Keeping count

At the end of an activity in class, I will either clap or count the kids down in an attempt to get their attention. If they’re chit-chattering like angels (which is rare), I count backwards from five. 

By zero they’ve turned in their seats and their eyes are on either myself or Co. If it’s quite rowdy, the clap works. As a teacher in Korea, you have to make a plan! My (ingenious) clap song/chant/activity goes as follows:


Me: “Clap your hands once!”

Class: *One clap*

Some smartie kid in the back: *Claps five times*

Me: “Clap your hands twice!”

Class: *Claps twice*

Me: “Clap your hands three times!” (At this point most of the kids are clapping along.)

Class: *Claps three times*

I’ll usually repeat the activity to ensure that I have their full attention before moving on. With the little ones this can take some time. I'm happy to note that we now have better clapping activities than this one... phew. 

Learning the Korean language:

Counting. Who knew it would become a focal point in my life? I count my kids down, I count claps, I count my blessings and in previous posts I’ve been counting the number of days I’ve lived in Korea. My greatest hustle now is learning how to count all over again; this time learning to count like one of my third graders in my new language- Korean/Hangeul.


I like language in use. Using my skills for daily activities like grocery shopping, speaking to a neighbour or even to the kids helps it stick. When we use a funny video at the beginning of a lesson, or if I draw two stickmen with a romantic story, it’s awesome seeing the kids more interested and wanting to learn a new English expression. Ok maybe not the romance one for the little ones but it sure worked for the teacher's class! Tap into aht motivates them and we are moving! Don't tap into it and you'll be sure to see drool, pen-tapping and the backs of heads. Trust me on this. I know. My motivation? Wanting to know how much the veggie man wants from me when I buy his dusty carrots or how much is that Americano? I’m tired of holding out a few notes and coins after guessing what he wants, only for him to count the correct amount in my hand anyway and give me the change. Lame Nadia. Lame.

Learning Korean for beginners - a crash course! 

Last week in my bi-weekly Korean class, we were practicing reading and writing numbers in Hangeul. So I figured that for the purpose of revision, you dear reader and interested Korean expat, would get a short counting/number education too. 

Right. For me to even TRY and think about writing out 7396 in Korean, I needed to get my head around the words/writing of 10, 100, 1000 and 10 000.





*Buddy Tarryn made awesome pics to accompany her notes and these images stick really well in my head when I have to attempt quick number thinking. She drew a ship, a bird's beak, cheon... and a man.*





This past weekend, buddy Tarryn and I practiced the number system. With Korean words rolling off our inexperienced tongues, it was time to start combining numbers into something bigger and sexy like 7396. What works for me when trying to figure out a number bigger than 9 is to break it down straight away.   

	Thousands	Hundreds	Tens	Ones
481	-	400	80	1
		사 백	팔십	일
		sah bek	pal shib	il
7396	7000	300	90	6
	칠 천	삼백	구십	육
	chil chon	sahm bek	gu shib	yook

This website over here will give you a better idea regarding the two counting/number systems in Korea. Anyway, that's all from me this week. I hope you're motivated to keep on learning the Korean language - let me know how it goes :)  

Do you have any tips to improve counting in Korean? 

Learning curve- Part 2

Wednesdays are my crazy days. I wake up at 5am (or rather I am trying to train myself to bounce out of bed at that time), march to school, teach the kiddies and by 3pm I need to be in my takkies (trainers/sneakers) ready to play a game of volleyball with the staff. After that I race to Ukulele class, and from there I have Korean language classes across town. One word: "Shoo"!

Let's take it back a few activities to chat about volleyball. I
wasn’t too keen to do it considering I know nothing about the game and the teachers (plus Principal and Vice Principal) take the game quite seriously. As much as I have tried, serving during each Volleyball game has not been a highlight in my Korean life. The ball just doesn’t like to go over the net. A few weeks ago while trying to serve, (EVERYONE looked at me…waiting), I heard the sports coach use English for the first time: “Power up!” The image of ‘Dragon Ball Z’ and their stocky characters came into my head and I nodded at him with a giggle dying to break free. He wasn’t smiling. Then again, when he burst out laughing during a specifically vigorous session, I honestly think that was the first time I had seen him smile in my three months here! Nice man I’m sure.

Anyway, the Vice-Principal and Principal (bless them) always make a point of reminding me to come to volleyball. If anything, I am learning to count in Korean and the Vice-Principal takes it upon herself to practice with me before every session. I love seeing the focus on her face and the broad grin she displays when I finally make contact with the ball and this time it goes where it should. I have also started to slowly get better during my service! Let it be known though, they make me stand much closer to the net now as opposed to behind the line when serving. Hey, small steps right?!

And then there are Korean classes. These have really tested me. Really tested me. It has been almost four weeks of trying to train my mouth to befriend the new vowels and consonants. It’s also been four weeks of trying to figure out the difference between the “ㅔ” and “ㅐ” sound. To me, both sound like “air” and as our Korean teacher told us, we will have to just learn that words have either one or the other. So basically, learn your vocab, learn your spelling!



*Click 'play' to hear some Korean*

I tried my new language skills on my kids during break at school. They wrote their names on the board and it was pretty awesome being able to slowly pronounce their names more accurately than before. There is always something great about someone being able to address you by your name, which is pronounced correctly. So yay for new skills!


A bonus: being able to stand outside a shop and slowly decipher the Korean alphabet. This has become my latest hobby, even if I get the odd glance from people. For now, I may be able to read the letters, but I can’t attach any meaning considering my vocabulary is minimal. I am trying to slowly build my vocab, but this is taking longer than I thought.

Anyway dear reader, I would like to share this quote by Jiddu Krishnamurti I stumbled across recently. It sums up my learning curve as an expat quite well. "There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.”

Nadia  

Read "Learning Curve- Part 1" here.