People of Namagong lend me your eyes

or "part three of approximately 48"

or “the boring stuff (stop now if you’re looking for cute anecdotes)”

or “I wish you guys would respond with questions so that I know what to write and don’t feel like a mad rambler”

or “shoot me, I'm bad at subject lines”

'Namagong' is the abbreviated version of the formal Korean name for South Africa, the full version being Namaprika gonagook- The Republic of South Africa. How ever most Koreans call South Africa “NamAprica”; “Nam” – the Korean word for south and “Aprica” the Korean pronunciation of “Africa”. 


Living in a foreign country that has very little English is the right thing for me in my life at this time. It’s empty and strange and makes me feel like a child and act like an adult. Everything is new, everything is a challenge. I have been overwhelmed by it and it has made me look at myself and realise how capable I am. I love it. The first time I was overwhelmed was when I tried to go grocery shopping. I had stupidly made a shopping list. I’m trying to eat healthy and wanted to buy healthy things, first on my list was oats. When I got to the grocery shop, everything was in Korean, it took me ten minutes to find out that they don't sell oats in that grocery shop, in fact they don't sell oats in any Korean shop, Korea does not produce oats, I have to go to a speciality store in one of the bigger cities to get oats. I felt so defeated that I could not even get the first thing on my list that I turned around and walked out. I went back to my apartment and only tried again the next day. I suspose it didn't help that the Koreans all stare at me like I am an alien. Shopping with an audience of people who can speak quite loudly about you and still have you not know what they are saying would get on anyone's nerves. But now I have mastered shopping. I have fruit and yogurt for breakfast (all their cereals are sweetened).

My apartment

My dining room table

I have a small, 45 square-meter, two bedroom apartment. The bathroom is a wet room. This means that there is not a separate shower, well basically there is not a shower curtain. Ok, the best way to describe it is to ask you to imagine a shower. Now make the size of the shower a little bigger. Now add a basin and a toilet into the shower. And a bathroom cabinet. That is a wet room. It is aptly named because when you shower, everything gets wet. My kitchen is tiny! I have a massive washing machine and no oven. I have a two plate stove, and the one plate does not work but its enough for me. My kitchen is so small that when I stand with my hip against the sink and make a fist on the other hip I touch the wall. Also my kitchen is on the balcony, I am told that in winter when it snows my pipes will freeze and I won’t get hot water... YAY, an adventure to look forward to. I have not seen snow yet, it will be my first snow experience. The weather here is hot, its spring and it rains sometimes but mostly it is hot. I leave my jersey in my bag all day. It's more like Durban weather than Cape Town weather. I heard that it gets very humid but its not been too bad thus far.

My Schools

I teach at two schools. On Mondays and Fridays I teach at JangAm elementary. I teach six, forty minute classes per day there, ranging from grade 1 to grade 6. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I teach at my main school: HongSan elementary. I teach four classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, then five on Thursdays to make a total of twenty five classes a week. Even though I only have 25 teaching hours I still have to stay at my school for 8 hours a day, it is a nine to five job after all.  I usually plan the next day’s lessons in the free time I have after my classes. I also chat to some people at home who become available as my school day ends. Korea is seven hours ahead and when I come to the end of my working day (about 15:30) you guys are starting yours. So feel free to chat to me on Gchat, Facebook, or msn over your morning coffee. The structure of my schools is similar; they are both small schools with 6-7 classes (unlike Petra’s, she works in the big city so her school is massive and structured differently). 

