merry Christmas,

Jason

You can see more pics and blogging about the 2009 Seoul Snow Jam ……

This blog has pics from another location near the plaza where a second snow ramp had been set up at the Sejong Center for Performing Arts.

Seoul Snow Jam: “Extreme Zone”-Ramp

This blog has some awesome sketches of the main snow ramp event.

2009 Seoul Snow Jam

This blog has  a cool little 30 second video taken close to the base of the snow ramp.

Seoul Snow Jam/FIS Snowboard World Cup Big Air Competition

Some very nice pictures here and the bloggers says more will come later.

seoul snow jam

A personal snapshot about attending the event.

Seoul Snow Jam!!

A new blog I haven’t seen before that has several videos linked to youtube of each snowboarder’s jump–I left a note asking the blogger to fix the embedded video links cause they weren’t working when I tried to watch them.  That being said his blog is interesting and worth a look.

[Supermatch IX/Snowboard City Jump]2009 Seoul Snow Jam

An excellent write up about Saturday night’s Big Air and the crowded conditions and cultural differences in crowds.

Seoul Snow Jam

A series of photos (sans text) showing one person’s experience at the event.

2009 Seoul Snow Jam held in Gwanghwamun

A guy who had a ‘blue pass’ and access to the snow ramp itself writes a bit about his experiences.

Seoul Snow Jam 2009 the second post

SEOUL Snow Jam!

Seoul Snow Jam

Seoul Snow Jam 2009 — World class snowboarders and a 3 story high snow ramp in Ganghwamun Plaza?

Julianne and I headed out to Seoul Snow Jam tonight . . . but we were too late.  But I should backtrack a little and explain how I found out about SSJ.

My co-teacher asked me on Friday if I’d heard about SSJ–I said a friend of mine, Sonya, had mentioned it to me.  My co-teacher then asked me if I knew that the main snowboarding jump was ‘3 stories high’ and in Ganghwamun Plaza . . . and it was at this point that the photographer in me began to giggle like a little boy on Christmas morning at the images I imagined I’d be able to shoot at this event . . . needless to say I was VERY happy my co-teacher had reminded me, and that Sonya had passed on the event info to me.

A brief search on Google brings up this link to the event’s site.  And more importantly this link to the event’s schedule.  On Sunday there will be a qualifying match from 10am to 12, another qualifying match from 1-5pm, and then the final match is from 6-7pm.  I can’t believe that I didn’t research this event on Friday when I heard about it cause normally when I hear about a festival or event I post a blog with all the info I need to go, and share it too.  Too much has been going on lately (for example, my school is asking me to do FIVE WEEKS of winter English camps–the most of any foreign teacher in Seoul that I know) and other stuff that I won’t bore you with . . .

There are also news articles about the event online too.  Here’s one from the Korean Herald, 2009 Seoul Snow Jam held in Gwanghwamun, and Hermit Hideaways has a bit on it too.

Anyways, tomorrow I’m going to head back to Ganghwamun Plaza and find myself a good spot and take a bizillion pics of dudes flying through the air doing spins and tricks that defy the imagination!  I can’t wait.

As for the trip Julianne and I took tonight . . . well, here are some pics of the event area.  Oh yeah, and it was CROWDED!

This little guy was very intrigued with the sun dial.

Ah, King Sejong . . . I once adjudicated an English Speech contest for elementary students.  I got to hear about 50 speeches about King Sejong the Great . . . I would liken the experience to staring at white snow on a television screen for 6 hours.  The winner, however, broke my catatonic state by writing an original speech about King Sejong–her first line was, “King Sejong came to me in a dream last night . . .”  I didn’t even have to hear the rest of her speech, which was fantastic, cause I immediately knew just from her speaking ability and the original theme of her speech that she was the best.

Oh yeah, you gotta love the little cutie and how she’s dwarfed by the monstrosity (and I mean that in several senses of the word) behind her.

Did I mention there were a lot of people?

If you go on Sunday be aware that the odds of getting close enough to the snowboarding ramp itself are not good.  There were big screen TVs set up for the crowds to watch the action . . .

I wanted to take pictures, however, and taking pictures of the live action on a big screen TV was not on my agenda, so Julianne and I backtracked to the cross walk and went to the sidewalk across the street running parallel with the snow ramp.

Unfortunately we arrived just as the last snowboarder finished his run, and then they did some awards or something while Julianne and I were still trying to get a good spot for pictures.

Instead of getting the pictures of guys flying through the air doing tricks I had to settle for some shots of the snow ramp–boo!

We stuck around for about 10 minutes.  I was hoping there’d be some kind of encore show with them doing another 20 minutes of stuff just for fun and the crowd . . . nope, no joy for me.

All I got to take pictures of was some guys walking around on the ramp . . .

Oh, and the balloon . . .

The bus on the left in this picture pulled up right in front of where I was standing.  I was still hoping that there’d be more action and had my camera all set up and ready–and then this big ass bus pulls up right in my line of sight . . . argh.

I waited 5 more minutes, after changing my spot, and then Julianne and I gave up.  I took a few more shots to try and give readers who live outside of Korea, or who have never been to the Ganghwamun plaza, an idea of how big it is.  You can see the snow ramp in the background behind the statue.

Here’s a statue of Yi Sun-sin that sits at the far end of the plaza.  (I originally posted that this was King Sejong–please pardon the error.)

I like the dragon boat thing . . .

Update: Okay Jason, you take a break from regular blogging and suddenly you’re forgetting all the Korean history you’ve read, and making two dumbass errors in a row.  The ‘dragon boat thing’ is a turtle ship . . . argh.

And here’s the big guy . . .

By this point in the evening it was about 9pm and Julianne and I hadn’t eaten so we began to look for a place to grab food.  On the way I snapped some pics.  I like seeing all the different scooters that zip around Seoul, and the personalities that ride them.

Has anyone noticed that this year there seem to be a bizillion Christmas lights in Seoul–more so than last year?  Am I the only one that thinks there’s been a Christmas light atom bomb set off in Seoul?

Seoul City Hall . . . Julianne and I find it interesting that the Christmas tree in front of city hall has a cross on it–something that just wouldn’t happen back in North America with most city halls . . .

We decided that chamchi kimbap (tuna in a seaweed wrap with rice and veggies inside) and dokbokki (sweet and spicy sauce with rice pasta-tube thingies) were what we wanted to munch on . . . it’s always very cool to watch the kimbap being made so quickly by the ajumma . . .

And then Julianne and I headed home to have our late dinner and watch some West Wing, Season 3.

Right now I’m charging my batteries and can’t wait to return to the Snow Jam tomorrow afternoon . . .

If you see me there, holla.

J

Rubber Seoul Event and World AIDS Day, Hongdae, Seoul, South Korea – Saturday December 5th, 2009

Julianne and I are going to be volunteer photographers at the Rubber Seoul Event and World AIDS Day, in Hongdae, Seoul tomorrow night.

Please come out and have some fun while supporting World AIDS Day.

