My Student and Her Family Kidnapped Me!

Well, not really...

It all started on the Saturday before Christmas. I was heading to Chuncheon to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. Usually, on Saturdays, the buses are sold out for like an hour or two and I usually end up hanging out near the bus terminal for a bit because of that. I fully intended on doing just that.

When I arrived at the terminal, I went up to the ticket machine and waited behind a family getting their tickets. They then moved away from the machine. I noticed one of my 6th-grade girls. She was there with her mom and her sister. I noticed they didn't buy any tickets, so I tried to indicate that they weren't finished and ask if I could use it.

The mom started to ask me where I was going, and I told her, and suddenly my student grabbed my hand and they said let's go together. We went outside to her car and we headed to Chuncheon.

Thus far, everything that was said was in Korean, so it was a very quiet car ride to the city. Once we got there, I thought that I would thank them for the ride and then we would part ways, but they found out I wasn't meeting anyone and they insisted on me joining them for lunch. During the lunch the mom and I had a conversation (through Papago) about how she envied the freedom foreigners have and that Koreans can't just be on their own, especially not eating meals. This was why she wanted me to stay with them. She didn't want me to be on my own.

Then we went shopping together. While it felt restricting having them with me when I was shopping it was also really sweet that she wanted to take care of me. After a few hours, I found myself in the car again heading back to Hwacheon. I never expected something like this to happen but I will always remember this student and her mom and little sister for being so kind and welcoming me into their day.

Christmas Cookies!

One of my favorite things to do during the holidays is the Christmas baking. Last year, I wasn't able to bake, so I made fudge with the kids instead.

This year, my host mom and I decided that we wanted to try our hand at baking with the toaster oven that she has. I bought some box mix (sadly) and a chocolate project and we and the kids had a blast making a mess of the kitchen and eating a lot of chocolate while with baked.

We made two different types of cookies and tried our best at decorations without cookie cutters or anything other than sprinkles. While those were in the oven, the kids covered everything in chocolate.

I had bought this box kit with little biscuit sticks and melting chocolate. I melted that down and decorated all the sticks. The kids weren't done there. We then decided to make the chocolate that we melted for the cookies and dipped strawberries and marshmallows on them. It was a messy and delicious evening. And the snacks lasted a whole day and a half in our house of chocoholics.

Korean Folk Painting

My favorite co-teacher is leaving at the end of the school year and something she promised she would teach me is called Minhwa. This is a type of Korean fold painting. It's really beautiful and Songsil is really good at it. She has been painting it for years. So she decided to teach us how to paint it by making Christmas cards this year.

The first thing I find interesting is that it doesn't really use paint the way you might think. It more like watercolor in a way because it's just dried down loose pigment that is wet.

We first outlined the pattern we wanted to paint with a brush onto this paper that Songsil dyed herself.

After that, she showed us how to pick the colors and each step to painting each part.

I'm actually really shocked by how it all turned out. I would love to do it again. It was so relaxing for a Friday afternoon. I wanted to spend forever just painting, and I usually find painting tedious and get impatient with it after too long. I didn't even realize until it was time to go that we had actually spent two hours working on these things. One thing I know for sure. I am not giving this Christmas card to anyone. It is going to stay mine as a treasured memory and to remind me of my co-teacher.

Superhero Thematic Unit

This fall, I had the chance to teach a six-week class of advanced English for 9 fourth and fifth graders. I got complete control over the class's curriculum with no requirements. So I designed a "create your own superhero" unit. It's not the most original idea but it is definitely something I thought the students would enjoy.

So I first set out to divide them into three groups. I have four girls and five boys so I knew it wasn't going to be even. The students split up with a group of four girls, a group of three boys and a group of two boys.

My first few days were introducing the three characters they were making: hero, villain, and sidekick. They created their stories, alter-egos, powers, characteristics, and relationships. We spent a whole class on a completely English website creating their costumes.

