Noelle Teacher, what is your blood type?

Today was my first foray into the world of teaching English in Korea.  In my lesson today, I told them about myself.  I showed them a picture of our family (they were fascinated by Jessica's name and repeated it over and over to themselves...), Iowa, the Field of Dreams film trailor, pictures of Iowa State, a video of a Lady Gaga song being played on the camponile and several other pictures and videos having to do with me or Iowa.  Then, I had them write down two questions that they wanted to ask me.  I got some straight doozies!  I was asked many questions about whether or not I knew famous Koreans and what my favorite Korean food was.  I don't really know much about Korean pop culture yet, so I told them it was their job to teach me everything I need to know in that area.  They seemed okay with that...  One group even told me a recipe I have to try this weekend which seems to amount to kimchi fried rice.  Since I am teaching teenage girls, I was, of course, asked if I had a boyfriend, when was my first kiss (they ALL giggled hysterically when this was asked and answered) and what I look for in boys.  I was also asked what blood type I am for some reason...  One girl approached me after class and told me she was very interested in the differences between Korean and American culture and asked if we could talk about them sometime.  How cute!  And, two girls came into the teacher's office and asked a couple of other teachers to ask me if I would be their friend.  This job is precious.

Today was also my first time helping with Morning English.  My voice was broadcast over the television screens to all of the 2nd year students as we taught them new vocabulary and reviewed what they had learned yesterday.  The Korean English teacher that is in charge of these lessons takes each word and finds a corresponding picture to illustrate what the word or phrase means.  All of this is put into a powerpoint show and broadcast to the students in their classrooms.  I read each new word or phrase and they repeat it.  This happens twice.  Then, I read a sentence with the new word or phrase in it and they repeat it (again, done twice).  Sometimes, the Korean teacher will ask me questions about the pictures or sentences to further clarify what they mean.  For example, the first phrase was "at least" and the picture he chose was of a plane crash.  He then asked me what the picture was.  I said, "Uh, a plane crash?"  The whole time I was wondering what the heck that had to do with explaining the meaning of "at least"...  Then, he asked if I knew which world leader was killed in a plane crash last summer.  Thank god I listened to NPR all summer because that is the only way I knew the answer was Poland.  Then, he said that he heard that at least 30 other people died in the same crash.  Another phrase was "more likely to" and the corresponding sentence was:  Left handed people are more likely to be overweight.  Then, Mr. Jung (the Korean English teacher I work with) asked me if I thought this was accurate.  I said, "Well, I hope not because I'm left-handed..."  I also giggled a little after I said this.  He didn't laugh.  This made for a fairly awkward moment...story of my life, I guess.  

 The whole Morning English process is very sophisticated.  They have a room about the size of my apartment that is divided into three smaller sections that house all of the broadcast equipment.  There are two booths to broadcast the lessons.  One is used for students and one is used to teach the teachers a different English lesson.  It's a pretty cool setup and is completely run by the students!

Today was also my first faculty meeting.  It was conducted entirely in Korean (duh...).  So, for about 50 minutes, I watched people speak in a language that still sounds like total gibberish to me.  Even if I concentrate every free minute on learning Korean, there is no way I would be able to teach myself enough to understand what is being said in these meetings...  On the plus side, it was prime people watching time and I got a small bottle of strawberry yogurt milk out of the deal, so all was well!