See you there,
Jason

p.s.  If you read this and have a blog PLEASE put up a post about this event.

http://rubberseoul2009.wordpress.com

http://www.littletravellers.net/korea

Rubber Seoul 2009 is coming soon on Saturday, December 5, 2009. The line-ups and clubs are official! Look below for details.

For those of you who missed it last year, Rubber Seoul is an evening of music, dancing, and all around fun in Hongdae that coincides with World AIDS Day. It is a great way to spread information about HIV/AIDS in Korea, as well as to support the Hillcrest AIDS Center in South Africa.

10,000 Won will get you a Little Traveller doll as well as unlimited access to the clubs until the wee hours of the morning. ALL proceeds from the cover charge will go to support the Hillcrest AIDS Center in South Africa.

So, save the date on Saturday, December 5, 2009. It’s gonna be an awesome night.

We have three clubs lined up, and here’s the band line up:

JANE’S GROOVE (Doors open at 8:30 pm)
9:00 pm Brick Slipper
9:45 pm Bridget and the Puppycats
10:30 pm EV Boyz (Minus One)
11:00 pm Sotto Gamba

CLUB FF (Doors open at 9:00 pm)
9:15 pm The Koxx
10:00 pm Pony
10:45 pm Gogo Star
11:30 pm No.1 Korean
12:15 am U R Seoul

1:00 am – 6:00 am DJ Eddie’s Super-Fun Rockin’ Dance Party!
DGBD (Doors open at 11:00 pm)
11:15 pm Solitaire Love Affair
12:00 am Tacopy
12:45 am Rock Tigers

Get ready for a great time and to help some people out!
Don’t forget to invite all of your friends.

T-Shirts, Little Traveller dolls, and hand made crafts will also be available for purchase at all venues, with the proceeds going to benefit HIV/AIDS charities.

And make sure you check out our blog, and the Little Travellers Korea website:

http://rubberseoul2009.wordpress.com

http://www.littletravellers.net/korea

Little Travellers are beautiful beaded pins made by women affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Each pin is individually handcrafted and unique.

Founded in Canada and now sold in Korea for 5000 won each, all of the proceeds go to fight HIV/AIDS in the KwaZulu-Natal province; an area with one of the highest prevalence of HIV in the world.

For every little traveller that is sold, 40% goes to the crafter and 60% supports the Hillcrest AIDS Center. Hillcrest provides a variety of services including education, counseling, emergency feeding and school fees. For more detailed information, please refer to the Little Travellers brochure.

Proceeds from this event will be donated to the Hillcrest AIDS Center, a non-governmental, non-profit organization located in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The Hillcrest AIDS Center provides home-based care and nursing, emergency feeding programs, school and funeral fee funds, educational workshops, counselling, testing services, and economic empowerment through the income generation project.

Because its Punny and I am laugh when read

Joe Seoulman posted a link to Paul Ajosshi’s youtube video called “The The Impotence of Proofreading” . . . PUNNY!

Anyone who has had to edit and/or mark Korean language learner journals, writing exercises, paragraph work, essay work, essay tests, written short answers on tests and exams . . . they know well the common errors that come up time after time after time regardless of how well you might have thought the students understood your explanation, for example, that you should not put a comma before, “Because” in the middle of a sentence . . . and of course that, “Because” should not be capitalized any time it’s used . . . yes, that’s right . . . ANY time it’s used.

UPDATE:  Just for the Grammar Nazis out there . . . okay, yes, let’s get really anal about this post and ignore its tongue in cheek casual style and the fact that it’s on a BLOG and not in a classroom . . . to keep the Grammar Nazis happy I will gladly point out that “Because” can be capitalized if you’re using it to begin a sentence.  I will say, however, that I think using “Because” at the beginning of a sentence illuminates a style of writing that I like to say is “interesting” and that I recommend NOT doing this so that your writing is stronger and clearer–but then, that’s a stylistic preference so take it with a grain of salt.  Oh yeah, and just to be really crystal clear about the comma being used before “because” in a sentence . . . I was talking about simple sentences where if you DO use a comma before “because” it general ends up being a comma splice.  It’s late, I’m tired, and I’m NOT a Grammar Nazi so if I missed something go rant about it and chant grammar rules while thinking evil thoughts about kimchi-icecream’s blog at your next GN meeting.

Or another favorite of mine . . . capitalizing the first word at the beginning of EVERY LINE on a page when writing a  Journal.  Because we all know this is long (read “wrong” here, lol)and then there’s my one that I battled often(  Because It irked me  ) where students just couldn’t memorize the simple rule of putting a space before an open parenthesis (like This) with no space after the open parenthesis (like this) and no space after the last letter of the finishing word inside The parentheses (like this) and of course finishing up with leaving one space after the close parenthesis (like this).  Sigh….

Then      there’s  the      random               spacer      writer who roves (there’s that mixing up “r” and “l” again)                     to write               words        with          no             ap  par    ent        understanding                          of keeping a          uniporm     (“f” and “p” also get mixed up)  amount                the space              in between                 word        …..

You can see how that might get irritating to an English teacher–especially after having written comments about said problem week after week after week of journal entries from said student who is studying to become, wait for it, wait for it, yes AN ENGLISH-IE TEACHER!

One of the gems I remember from university student journals is from the topic, “The world will end in 24 hours.  What do you do?”  A female student wrote that she’d “go home and spend time with my family.  I would then sleep with my father, my mother, my two brothers and me.”  OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!  Needless to say the devil inside me could not resist writing a cautionary note about how “sleep” has a ’sexual meaning.’  I did not speak to her directly about this, but watched her after handing back the journals to the class.  She immediately flipped open her journal to the last entry to see what errors she had and to read any notes I’d written, and then the slow red blush exploded across her face.  She leaned over to her friend and said something quietly and her friend’s jaw dropped 10 feet . . . funny!

I’ll finish off with a few more of my favorite journal entries . . .

This particular journal entry was one that I really hope IS full of meaning errors . . .

“My dream is nice teacher. I will give children love and dream. I will beat children because I love children.”

I SERIOUSLY hope that this is just one of many examples of WRONG WORD CHOICE that I have seen in hundreds of journal entries! It likely is, and the note I wrote below this journal entry treats it as such–but I worry a little, I must admit, that something is amiss . . .

Another student wrote, “I don’t have romance. I am poor guy.” The thing about this entry was that the English printing had some problems, and the word “guy” looked a lot like “gay” . . . I often lecture students about needing to be careful about their printing because it can radically change the meaning of a sentence. I think I just found one example that might actually sink in for them. And please don’t think I’m teaching them homophobia–any time I say something that might be misconstrued to mean, for example, ‘be afraid of letting people know you are gay’ or something along those lines, I always explain and elaborate to cover any possible misunderstandings that might come up.

And I’ll finish with one of my all time favorites . . .