In the last two classes, I had them create the comic. THey first made out a rough draft to plan the story, and then I gave them comic paper to draw out the whole story. Some went really in-depth with the drawings, others with the stories. They didn't all have a plot, but that is okay because they did it in English and they tried really hard.

In the last few minutes of the class, I had the student introduce their characters and stories to the rest of the class.

I'm really proud of them and their creations.

Introducing My New Host Family

As I previously mentioned, I moved to a new homestay this year. My homestay family from last year was great but due to some personal reasons, they chose not to host again this year. Oddly enough, the host family I was placed with was the one that hosted the other ETA last year. And over the past few months, they make me feel at home in their house.

So its time to introduce my new host family!

Let's start with the parents, Lucia and Chan.

Lucia has everyone use her English name which I thought was odd at first but I've gotten used to now.

Lucia is a sweet woman who is constantly worrying about everything, trying to make sure everything is good and everyone is happy. Her English is really good so I can actually speak to my host family this year. She is so interested in foreign culture and she loves to talk to me about what I think about one thing or another. She is also happy to hang out with me whenever.

Chan is an awesome dad. Right now he is on leave from work as a farmer, so he is taking care of the kids full time. He works so hard all the time and he is so sweet with the kids. Sitting down every night with the older two to work on homework or extra studying. He is a quiet man and likes to read especially non-fiction.

The oldest kid is Gaeun. She is about to finish third grade. She is so sweet. She is a really happy kid who loves to read and draw and speak English with me, and shes into fashion. Just like with her brothers, she loves to sing, and sing very loudly. She is just getting into the age where she wants to hand out with her friends after school and on the weekends. She is like a second mom to the boys too. She is a really good older sister.

The middle boy is Jeong-Hyeon. He is the quintessential middle child. Always craving attention. He loves to dance and sing and put on a show to anyone who will watch. He is still young, he will enter first grade next year, but he is not interested in school in the least. I have a theory that he would make a great comedian when he grows up.

The youngest is Gang-Hyeon. He is just barely three years old and still a baby and so cute. He's really young so he doesn't have too much of a personality beyond just being a really happy child. I feel really blessed to be watching him grow up. He's so cute. Gahh.

Lantern Festival in Seoul

Anyone who knows me, knows I love lanterns and lights and all that stuff. Or if you've read my post from the Jinju Lantern Festival last year, I traveled for hours just to get to that festival for one night to see those lights.


When I learned that there was a lantern festival in Seoul, I had to go. I just wanted to see the beautiful lights and everything again. And Seoul is a lot closer than Jinju. I traveled around a bit in the hours before I got to the festival, and I was very surprised when I actually arrived. The festival was along the Cheonggyecheon Stream, a man-made stream in the heart of Seoul. Because of this, it was very cramped, and you couldn't stand too long at any one lantern. It was missing some of the grandness I had seen at the Jinju lantern festival. I think it might be better if they did this festival on the Han river. It's much bigger.

The floats were nice though. Each one showed some sort of history or represented a story, either Korean or foreign. There was a whole section of lanterns from stories that any American child would immediately recognize. It was also a lot shorter than I expected it to be, but I'm still glad I went. It was beautiful too.

Question of The Week: How I Get My Students To Engage Outside of Class

During my first fall conference in 2018, I thought of a new way to get to know my students a little more and get them to engage in writing in English outside of class.

Question of the week.

I'm sure this sounds silly, but it works. Well...usually.

Every Friday, I post a question for the next week. They are never Yes or No questions. Sometimes they are really simple, like "What's your favorite color" or a little harder, like "What's your favorite part about winter?"

The easier questions tend to get more answers, but I always get some.

The reward for this is at the end of each week, I will put the names of all the students who participated in a digital roulette wheel (one for each class), and I spin it. The winner gets to pick a piece of candy out of my candy box. The candy box is something I pay for on my own. I stock it with M&M's, lollypops, gummies, etc. Bigger candies to make them excited.

