"My Summer Vacation"

A few weeks ago, my school published its first English newsletter, with articles written by my evil coworker, some students, and the rest put together by the foreign teacher (that’s me). One student wrote an article describing his best friends, one wrote about global warming (we were in the middle of a pretty dreadful heat wave), and one of my best students wrote about her plans for summer vacation. Instead of talking about the beach, or sleeping in, or trips to see family, she talked about vacation homework. And really, for many of our students, summer vacation is more a time to study than to camp.

During my summer vacation, I’ll be teaching three weeks of summer camp. These two weeks, I have four classes every day – two with a group of seventh graders, two with eighth graders. When we return from Japan, I have another week of camp – four hours a day with the same group of seventh graders.

In winter camp, many of my students were students who had been in my after-school classes during the year. Some were A students, most got B’s, but we managed English-in-English classes together fairly well. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found that most of my students this vacation were C or lower level students. I have kids signed up for these classes who can’t read, write, hear, or speak English. (In the Korean school system, no child is left behind – they pass from grade to grade as long as they keep the seats warm.) It was a mind-boggling first few days, trying to imagine how to teach the students who couldn’t understand anything I said to them.

The seventh graders, though overwhelmed the first day, managed an attempt at understanding. We’ve had relatively good classes since then, with worksheets and games. My eighth graders, though, have been a bit more trouble. They seem to go in and out of class – some coming only for the first period, others coming only for the second period, so there’s no consistency between the classes. Usually, I do the learning and worksheet for the first period, then the game second period, but the game doesn’t work so well when the students haven’t done the learning. Games also don’t work so well when only three or four students come; or, not the large-group games I had planned for my fifteen-student classes. Yesterday, I had four students come to my eighth grade class. One can’t read or speak, one was a C-level student who was rather sick, and two were A level students who refused to talk. (There is no sense of ‘speak when you’re spoken to’ in the Korean education system. When there are 40 kids in the class, someone else will always answer the question.) I attempted 20 questions with this group, since its an easy game that most English students here can play. Getting them to ask questions was like pulling teeth. It was a dreadful class.

I’ve been wondering what the purpose of summer camp is – or, perhaps more poignantly: why would any parent sign their child up for an English-in-English class when the child can’t read or speak? Why would my school allow parents to do that? It’s yet another one of those quirky things about the Korean education system that I will never quite understand. If we put our kids in a room with a foreigner for two hours a day, they’ll come out speaking fluent English. Learning through osmosis. So, I have them memorizing the Gettysburg Address. That should have them writing something more interesting for their essays in the fall.