“My loving experience is not so much, but In some of my romance experiences, I’ve got the “common truth”, outward appearance (big eyes, long hair, shape of body) is important to me but more important thing is disposition (warm-hearted)”

J

English Camps in South Korea – A Guideline for Foreign English Teachers

I decided to do some new writing about topics foreign English teachers in Korea need info about during their first year teaching in Korea, and there is info in this post that some experienced teachers might appreciate too (like book titles that are useful for different types of English camps).

I’ve also been working on some posts about co-teaching because I’m back in the public school system and co-teaching in Korea lacks an organized and well designed training program for the different levels of schools.  I’ll try to post those in the coming weeks.

On my old blog, kimchi-icecream.blogspot.com I have a series of posts called,

A Guide For New EFL/ESL Foreign English Teachers/Instructors in South Korea – Public Schools, Hogwans, Universities, and Training Center/Institutes

and at the beginning of each post I write, ‘If any of the following materials are used as a part of an orientation or new foreign teacher training manual I would appreciate being cited as the author (if it’s something that I wrote, some materials are from other sources and should be cited appropriately) and or as a source from which the materials were taken from (if it’s something I found and arranged and posted on the Net). I’ve spent a lot of time and energy writing and blogging and would appreciate the citation. Thanks.’  Please cite me as the author for my English winter camp post if you use any of the materials too.

Anyways, many new foreign teachers right about now are being asked to prep for winter English camps.  Getting explicit instructions on how to do this, and what to be aware of, is often not what happens.  Foreign teachers should keep in mind that some Korean English co-teachers have done English camps with a foreign teacher before, but that others have never planned a camp involving a foreign teacher and likely don’t know what to tell you to plan, or how to plan it (so it might be a good idea to print out this guideline and give a copy to your co-teacher!).  There are a lot of things to consider when planning and designing an English camp in Korea, and I’ve tried to cover as much as I can here.

1.  Pre-Camp Checklist

a) How many students per class?

Camps tend to have 20 students per class, but this number can be higher or lower so make sure you ask.

I think that if the number is higher than 20 you should politely but firmly suggest that the number is too high–especially when  you’re not likely to have a Korean co-teacher in the room to help with classroom behavior management.  All too often if the KET’’s (Korean English teacher) away the mice are going to torture you with bad behavior . . . the unfortunate truth about too many (but luckily not all) students in Korea is that once they realize you won’t use corporal punishment to enforce the rules they often see time alone with you in a classroom as ‘do whatever they want to time’ cause they know you won’t hit them . . .

This is not true for all foreign teachers.  I think personality type, confidence levels, teacher training and experience, and other variables come into play with how students behave when there’s no co-teacher but I’ve also heard too many stories about foreign teachers pretty much giving up and making their camp into watching movies and/or students doing whatever they want while the foreign teacher goes on facebook to chat with friends, play games, or whatever while they complete their class hours but don’t do any actual teaching . . . with some planning and preparation an English camp can be a fantastic experience for both the teacher and the students.  Often a lack of planning and prep are the REAL source of students bad behavior . . . and also the stress and hair pulling frustration that a teacher experiences.  This camp guide, I hope, will help pre-emptively kill a lot of the problems that first time camp teachers experience.

b) Who is screening the levels of students? How are they doing it? c) Will there be mixed grade classes? Or mixed level classes?

This is a vital question to ask because in the past, before I had experience teaching camps, I didn’t think it was necessary to micro-manage my co-teacher while the students are being selected, or signing up, for a camp.  During my first camp experience in 2005 on  Ganghwa Island I was given a class mixed with 1st grade false-beginner students, intermediate students, and advanced students, 2nd grade false-beginner students, intermediate students, and advanced students, and 3rd grade false-beginner students, intermediate students, and advanced students–ALL IN THE SAME CLASS!!!  The complete and utter lack of any kind of educational criteria being used to put this class together made it an impossible class to teach–especially for a first time teacher in his first semester of teaching in Korea.  Simply put, no teaching or learning principles were used in the formation of the class rather it was more about pleasing parents, the principal, and about getting the most students possible in the foreign teacher’s class.

While the example I just used is an extreme case there also milder versions of this that happen.  Putting SAME GRADE but radically different language ability students in the SAME class often happens too.  For example low level 2nd grade students combined with high level 2nd grade students.  This then forces the native teacher to choose which group of students they orient their lesson materials towards.  It is possible to teach this kind of class but it generally can only be done by teachers with a lot of training and experience.  One solution is to pair up weak and strong students and turn the strong students into teaching-assistants, begin with low level vocabulary and language and then work your way up to higher level content so that the high level students get some learning too . . . but designing lesson plans in this manner is not easy, and teaching it is difficult too.  In addition, you also have to consider that Korean language learners will often have social/friendship behaviors that sabotage a teacher’s desire to pair weak/strong students together whether it’s about an age difference, being separated from their friends in the class, or whatever this can often be a major obstacle that gets in the way of the best teaching strategies.

Probably the easiest method for a Korean English co-teacher to create class lists by learner ability, i.e. a class with all advanced students, is by looking at student English test scores.  Unfortunately, it is very difficult for many Korean English co-teachers to actually do a proper language learner ability assessment (whether it’s for reasons of time and number of students, or a matter of the KETs language ability and teacher training).  It’s also hard for many native English teachers to assess learner levels especially when they’re new to the EFL/ESL teaching job.  Simply put, try to get student test scores involved in how they are assigned to English camp classes so there is at least some degree of educational reasoning being used in which student goes into which class.  Otherwise you’re in for some really hard teaching experiences.

d) Is there a budget for lesson/activity supplies?

e) Is there a budget for snacks?

f) Where will the classes be held? What are the conditions of the classroom and how will they effect the teaching and learning?

g) Does the technology in the room work? Check the computer, Internet connection, power point projector, etc, and make sure you know how to use it.

h) Will there be co-teachers teaching with the native teacher? (Usually not.) If so, who is it/are they?

i) Will the heat be turned on? Who turns it on? Will they be in the school during the camp hours? Air conditioning during the summer . . .

k) Are there any camp lesson books from previous native English teachers that may have been at your school? Can your co-teacher show them to you?

2.  The Schedule – What kind of class schedule is being designed?

It’s ’safe’ to say that a lot of English winter camps tend to have 4 classes in the morning, or 4 in the afternoon–but saying all or most schedules are like this is just misleading.  Be prepared for the possibility of your hours being scattered amongst other teacher’s classes on the schedule if your camp involves other subjects and teachers at your school.  If it’s only you teaching then I think it’s likely that your classes will be in the morning or afternoon.

For example, some camps have FOUR HOURS/CLASSES IN A ROW for the same group of students. This is INSANELY long for Korean students to be learning and using English.  Keep this in mind when you plan your lessons.  Put the more difficult or challenging content (or more ‘boring’) in the first half of the four hour marathon and do some easy fun games/activities style lessons in hour 3 and 4.  I tend to make the 4th hour a free talking, game playing, or really fun activity/game style lesson so that the students and I are not having issues with each other because they’re tired, hungry, and have already been thinking/speaking/and learning in English for longer than is normal (in my opinion for an EFL classroom).