Some of my students are really excited about this and will answer every week, some have never answered in the year and a half I've been doing this, but it is fun nonetheless. They get so excited to see their names on the wheel.

I have had trouble with the students not putting their names on the paper or their class numbers, so I've had some bummed kids who thought they were going to be on the wheel but weren't, but they learn, and they remember next week.

(Not So) Casual Hike With The School

As I said recently, I had an unusual Halloween this year.  Just like last year, I dressed up as a witch during school and gave out candy to my students, but I didn't do a Halloween themed lesson. Unlike last year, I had decided they wanted to go on a hike. But this hike was unlike any other hike I have been on.

Now I've been on "hikes" that were just walking around a path, and I've been on hikes that were going up a mountain, with a small climbing section.

I have never been on a "hike" like this.

This was not a hike. This was a climb.

I was told beforehand that we were going to the most famous (i.e. tallest) mountain in Hwacheon and to wear comfortable clothes and hiking boots. I was thinking, cool, this is an excuse to wear a sweatshirt and leggings. Which I did. And looking back, I am so thankful that I did because if I had worn jeans like I was originally planning, I would have been in trouble.

Literally, the beginning of this hike was knees-to-chest level hiking. There were stairs and at some points these orange bars that were fixed into the stone as a literal ladder up the mountain.

Now I am not the most athletic, and with a bad ankle, I knew I wasn't going to last too long, but I didn't want to give up. I ended up at the back of the pack, but I was going to keep going. Slow and steady right?

Well...I tried.

I will admit, I didn't make it all the way to the top. There were three summits, I was told afterward, and I did make it to the first one. It was actually a really nice view, but it would have been better if the air quality was better.  I think if I had a few hours and as many breaks, as I wanted, I could have made it all the way to the top, but I was with the school and felt like I should just move down the mountain before everyone else came back down and caught up with me.

After the hike, we drove to a quaint little restaurant that just barely fit all the staff members in it and ate. I was so tired and sore that night...

I'm glad I went, but I was not prepared for that. It will definitely be a memory that I have for a long time.

Halloween YR 2

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. Last year, I was able to make the day special in school in my classes and afterschool classes. But this year, it wasn't possible because of my schedule. But thankfully, I still got the chance to celebrate. The weekend before the county decided to do a special Halloween event for the local kids. We all dressed up, did a mini tricker-treating and each of us ran a station that groups of kids rotated through.

The other teachers ran stations of different crafts and activity stations. Mine was a pizza-making station. It was such a mess.

My host mom was in charge of the event, so in the weeks leading up to it, I really got to see a lot of behind the scenes, as well as help, come up with ideas and how everything was going to work.

Day of, I got all dressed up in my Halloween costume, I was a witch, and entered the frantic flurry of preparation. Once the kids started to arrive, it was showtime. I did five rounds of helping 5-9-year-olds make pizza and trying not to get it all over their costumes. There was a bit of a learning curve, where the first two rounds I actually ran out of time and then I started finishing too fast.

The concept was that I gave each of them a piece of bread, they put sauce on, used cookie cutters to shape their cheese, then add toppings to make them more Halloweeny. Some of the designs were really cute.

After the kids went through all of the activities, we went outside for pictures, giving out candy and this thing that I can only describe as Korean Pinata.

On Sunday, we repeated the same thing, but in another town in the county. It was a really nice way to spend Halloween. I'm glad I got the chance to do this activity and share with the Korean children my love of the holiday. Especially because these kids were so young and so cute in their costumes!

Fall Conference in Gyeongju YR 2

Just like last year, in October, Fulbright gets the entire cohort together for Fall Conference in Gyeongju. Much of the conference was the same as last year, with a few exceptions. Thursday night, the other ETAs in Hwacheon and I decided to go to Chuncheon the night before and stay in an Airbnb, so we didn’t have to get up quite as early on Friday morning. It was actually a lot of fun hanging out with the girls.

