The Proudest Moment of My Life

I find it most appropriate to begin this next series of blogs with this story.

The name of the school I work at in Gwangju, South Korea, is You and I Academy. It is a 'hogwon' type of school. Students go to a hogwon after 'regular' school to focus on and learn all sorts of things, such as English, Science, Math, an instrument, Korean, etc. There is probably a hogwon for everything under the sun that one can learn. Some hogwons offer multiple subjects. Mine only offers English. One building offers grammar, which is taught by a native Korean teacher, and the building I teach in offers conversational English taught by two foreign teachers. We both happen to be American, but a foreign English teacher could also be from Canada, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia or New Zealand.

The other foreign English teacher, Brandi, and I teach conversational English to students age 5-16. Keep in mind that the ages are American ages. In Korean ages, the kids range from 3 or 4 to 15 years old.

*To find your Korean age, use this example:

I was born in June 1983. At my birth, I was 9 months old. In September, I had 'lived' for 12 months, so I turned 1. In February 1984, during the New Year, I aged another year with everyone else. From that point forward, if I were Korean, I would have celebrated my birthday with the rest of the country's population in February during New Years. So, in the USA, I am 27. But in Korea, I am 29. (This does not make me happy because I am closer to 30 than I was before.) If I was born in December of 1983 and hadn't lived for 12 full months before the February New Year, I would turn 1 in February and now I would be 28.

Because the hogwon we teach at offers English education at every level from beginner and learning the ABCs (Spring) to so advanced that the student can think critically and debate with the teacher (Gold), the owners of You and I Academy developed a very structured curriculum that a student can learn at any level. At the point of acceptance to the hogwon, the student takes a test so we can gauge their level. They are then placed into a class at that level and can continue learning from that point. The levels start at Spring and go to Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple and Gold. And each color level has several numbered levels within it.

My first class yesterday was Spring 2. This means the kids had learned their ABCs and were moving on to identify pictures and make the sounds of each letter to turn them into words. The two students in that class, Sara and Freddy (each student either picks or is given an English name upon acceptance into the hogwon), are about 4 and 5 years old (USA age) and can get very restless. Although they are cute, they have short attention spans and are easily distracted. For someone who has never taught or been around kids much in her adult life, this is somewhat difficult for me. Their cuteness outweighs my lack of patience sometimes, and I am definitely finding more and more of it.

The structure of the Spring class has me reviewing their ABCs daily and the sound each letter makes, and then challenging them to learn new vocabulary. The last 10 minutes of each class are spent on flash cards. Spring 2 starts with short words: CAT RAT CAR

I pulled out the flashcards and Sara and Freddy got excited. Yay! I pointed to the first letter of 'cat' and said "C-ca" to get them into what we were doing. Sara said, "C. Ca!" "Very good Sara!" I pointed to the next letter. "A. Ah!" "Yes! Good!" Then Freddy yelled, "C. Ca. Cat!" "Yes, Freddy! Very good!" There was a picture of a cat so I didn't think much of it.

Next flashcard. No pictures, just words. First word:

"Sara, what's this?" Then Sara and Freddy did something almost simultaneously.

"R. rrra. aaa. d...iii.oooo r-ah-d-i-o RADIO! Teacher RADIO!"

Oh. My. God. My kids can read.

I actually fought back tears for about 5 minutes until the class ended and my co-teacher came in and saw me and said it was totally ok. Since when it is ok to cry at work? Since I've just realized that the proudest moment of my entire life was teaching my students to read. I wasn't there for their first step or their first word. But I was there the first time they sounded out a word and read it. I walked out to the lobby area and told her mom how excited and proud of Sara I was. (Freddy and his mom had left while I was trying to collect myself in the classroom.) Her mom was probably as happy and proud as I was and we hugged. It was amazing.