3. Another issue that often comes up in terms of the dates of English camps is that native English teachers are also trying to plan their vacation dates.

Sometimes there can be scheduling conflicts between what a school wants for number of hours taught, and number of camps, and the dates of these camps versus when the native teacher wants to go on vacation.  One way of dealing with this is that  you can very politely suggest that instead of doing 3 camps over 3 weeks that the school takes the 3rd week of camp hours and merges them into the 2nd week, or something to that effect.  For example, in the mornings you’d be teaching a first grade conversation camp for 4 classes, and then after lunch you’d teach an essay writing camp to second grade classes for four hours.  This would be a pretty hard core grind for a teacher to do but if the school is willing to do it that way then some teachers choose that so they can go on vacation when they planned to . . . but you also have to be prepared for the school (or more importantly the principal) to not go for the idea.  This is one of those times when a teacher who wants a favor can cash in on the good relationships they’ve built with the co-teachers and especially the principal, and if you haven’t been doing that/or have had problems (that are or aren’t really your fault) then asking for a favor is probably not going to happen.

Keep in mind that comparing the total number of camps your school gives you with other foreign teachers at other schools (especially if it’s less) will only lead to frustration.  The public school contract says you have to teach 22 classes per week and be in the school for 8 hours a day–regardless of whether or not students are there or if you’re actually teaching any classes.  You may hear of a tiny minority of schools letting their foreign teacher ‘take a rest’ (code for ‘don’t bother coming in to school during the winter break) on top of them getting their contract vacation time . . . this is one of those things that bugs the hell out of me cause I’ve never been one of those insanely lucky teachers who get told this (I’m always at school teaching more camps than the majority of teachers I know) . . . maybe it will happen for me this year–okay, yes, I’m being delusional . . . sigh.

This point needs to be emphasized: some teachers are asked to do less than 3 camps, most seem to do 3 camps, and others may be asked to do more than 3 camps.   The contract says that you must teach 22 classes per week, and there is no stipulation or language about a maximum number of camps in the contract.

There is, however, language about overtime.  If you’re asked to do more than 22 classes PER WEEK then you can refuse.  If you agree to teaching overtime then there should be an overtime rate per class.

4.  Snacks!

Korean students, regardless of whether they’re elementary, middle, high school or university level LOVE SNACKS! If it’s possible to get a budget for English camp lesson supplies you should try to use some of this budget to also get snacks.  If you can get a budget just for snacks alone that’s fantastic, but don’t expect that every school/your school will have a budget set aside for winter camp lesson supplies let alone a budget for snacks.  If your school says there is a budget that’s great–if it doesn’t then try to find alternatives.

Unfortunately, one alternative is to put up some of your own money for supplies.  I’ve done this in the past and have never regretted it.  For 20-50,000won you can get things like color paper, glue sticks, glitter, and other inexpensive supplies to use with lesson activities.  This, of course, does depend on how many students you will have contact with during the camp, and sometimes a teacher may have a schedule where they teach upwards of 200 students in different classes during the course of the week (or however long the camp is) and the reality is you just won’t be able to get supplies or snacks because of numbers.  But if you do some math and think that the money to student ratio is reasonable I highly recommend investing a little personal money for supplies and snacks–the smiles will be worth it.

The least expensive option for snacks is getting large size bags of snacks from street vendors.  The bags are huge (like 3 feet tall) and have the rice cake/ball mildly sweet snacks.  Or large bags of candy at places like Emart run from 7,000 to 9,000won.  Just be careful not to use the candy in the first class, and only as a reward for DOING a learning task successfully (or at least trying really hard to do so).

5.  Supplies and Budgets

Ask your co-teacher about whether there is any money left in the English department budget, or if there’s a budget for the camp/s itself.  Do not expect or assume that money will be available for English camps.  If there is money, great, if not then just do your best with what is already available to you in the school.

One thing new teachers might not think of doing is asking to see the school supply room.  See if you can get permission to rummage around in there and see what you might be able to use.  Also, walk around the school and check out all the classrooms and rooms to see what there might be that could be used for a camp.  For example, there may be a computer lab that you could use for a digital scavenger hunt project.

6.  Ice breaking Activities

It is very important to do an ice breaking activity on the first day of camp in the first class.  If it is the first time you are meeting the students breaking the ice is critical so that some learning can take place in a relaxed atmosphere.  The students and you may already know each other but the students may not know each other so getting them to break out of their discomfort about interacting with students who are not a part of their social circle at the school, or not from their homeroom class, is really important.

One of my favorite ice breaking activities is making a self-introduction poster.  Students can bring pictures from home (this is sometimes hard to organize because asking your co-teacher to tell 12 different Korean homeroom teachers to pass on info about bringing in pictures from home to all the different students in your camp . . . well, let’s just say sometimes there are communication ‘issues’), cut out pictures from newspapers and magazines, draw pictures with markers/color pencils, and then write the English sentences about the self-intro poster beneath.  This is also a great way to get them speaking in a way that they feel safe and comfortable with because they have pre-speaking preparation time to get the language right, practice it, and then in the last stage of the lesson they present their posters to each other in small groups.

Another fun ice-breaking activity is to get students to bring white tshirts from home.  They can make (if you have a large group/class or multiple classes that are all in the first class) team t-shirts with English team names, and you might encourage them to make a team slogan they write on their t-shirts.  The t-shirt ice breaking activity is not quite as good as the self-introduction poster or the balloon ice breaker below, in my opinion, but it IS a lot of fun.  Getting the students to personalize their t-shirts and then present them to each other is one way of making this a more interactive speaking task.  Writing presentation expressions on the white board would also facilitate more speaking too.  Things like, “I chose this color because ______.”, “This is a ________. I like ________ because ________.” “This is my ______ (family member name, person/object name).”  That sort of thing.

The one ice breaking activity I use most often is this one . . .

*******************************************************************

Ice-breaker Activity

- show students balloon, say, “What is it?” “What color is it?”

- elicit responses with clues: first letter “b”

- blow up balloon/s

- and then . . . there are two ways (and more, use your own ideas too) to continue this ice breaker:

1. Students must say one letter of the alphabet each as the teacher points at them, then days of the week, then months of the year, and maybe numbers (this is a great way to assess the language abilities of the camp students as what you’re doing is also an informal test)

or,

2.  Each student must say their name, and favorite color (or animal, movie star, whatever, but pick the same category for all the students)

- model the English for the students (it may be necessary to write the language out on the white board if they are very nervous or low level)

- do this three times

- explain the rules: 1. You must speak loudly 2. You must use good pronunciation 3. You must not make a mistake 4. You must not cheat

- explain PENALTY (the balloon is popped if any of the 4 rules are broken)

- provide the language on the white board for lower level students to refer to during the activity (for example, students ’should’ know the alphabet, but may have problems producing it quickly when they’re nervous, so put the alphabet up on the white board but erase every 4th letter . . .)

A (teacher):  “What’s your name?”