Once we made it to Gyeongju, Friday and Saturday were mostly just various presentations and small group discussions where we could share what we have learned and bounce ideas off one another. As a first-year, this was so good, as I had been teaching at my placement for only two months. As a second year, however, this was mostly sharing knowledge and answering and questions if the first years had some. The experience was still very valuable, and it was really good to meet the first years since I really didn’t get a chance when I was at Yonsei for Departure Day.

Saturday was special to me though, because I was able to give a presentation this year. I gave a presentation on special education in the classroom. Since I believe most of the modifications and accommodations for students with special needs are just best practices that you can be doing with any student and that if you don’t know who to help, you can’t help, I spent most of my presentation on the different categories of disabilities and their identifying characteristics. I really do hope that people got something valuable out of it.

Sunday was when I really got to have fun. Last year, I went on the tour provided my Fulbright. The problem, however, is that the tour is the same every year. So this year, I elected not to go on it. I decided to just do my typical idea of just wandering around.

Although I didn’t make it everywhere I was intending on going to, I did have fun and it was actually really relaxing. The first place was the World Culture Expo. I wish I had gotten to go back at nighttime because they had a night walk that looked beautiful, but during the day was still pretty good. Afterward, I took a bus into the main area of town and went café hopping, found an awesome restaurant, a pop-up ice cream place, and little shops. It was exactly what I needed.

After our final conference dinner, I decided I didn’t want to stay at the hotel and decided to go to Anapji Pond. This is a beautiful pond right on the old palace that gives a mirror image of what’s above lang. It is breathtaking at night. I actually ran into another ETA there and we decided to walk over to the observatory and see it lit up before heading back to the hotel.

Monday morning, I got the bread that I pre-ordered and made the long 6-hour journey up the country back home. Tuesday, I returned to school, exhausted but grateful that I got to go back to Gyeongju for a second time.

Another Food Tour (Chuncheon This Time)

A few months ago, I wrote about a food tour of Nami Island from a new tour company out of Chuncheon. I had so much fun on this tour, and I absolutely loved my tour guide. When I found out they had a new tour of Chuncheon area, I was so excited. I love Chuncheon, but being a foreigner, it’s hard to really know what to eat and where. 

So bright and early on one of my only days off this semester (Hangul Day) I got up and made my way to Chuncheon. The tour itself was in Myeongdong area. This is my favorite area in Chuncheon. It is the shopping area. Our first stop was at this dumpling place. It was next to two other shops that served the exact same food, but this one had been there the longest. We went in to get what our tour guide called “Korean Soul Food.” Food that makes you just feel good and whole. We got fried mandu (dumplings; this restaurant’s dumplings were vegetarian) and tteokbokki (savory rice cake pieces in spicy sauce).

After we ate, we were already full. And this was only stop one! So, we decided to walk for a little bit before going to our second stop. Our tour guide took us to one of the older Catholic Churches that looked like a little natural oasis as compared to the built-up city around it. It was actually really beautiful. But from the outside, I would never have guessed that it was a church.

Our second stop was what I was looking forward to the whole trip. dakgalbi. This is my absolute favorite Korean dish and Chuncheon dakgalbi is famous. I have written previously about it, but it is made of chicken, cabbage, sweet potato, tteok (rice cake) and a spicy sauce. It is so delicious. Our tour guide took us to her favorite one in the area, and I was really happy. It was so good. When we finished, we also got a serving of fried rice with cheese. This is fried up in the same pan as the dakgalbi and includes whatever is left over. It was so good, but I was so full at that point. How were we going to go to two more stops?

Next, we went to this little café that is actually quite unique. It was both a café and the owners were licensed in traditional Korean medicine. So, you could enjoy a drink and get seen by a doctor. Here we had a very traditional medicinal tea called 십전대보차. It was this really bitter tea that is said to be really good for your health.

Our final stop was at this cute little bakery where she had pre-ordered walnut brownies with our names on it. How cute?

All in all, I’m really thankful to the Tasty East Tour Company for a delicious day and I hope there will be more tours in the future that I can try out!