아쉽다?

Second to last morning class finished. And my unmotivated, hungover factory-worker students were motivated enough to be upset at my leaving and get me a going away gift. The manager gave it to me, just pulled it from behind him, saying the company prepared something. It's a watch. Not an expensive one, but one with shiny silver casing around a face that displays two dials--one for home and one for Korea. The company's logo is in between the two dials, though small and unobtrusive. I didn't look very critically at first; the manager had to mention the name before I noticed it. Anna, one of the students, was expressing something that appeared to be shock, though I don't know exactly. (Over the course of the class, through my translating of strange and random words, words that most foreigners wouldn't know, it's been gradually assumed that I understand most things they say, Korean or English. As a result, little Korean is translated for my benefit anymore, leaving me guessing at a lot more than they assume.) Anna said earlier that she would come out to my hogwan to study, that I should wait.

As students over the last two months, the majority were unmotivated and lazy, or just to busy to care about learning English before going to work. But as a teacher the same bullet wounds me. It was too early for me to motivate them from the outside. I was trying to jumpstart my mind too, but didn't have the luxury of sitting back and letting one of my classmates speak while I deliberated a question, answer or explanation. I didn't have the luxury of being hungover from the night before, quiet in class (or like today, one of the higher level students made frequent trips to the bathroom between his sometimess politely lewd, but always funny comments) One or two students always came early and prepared, though.

And here comes a bit of Korean culture (it's the teacher's responsibility and fault) that somehow I've assimilated and internalized--As the teacher, I feel I let this class down, both in my style and my desire to end the class. In hindsight, I started the class wrong. With the momentum of precedent and the accumulation of time, changing the classroom atmosphere becomes more difficult until nearly impossible, if it doesn't start with the majority of the students. I was too easy, too relaxed for the students in the class. Most needed some form of discipline imposed on them, and I didn't provide it. I learn best informally, partly because I can't stop thinking about an aspect of language and asking questions about it, if provided the chance. (yeah, I'm a dork) My few adult classes in the past seemed to have benefitted from this relaxed, ball-in-the-students-court approach. One adult class no longer wanted me to teach them when I was too formal, too academic. I've since changed my style in that class with somewhat better results. The experience confirms my belief that a teacher doesn't teach subjects, rather a teacher must teach students--each case is different--in order to be effective.

I don't regret my decision, though. With Traci and I on similar schedules again, the inconveniences of noise, early and late, lack of good sleep, and irregularly spaced classes will fade. We'll argue less over what time we turn out the lights, about how late Traci is up pounding on her keyboard. I'll no longer have to worry about her staying late at the bar, coming home and opening our obscenely loud door, thus sending an unhealthy amount of adrenaline through my body, waking me and keeping me up. (I never got used to it, no matter the time, possibly because somewhere in my subconscious I believed someone or something was bursting into our apartment prepared to take everything, including my life)