B:  “My name is ________.   My favorite ______________ is ____________.”

- then add the game difficulty

- students must 1) say their name and 2) favorite X, and then say,

“His/Her name is ____________, and his favorite ____________ is ______________.”

NOTE:  – if this is too difficult, you can modify it so that it is just the student’s name and a color, Blue Jason, Green Ha Na, Red Su Mi, etc

- PENALTY:  when a student makes a mistake, a balloon that has been blown up as big as possible is popped

- the balloon popping is very exciting, and it guarantees students forget to be shy, nervous, or speaking too softly; it also forces them to pay attention to other students names as they don’t want the balloon popped

*******************************************************************

7. First Day of Camp

The first day of camp can sometimes be a little chaotic.  Some students may arrive late, and you can probably expect that some miscommunications may happen about what is supposed to happen, when it’s supposed to happen, and where . . . .  Also, don’t assume that the first hour/class will start on time and/or that you have the full time for whatever you have planned.  Choose something that you can vary how much time it takes to do, and be willing to drop parts of what you had planned if things start late, or get interrupted by something unexpected.

There may or may not be an opening ceremony.  Opening and closing ceremonies seem to generally happen at overnight camps and not at day camps.  If you’re at an overnight camp you may be asked at the last second to say something to all the students during the ceremony.  You’ll likely be introduced to all the students by whoever is running the camp.  Also, co-teachers usually write up an opening ceremony speech and I’ve often been asked to edit it at the last second so don’t be surprised if you’re handed a speech by a nervous looking co-teacher who wants  your help.

You may have students showing up late because they’ve slept in.  Depending on the personality of your co-teacher the students know what they can and can’t get away with in terms of how they see the rules and punishment.  It may be necessary to ask your co-teacher to be a little stricter with late students, or implement some kind of penalty system and add it to your camp rules.  Make sure to have a Korean English teacher translate the camp rules so there are no ‘misunderstandings.’

8.  Classroom Conditions

Temperature . . . yes, it might be as cold inside your classroom as it is outside.  In 2005, on Ganghwa Island I was teaching a winter camp in a small middle school with less than a 100 students.  The camp itself was a class of 12 1st grade students.  I went to my classroom on the first day of camp to see all my kids wearing winter coats, mitts, scarves and hats . . . and all I heard was, “CHOOWA! CHOOWA!” over and over and over … (this is the Korean for “COLD!”).

I went to find someone to turn on the heat in my classroom and was told that the school custodian was away and that nobody knew how to turn on the heat (yes, the heat is turned off especially in rural Korean schools).  I told my co-teacher that I would teach the classes scheduled for that day in the freezing cold classroom, but that I would refuse to teach the rest of the camp if the heat was not working and turned on in my classroom.  Each native teacher should choose how they deal with this kind of situation, and perhaps my response was too aggressive, but I think there are some situations in Korea where a line has to be drawn and we should say enough is enough, this is wrong and MUST change.  Having no heat in a classroom during a winter camp is one thing I will not be flexible about, and if there had been no heat the next day I would have contacted my co-teacher, told her the situation, and then sat at my desk in the school waiting for the heat to be turned on (and probably have brought all the kids into the office where there was heat so they wouldn’t be freezing in the classroom).

If this kind of thing happens to you be polite, but be firm, and do your best to ‘understand the situation’ (lol, if you’ve been in Korea a while you’ll understand why this is a funny thing to say).

9. English Camp Rules

After doing your ice breaking activity it is a good idea to go over the camp rules in the first class on the first day of camp.  If it is at all possible have a co-teacher with you for at least the first class so he/she can translate the camp rules.  If that’s not possible, then type them up in English and ask a co-teacher to write the Korean translation of the rules on the paper so you can make a handout and go over it with the students.

1. You must try.

2. You must come to camp with a pen, pencil, eraser, and notebook.

3.  You must not be late.

4.  You must respect the teacher.

5.  You must respect other students.

6.  Cell phones and mp3 players should not be used during class.

10.  (Not) Having a Co-teacher

In my first year of teaching in Korea I got really upset when I found out that I would be teaching camp classes alone.  I argued that it changed the value of my contract and that I should be compensated with extra pay because my title is “assistant teacher” in the contract.  I was pretty much arguing with a brick wall and should have just shut up and let it go.  Yes, there should be a co-teacher in the classroom with you, and especially if you’re totally new to teaching and it’s your first time teaching a camp in Korea and you’re still figuring out how to teach and manage students’ behavior . . . but the hard truth is that while camps are often foreign teachers first time teaching alone experiences the schools often don’t have a budget for paying teaching fees to Korean English co-teachers to do English camp classes with you.

There are different ways to deal with not having a co-teacher in the classroom with you.

1) Have students bring their cell phones (they have dictionaries in them) or electronic dictionaries with them to the class.

2) Use books like “Jazz English” that have English vocabulary with Korean written next to the words.

3) Make the most gifted/high level student in a class your ‘teaching assistant’ and when you feel confident that the student understands what you’re saying/teaching/explaining and see that many students still don’t understand you can ask the student to translate the idea/word/instructions.

4) Use the chalk/white board more than usual.  Korean students reading skills are almost always stronger than their listening skills.  Often when students don’t understand what you’re saying they WILL understand what you write on the board.  Also, write out instructions on the board for games and activities if you’re alone cause the students can refer back to it as they begin the game and during it if they forget a rule, etc.

11.  Themes and Types of Camps

In the past I’ve been lucky enough to be given permission to do whatever kind of camp I want to do in terms of content and lesson type.  In 2006 I did a musical theater theme camp where I taught the students the language content of the songs in terms of vocab, grammar, cultural background info, etc, and then we worked on some listening skills exercises . . . and then practicing pronunciation of the lyrics while focusing on problem sounds for Korean language learners . . . and finally we learned how to sing the songs.  After all this was done the students were then divided into small groups where they designed their own choreography to do while singing the song they’d chosen.  On the final day of camp we had a performance of 4 songs over the course of about 90 minutes–it was AWESOME!  In another camp I did a “Hip Hop English” theme camp where I taught the guys vocab (this was VERY hard to do as a LOT of the language is NOT appropriate for teaching in public schools, but you CAN find enough content that is okay to use), expressions, slang, gestures, rhyming and writing lyrics and at the end of that camp the guys performed the hip hop songs they had written, practiced and worked on all week–again, awesome!

Here are some ideas for camp themes . . .

TV and Movies – Acting, body language, speaking, gestures, and cultural background info in the lessons.

Music and Songs – Listening and speaking skills are the focus

English Olympics – Tasks and Projects – spelling bees, mixing physical games with English learning goals…for example, put nouns, verbs, adjectives, articles etc on individual pieces of paper and then in a bucket/box, divide the students into teams, and then tell them to line up behind a starting line and place the box of individual types of words about 10 feet away.  Students must crab walk to the word box, pull out ONE word blindly (no cheating!), and then crab walk back to the line where the next team member does the same thing . . . they do this until they have enough different types of words to try and form a sentence.  The first team to complete a sentence that is grammatically correct wins.