Staff room

I have six grades with six home room teachers. The home room teachers teach their kids everything except physical education (there is a PT teacher for that) and English (mostly because none of them have very good English, Bashti Teacher to the rescue). On the staff you'll also find, a nurse, a nutritionist, a pc help guy, the cafeteria staff, the admin people (about three), the vice principal and the principal. I have to bow to my principal every time I see her. The principal is the lord of the school, but both my principals are pretty cool. Oh, and then there is the custodial staff. At lunch time everyone eats together in the cafeteria and at my small school it feels like there is almost as much staff as there are kids. I have two very small schools. The biggest class I teach is twenty-five students and the smallest is six. I enjoy teaching the bigger grades more than the smaller ones. I always thought cute was overrated, these kids are sweet but I like my students to understand me when I say, 


"Sit down please" or "Please stop biting your friend, he's crying, and this is not a space conducive to learning English". I can also not sing the alphabet song a million times a day. If you want to torture yourself YouTube a song called "What colour is the sky?" and see how many time you can listen to it before you want to stab that bird in the brain. And at the end of the lesson do you think they know what colour the sky is... I joke, they do know. They can understand simple pictures. But it's not like Khayelitsha, there is zero English with these kids when they are little; the older kids are not much better. One of the problems I experience that Petra does not is that my kids all have farmers for parents and if your dad is a farmer and are planning to be a farmer, you don't have to learn English. You really don't. I am not on a missionary cause, to bring English to the poor Asian country, I don' think they need it. I don't think English is better, or the right way for people to speak, or whatever the weird Americans think here. It's a compulsory subject for them and some of them don't like it. I think it should be made optional.

Teaching and stuff

Is teaching easy? HELLS NO!!!

Some Kindergarten Kids 

I have mad respect for teachers partly because they do a lot more work than I do. Being an English Teacher in Korea is not like being a teacher at home. Its not really like being a teacher at all, it is a lot more like being a facilitator. The elementary school kids want to learn, they are excited about English or learning, I'm not sure which. They really like to learn things and then show off about knowing things. The English I teach is straight from the text book. The text book is REALLY comprehensive. It comes with a disc which explains and illustrates all the activities. I only have to draw up lesson plans and stuff for grade 1 and 2 which is pretty simple. It’s the kind of stuff you'll do at home with one year olds. "Hello" and "How are you?" takes like two lessons. We’re also doing the alphabet, the days of the week, and colours. That is this semester’s work, done :-)

Also there is this terrible secret about the Korean education system that I am telling everyone. It is weird. I don't mark work. I never ever mark work. The kids don't fail, they never fail. Failing doesn't exist. So at the end of each term they get evaluated. Basically on how much work they have done, and I think one exam which I don't set up or mark. This not failing system goes all the way to high school. When you graduate from high school you either get an A, which mean you're going to a good university (possibly in the USA), or a B which means you're going to a less good university or a technical university. Or you can get the dreaded C, which means you cannot study further but you can do any sort of entry level job. In the case of my students they'll probably end up on the rice paddies either way since I work in rural Korea and lots of my kids have farmers for parents. So not having to set up tests, not really having a hand in the failure of my students and not having to stress about whether or not they understand me makes my job easier (and a lot different from teaching back home).

It does however bring up some problems with the older grades; if they can't fail they really aren't motivated to work. So they don't... they'll play games with me and try to disrupt the class but if they don't want to write down what I ask them to write down they just don't have to. I can’t threaten tests. I can chuck them out but I find that it doesn't really improve their English. Also, because previous English teachers have not dealt with this problem a lot of my learners are at different English levels. Some can maintain a conversation; others can barely say the alphabet. This is a problem every foreign teacher experiences. 

Another weird thing is that Korean parents decide if they want their children in school or not, as opposed to applying and being accepted based on merit. The school in your area has to accept kids and put them in a class with their peers. Not accepting them is violating their right to education, even if the child is academically on a much lower level. So I have classes with down-syndrome kids, and special needs kids and I think I have a dyslexic kindergartener. All those years of remedial I had to sit through to help correct my dyslexia and these kids just sail on by…

The notes from the grade five girl.

Today I took away a note that one kid was trying to pass to another kid. It’s written in Korean so I have no idea what it says. She asked me for it three times after class and I said no each time. Then she changed her tactics and told me to just throw the note away. Then after lunch she brought me another note written in Korean. I probably wouldn't have checked what the first note said but now I have to know because it most likely gives context to the second note. When I find out what they say I will share it with you.

Thanks for being a reader

Please let me know if I am being boring… I hate boring people.

Bashti Teacher