No Madness To This Method

Phew, what a crazy week. And it's only halfway over! Much has happened since my last update, and most of those things involve training at Chungdahm. I haven't yet had the opportunity to explore Seoul, unless of course you count navigation of its extensive metro system as exploration. I have done a bit of culinary exploration, though. After our training on Monday, for example, a few of us ventured inside a restaurant that served all of its food on a large shovel. And shovel down that food we did. It was delicious. Beer is also readily available. Last night, we found a place that chilled its beer by serving it over dry ice. The pitchers smoked dramatically, making all of our beer dreams come true.

But it hasn't all been food. Mostly it's been training. I suppose that first I should explain the Korean education system. It's highly competitive and incredibly stressful. A typical student's day begins at 8 AM. They attend school, where their teachers do their best to cram as many facts as possible into the students' heads. After school, they go to after school activities. This can be anything from sports practice to violin lessons to cram school. After those activities, they come to Chungdahm, where they study English in a complete immersion environment for three hours. By the time they get home, around 10:30 or so, it's time to do homework and study, which they do until about 2 AM. Then it's time to sleep and start it all over again. All of this is to prepare students for a giant exam at the end of high school, the results of which determine where they will go to college. If you don't get into a good college, you don't get a good job. Period. And this test is about 90% of your application. Don't fail, kay?

Chungdahm, as one of the best English hagwons (cram school) in Korea, has a very specific curriculum. Instead of forcing their students to memorize grammar points and vocabulary the way the schools do, Chungdahm emphasizes discussion and development of thinking skills. Instead of lecturing, we're encouraged to ask the students tons of questions and lead them to making conclusions instead. We teach skills like reading comprehension, something that's really obvious to English speakers but completely alien to Korean students. They're used to being told what to think, and Chungdahm doesn't do that. The part I'm most looking forward to is the discussion section at the end of each day's lesson. The students are given a problem (such as pollution, crime, health care, etc.) and told to form an opinion and then tell everyone how they would solve that problem. English education at Chungdahm is all about learning to be expressive and think and not at all about memorization or pointless exercises. I can already tell that it's going to be hard, but I'm excited nonetheless.

In my next post, I'll tell you all about my activities and try not to wax poetic about how much I like my job so far.