Travel – airport situational English (checking in, customs, security, etc), booking a hotel room, restaurant English, taxis and buses, asking for directions….etc.

Business – giving presentations, job interviews, running a meeting, making phone calls, English for emails, how to make a resume, etc

Writing – sentences, paragraphs, short essays, short stories, short one act plays, newspapers, comic books (make your own English comic book would be a VERY cool camp project, I think)

Reading – learning reading strategies, reading song lyrics, reading movie and TV show excerpts of favorite scenes from scripts, English comic books, and more…

12.  Lesson Cycles

It’s really important to think about how your students have just finished an entire school year.  Contrast how North American students, for example, finish the school year and then have summer vacation whereas in Korea students finish the school year–and then have ‘camps’ (which is a really bad usage of the word) also known as ‘MORE SCHOOL/CLASSES’ . . . camps in Korea should really be called “summer school” and “winter school” rather than camps–cause that’s what they really are most of the time.

My point is that when I have a 4 classes per day, five day English camp, I use a cycle pattern in my lessons.  The first 2 classes of the day are where I put the most challenging and difficult learning content and tasks so that I’m asking the students to do some work when they actually have some energy.  The last 2 classes of the 4 a day type camp I usually do something fun and easy.  In the last class of the day, especially, whether it’s before lunch or later on before dinner, we usually do a game because the kids are tired and hungry and by that point have been in an English learning environment for THREE FREAKING HOURS!  Imagine studying Korean language for that long . . . uhm, no thank you!

In the fourth hour some games I’ve used in the past are: Jenga, Uno, and Scrabble.

13. Last Day of Camp

On the last day of camp you should expect to only get one, MAYBE two, class with some final teaching and learning taking place, and then the last 2-3 hours will be some kind of fun activity/game time, and the last hour an ‘end of camp party.’  You may want to show a movie for hours 2 and 3 (make an easy worksheet with True or False questions about the movie content and that’s your ‘learning goal’ for the two classes (lol), and then have a small party in the final hour.

If you’re at an overnight camp there will also likely be a closing ceremony.  Expect that you’ll be asked to say something to the kids, and yes, you may be asked to edit a closing ceremonies speech by a Korean supervisor or teacher.

Well, I think I’ve covered everything I could think of that a new foreign English teacher might want to know about English camps in South Korean public schools.  Please check out the list of books below for different types of English camps.

If you have any questions or comments please post them here, or email me at iftcjason@gmail.com

Good luck,

J

Books for English Camps

If you want to do a debate camp…

Open To Debate, 70 Korean Issues

Williams, D. Neal

W14,000

Discover Debate.  Michael Lubetsky, Charles LeBeau, and David Harrington.

Compass Publishing, 2000.

W16 000

Becoming a Critical Thinker: A Master Student Text

Vincent Ryan Ruggiero

Houghton Mifflin

W11,000

If you are doing a conversation/speaking camp….

Small Group Discussion Topics for Korean Students.

Jack Martire.

Pusan National University Press, 2005

Things English Speakers Do Not Say!

Jana Hold, Charles Middleton, and Kwang-Chul Park

Chonghab Publishing

W12,000

Intermediate to advanced level

Conversation Strategies

David Kehe and Peggy Dustin Kehe

PLA (Pro Lingua Associates)

W20,000(?)

Intermediate to advanced level

Strategies in Speaking

Michael Rost

Longman

W15,000

Intermediate to advanced level

Basics in Speaking

Michael Rost

Longman

W15,000

NOTE: If you’re asked to teach a group of students with LOW LEVEL (false-beginner to advanced beginner) this book will be very useful.

Books that you can use to teach cultural content and differences (also see the reading camp list of books) …

101 American Idioms

Harry Collis and Joe Kohl.  Compass, 2004.

W7, 500

101 American Customs

Harry Collis and Joe Kohl.  Compass, 2004.

W7 500

101 American Superstitions.

Harry Collis and Joe Kohl.  Compass, 2004.

W7 500

Ugly Koreans, Ugly Americans.

Min Byoung-chul, EdD

W5 000

If you want to do a reading and/or reading strategies camp…

Steps to Academic Reading Level 3: Across the Board

Jean Zukowsky/Faust

Thomson Heinle

W13,000

Intermediate level

Steps to Academic Reading 4: In Context

Jean Zukowski/Faust, Susan S. Johnston, and Elizabeth E. Templin

Thomson Heinle

W13,000

Intermediate to advanced level

Reading for the Real World Level 2

Lawrence J. Zwier and Lynn Stafford-Yilmaz

Compass Publishing

W15,000

Intermediate to advanced level

A First Look at the USA: A Cultural Reader

Milada Broukal

Longman

W13,000

Intermediate to advanced level

All About the USA: A Cultural Reader Second Edition

Milada Broukal and Peter Murphy

Longman

W13,000

Intermediate to advanced level

More About the USA: A Cultural Reader

Milada Broukal and Janet Milhomme

Longman

W13,500

Intermediate to advanced level

Contact USA: A Reading and Vocabulary Text Third Edition

Paul Abraham and Daphne Mackey

Longman

W14,000

Intermediate to advanced level

If you want to do activity and task-based/project-based camps…

Storytelling With Children.

Wright, Andrew.  Oxford, 1995.

Resource Books for Teachers, Series Editor Alan Maley.

W26 000

Games For Children.

Gordon Lewis and Gunther Bedson.  Oxford, 1999.

Resource Books for Teachers, Series Editor Alan Maley.

W26 000

Drama With Children.
Phillips, Sarah.  Oxford, 1999.

Resource Books for Teachers, Series Editor Alan Maley

W26 000

Art and Crafts With Children.

Wright, Andrew.  Oxford, 2001.

W26 000

Projects With Young Learners.

Diane Phillips, Sarah Burwood & Helen Dunford.  Oxford, 1999.

Resource Books for Teachers, Series Editor Alan Maley

W26 000

Art and Crafts with Children

Andrew Wright

Oxford University Press

W26,000

Creating Chants and Songs

Carolyn Graham

Oxford University Press

W26,000

Drama with Children

Sarah Phillips

Oxford University Press

W26,000

Do As I Say: Operations, Procedures, and Rituals for Language Acquisition.

Gayle Nelson, Thomas Winters, and Raymond C. Clark.  Pro Lingua Associates, Publishers, 2004.

W19 000

Grammar Games: Cognitive, affective, and drama activities for EFL students

Mario Rinvolucri

Cambridge University Press

W30,000

If you’re asked to focus on listening…

Ship or Sheep?  An Intermediate Pronunciation Course, Third Edition.

