Today’s post is a bit different from the latest ones – I thought I shake up all that review action with a little report what I’ve been doing in Korea! Just when my boyfriend left Korea and headed back home to Germany, I was rushing to Korea University where I met with my professor, who drove me to the University of Foreign Languages in Jonggin, about one hour away from Seoul. I was volunteering to teach German language at a seminar for the next 4 days! I don’t really have a teaching background – I did teach German in Japan too for 6 days but that would be about it. I really liked the interaction with the students back in Japan so when I got invited to join this seminar by fabulous Miss Kim, I couldn’t say no. (Also, I needed accommodation for exactly 4 days before I could move into my dorm, so…)
The campus is, as you can see, extremely rurally located. There is literally nothing around it, even less than at Tokai University where I studied for one year back in 2011/12. The landscape and placement in the middle of the mountains is beautiful and I enjoyed it a lot after a whole week of busy Seoul, but I would go nuts if I actually had to study there.
Everyone was sharing double rooms together with the students in the regular dorms. This was so much better then in Japan where we shared room with eight people, it was definitely not easy to relax there. We also had to sleep on the floor instead of real beds so I loved this! I shared my room with a sweet Korean girl names Sue-Been who went to high-school for a year in Frankfurt and therefore spoke very good German 🙂 Imagining to share these rooms for a year or so was leaving me horrified, the room was just so small! My double room in Japan was much much bigger :/
May I present you..? My class, together with another teacher, Harry from Munich. We taught A-2 level which means beginner advanced level. Everyone was really motivated to learn and get better with their German language skills.
My no-make-up teacher face. Breakfast was so early, there was simply no time (or need, really) to do make-up.
We got free meals three times a day. It was Korean cuisine everyday and for a mensa, it was really good! I enjoyed everything that was given to us and I was super stuffed for 4 days in a row! Here we have japchae (glass noodle salad), rice, salad, kimchi, and some sort of rice-soup with chicken inside. (For my German readers: tasted a lot like Frikassee.)
We also had some outdoor activity everyday and a little „Olympic“ games to entertain the students and give them a break from learning. Here three people were taped together and had to make it as fast back as they could!
And of course in Korea, no learning without at least one party! (We had a party everynight, to be honest.) We usually ordered fried chicken, pizza, soju and beer and played games together which was really nice. This was our last evening together and I look reasonably tired – I worked 14-16 hours everyday! Loved my class, everyone was super sweet and motivated.
Every teacher, teaching assistant and of course all students together 🙂 Can you spot me..?
I did not receive any payment for my participation (I also did not have to pay for anything), but to my big surprise I did receive a gift bag in the end! I received a lot of goodies from all the Korean universities that participated which I really liked. I did receive two tumblers, from which one is a thermo one (I wanted to buy one forever and ever, I drink gallons of tea everyday), stationary such as post-its, pens, markers, a traditional Korean board game and snacks! That was a nice touch 🙂
My professor came and picked me up with car and drove me straight to my dorm which I was very thankful for – my dorm is on top of a quite steep hill and although my luggage was already there (thank you boyfriend, for carrying it.. >.<„) I still had to carry quite some stuff. All in all I had very nice four days teaching and making new friends!
I’ll certainly make a post about my dorm & my area as well in case you’re interested! Anyone with teaching experience here with my readers? 🙂
Lots of love,
Sam