Ann Baker.  Cambridge, 2006

Pre-Intermediate Level: Just Listening and Speaking

by Jeremy Harmer, Carol Lethaby, Ana Acevedo
Softcover, Marshall Cavendish Limited, ISBN 0462007774 (0-462-00777-4)

Pre-Intermediate Level: Just Reading and Writing
by Jeremy Harmer, Carol Lethaby, Ana Acevedo
Softcover, Marshall Cavendish Limited, ISBN 046200774X (0-462-00774-X)

Just Listening and Speaking

by Jeremy Harmer
Softcover, Marshall Cavendish Limited, ISBN 0462007464 (0-462-00746-4)

Just Listening and Speaking – American English Edition: Intermediate

by Jeremy Harmer
Softcover, Marshall Cavendish Limited, ISBN 0462007278 (0-462-00727-8)

Just Listening and Speaking: Elementary
by Jeremy Harmer
Softcover, Marshall Cavendish Limited, ISBN 0462000427 (0-462-00042-7)

If you have intermediate to a low-advanced group of students that want to do all four language skills camp….

Jazz English, Volume 1, Second Edition.

Gunther Breaux.  Compass Publishing 2006.

14, 000

Jazz English, Volume 2, Second Edition.

Gunther Breaux.  Compass Publishing 2006.

14, 000

If you want to do a writing camp…

Writing with Children

Jackie Reilly and Vanessa Reilly

Oxford University Press

W26,000

Sentences At A Glance, Third Edition.

Brandon, Lee.  Houghton Mifflin Company 2006.

W10 000

Paragraphs At A Glance, Third Edition.

Brandon, Lee.  Houghton Mifflin Company 2006

W10 000

Share Your Paragraph: An Interactive Approach to Writing, 2^nd Edition.

George M. Rooks.

Longman, 1999.

W13 000

Effective Academic Writing 1: The Paragraph

Alice Savage and Masoud Shafiei

Oxford University Press

W? (Got my copy free at KOTESOL 2008)

Effective Academic Writing 2: The Short Essay

Alice Savage and Patricia Mayer

Oxford University Press

W? (Got my copy free at KOTESOL 2008)

Effective Academic Writing 3: The Essay

Jason Davis and Rhonda Liss

Oxford University Press

W? (Got my copy free at KOTESOL 2008)

Newspapers

Resource Books for Teachers

Series Editor Alan Maley

Peter Grundy

Oxford University Press

W20,000

2009 Seoul Lantern Festival — Saturday night pictures . . .

Julianne and I returned to the 2009 Seoul Lantern Festival on its final night this past Saturday . . .

It was pretty cold and windy outside, and there were thousands of people there . . .

I was using my Canon D400, a Sigma 10-22mm lens, and my Speedlite 580EXII flash . . . I think I got some pretty nice shots.

I guess some things I might mention about the festival are . . . I was shocked to see a pretty significant safety patrol/police presence along the stream’s icy water.  At one point a police officer began yelling across the stream at a father with a baby in his arms for stepping down onto rocks next to the stream to get his picture taken–I was VERY IMPRESSED to see a police officer doing something about a high risk behavior because during the five years I’ve been in Korea I have NEVER seen a police officer do anything remotely like this.

A friend of mine commented on how she liked that about 50-60% of the people were trying to be respectful about not bashing into each other, and especially if you were taking a picture.  All too often in Korea the higher social rank person (or someone who “thinks” they’re a higher social rank, or often is just walking around in a ‘bubble’ oblivious to others not in their social circle) pretends not to see you and just ‘walks through you’ or rams into you/bumps you/shoulders you aside as they walk by regardless of what you’re doing at the time.  The crowd that was out at the festival was less pushy and more respectful than is, unfortunately, the norm at festivals with large crowds (at least in my own personal experience).

Another thing that shocked me was that there was a LINE UP at the stairs next to the small waterfalls head of the stream concert stage area–I was really surprised by this, and the fact that no one was trying to bud in line or pretend not to see the 100-200 people long line up.  WOW is all I have to say about that too–apparently there are some major cultural changes going on somehow in terms of street festival etiquette or something . . .

Anyways, I’ll end this post with my number one favorite picture of this hot chick I saw at the festival, lol, her name is Julianne . . . heheh.

J

2009 Seoul Lantern Festival at Cheonggye Stream, Seoul, South Korea

Julianne and I headed to Cheonggye Stream to check out the 2009 Seoul Lantern Festival.  The stream runs through the center of Seoul . . . on the way there we ran into this guy.

Arriving at Cheonggye Stream there was a stage set up for a concert and a really big crowd was already there….

At the far right top corner of this pic there are stairs going down to the water way…there were NUTS with people…

We took shots from up on the roadway looking down on the stream and lanterns…

I’m going to go back tomorrow night. It was REALLY COLD and while I thought I’d dressed warmly enough I was still cold.

Gotta love the mask on the grandfather here…

The left side of the stream is packed with people because the lantern sculptures mostly face this side of the stream.

More shots from up on the roadway…

And here’s a beautiful, hot, sexy woman I took a picture of …hehehe.

Then there’s this guy….yeah, it’s me.

The ball of light on the right kept flying up and down and all over in the wind….

This archway was REALLY popular with people doing portraits and self-portraits….

I had my Speedlite 580 EXII flash with me and while I’ve used it some I’m still learning how to use it…

This little guy wandered into my shot…I like the water blurring effect with his movement effect…

Using a Canon 400D, Sigma 10-22mm wide angle lens, with my Speedlite 580 EXII flash I got some cool shots with the water because I set the ISO to 200….without a tripod. Tomorrow night I’m going to use my tripod and see what kind of shots I can get on 100 ISO …

Nice dragons…

There’s a nice surreal blurring in this shot that I like….

Julianne again…this time using my Canon 50mm lens with flash…

I wanted to go over by the waterfalls in the background here but I was starting to freeze….

I like how my 50mm lens makes this look a bit like outer space….

Without a tripod not bad for trying to get the water blurring….

Using the 50mm made for interesting distances from subject….I still got some decent shots I think.

I really like the color saturation here.

Julianne got some really nice shots of the panda on her Nikon D50…this one is with my Canon…

Kangaroos…

Giraffes…and more. Like I said, I’m going to go back tomorrow night and take more pics….

On the way home in the subway…..

Tomorrow is Suneung (Korean SATs) and I have to get up early cause I’m going to take pics and cheer for my high school guys going to take the exam…..time to go to bed cause I’m getting up at 6am…

J

H1N1 ‘Clinic’ is really a tent outside the International Foreign Clinic and ER at Seoul National University Hospital — Nothing says quality care like a screeching bleep sound from construction vehicles outside the tent flap…sigh!

About 3 days after visiting the ER of a hospital in Seoul (see this link for the story), and getting Tamiflu along with several other medicines, Julianne began to feel worse not better.  We headed back to the hospital last Wednesday morning after she called me at school to say she needed my help.

Arriving at the hospital we headed to the International Foreigner Clinic.  As we walked through the main entrance of the hospital I couldn’t help thinking ‘oh my god, there are so many people coming and going from the hospital, and many of them are elderly, why is there no temperature check and sterile mask check point at the main entrance?’  In the main waiting area just inside the entrance I immediately asked a nurse who was wearing her mask around her neck for two masks for Julianne and I to put on.  While Julianne was not tested for H1N1 during our last visit (not sure why), we were pretty sure that she had it.  We wanted to be responsible and put on masks so that she wouldn’t infect any people inside the hospital . . . I have to be a bit sarcastic here and say that I guess this must be a foreign concept . . . sigh.

After hearing me ask for masks, and saying “H1N1″ to the nurse she put on her mask immediately with a very alarmed face.

Julianne and I then headed over to the main desk that has the international clinic sign above it but we were directed to go to the right of the desk and down a hallway about 15 feet to the actual clinic itself.  Apparently there are no English speaking medical staff or clerks posted to the desk in the main lobby where the giant sign is but rather you’ll only find them in the clinic itself.

Arriving at the small office we waited while the secretary (nurse?) kept answering the phone . . . and waited, and waited . . . and then she finally stopped to talk to us.

The nurse (I’m guessing) began asking us why were visiting (apparently failing to notice that BOTH of us were wearing masks) and after hearing “fever” and “Swine Flu” she paused and reached behind her to pick up a N95 mask . . . lol, lucky for her that Julianne already had her mask on, eh?  I don’t know how quickly someone can be infected from talking to a person with the H1N1 virus but if you aren’t wearing your mask and the sick person isn’t wearing a mask I would have to hazard a guess that the odds do increase at least a little that you’re going to be infected . . . sigh.

The nurse asked Julianne for her alien registration card, national health insurance card, and we also gave her the hospital info card.  After typing in some info, and asking Julianne some questions, the nurse took Julianne’s temperature.  It was a little high, and probably would have been higher if Julianne had not already been taking anti-flu meds.  The nurse wrote this info down on a form, and then told us someone would come and take us to the “H1N1 Clinic.”

After waiting about 2 minutes a guy in his late 20s or early 30s showed up to escort us.  He was wearing a mask–wow–and we began walking to wherever the “clinic” was located.  I asked Julianne if she wanted to get a wheelchair but she said no, she’d walk.  I was worried, though, because we didn’t know how far away this “clinic” was and Julianne was VERY weak, and needed to walk very slowly.

Walking outside, I asked the escort if he spoke English and got a quick head shake ‘no.’  We slowly walked across the parking lot, and had to pause while trying to cross a through way because traffic wouldn’t stop for us (why stop for sick people when driving through a hospital? Yes, this pissed me off!).

I asked the escort how much farther away the clinic was because I had the sinking feeling that it could be several hundred meters away . . . he pointed at a place that looked like it was about 50 meters from where we were, so the total distance was about 150 meters from the hospital entrance–this being a great location for sick people to walk when they need to see a doctor, of course–NOT!

Telling myself to calm down, and that things could be worse Julianne and I walk past construction vehicles roaring around, and BEEP BEEP BEEPING as they move materials to see a collection of 4 white tents . . . needless to say we were rather shocked.

Julianne began saying “There’s no way I’m giving blood in there!” and I tried to reassure her that they wouldn’t ask her to do that in an open air tent with construction being done a few feet away from its entrance . . .

Inside the tent we were told to “wait a minute” to which I replied that Julianne needed a place to sit down if we’d be waiting.  We walked over to the waiting area of the tent and sat down.

After waiting about 5 minutes or so the escort called us over and we walked to the 3rd tent area where there were four desks with stools for patients to sit on while a doctor consulted them.  The first doctor that begins talking to Julianne tries to ask a question, stumbles, tries again, stumbles, and then another doctor walks over and begins speaking fluent English to us–THANK YOU!

This guy was awesome!  Good English, friendly, and he also used everyday level vocabulary when asking Julianne questions about her symptoms and why she was visiting the “clinic.”  About one minute into the diagnosis a heavy construction vehicle began doing something just outside the tent wall we were next to.  The beep beep beEP bEEP BEEP BEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!! became so loud that we could barely hear the doctor speaking–I’m NOT exaggerating.  Julianne was wincing from the volume of the piercing warning sounds of the construction vehicle, and the doctor couldn’t hear her answering his questions so I had to take over.

I told the doctor I couldn’t believe that the hospital was allowing construction near the “H1N1 Clinic,” and I said I felt sorry for all the medical staff having to work under such conditions.  He appreciated the sympathetic comments, and we finished up the diagnosis in spite of the RIDICULOUS noise levels inside the “clinic.”

The doctor came to the conclusion that the Tamiflu was making Julianne’s symptoms too severe and that we’d need to discontinue using it.  He prescribed a different antibiotic, and other medicines for her symptoms.  We were happy to hear that this should help Julianne feel better soon.

The doctor then asked for Julianne’s hospital card so he could put it into a machine that looked like an ATM bank card machine.  He slipped it in and then ran into difficulties–the International Foreign Clinic nurse had failed to input Julianne’s info correctly and she wasn’t in the system as a patient . . . amazing how this can happen TWICE in two visits . . . the doctor was surprised but then volunteered to walk back to the ER desk with me to get Julianne put into the system and organize ordering the prescriptions he had given her.

I asked him if Julianne needed to come with us because it meant walking farther than she had energy for and he suggested that she sit down again in the waiting area while I accompanied him to the ER desk.

After getting Julianne signed in to the system (which should have been done when we first arrived, but hey, maybe that’s not the way things are done? But both times this has happened the doctor and nurse were surprised by it, I don’t know…) the doctor and I headed back to the tents aka “H1N1 Clinic” and Julianne and I thanked him, got Julianne’s prescription printed out from the ATM-type machine, and we left the hospital.

Since Julianne was still feeling really crappy I suggested that we get her back into bed at home, and then I headed out to get her prescriptions.  I walked the short distance from my apartment to a part of Dongdaemun Market that has several pharmacies thinking that ‘a pharmacy is a pharmacy’ and I’d be able to get Julianne her meds and head home quickly . . . WRONG!

After trying 3 different large size pharmacies and failing I realized I had to go back to the hospital area and visit one of the pharmacies sitting just outside the hospital grounds.

Inside I placed my order, but then the pharmacist told me they didn’t have any English instructions for the drugs.  At first she didn’t want to try explaining in English what each drug was, when and how often to take them, and with food or without . . . so I called my co-teacher to help out.  They spoke in Korean for about 2 minutes, and my co-teacher translated the important info for me.  I LOVE MY CO-TEACHER!  And in fairness to the pharmacist medical English is NOT easy, and my Korean is (literally) poor (no, I’m NOT being humble here, lol).

About 10 minutes later Julianne’s drugs were ready and I paid for them and left.  Before leaving, however, the pharmacist explained what each drug was for, when and how often to take them, and a few other details in ENGLISH!  I will never stop being astounded how a Korean can claim to be unable to speak English, or that their English is poor, and then given the right motivation or some time to think things over and build up their confidence how GOOD their English actually is when they try.

I thanked the pharmacist for helping me and headed home to give Julianne her meds.

Thus endeth the . . . 8th (?) trip to a hospital in Korea with Julianne–and let’s hope it’s the last!

J