Edifice

Gogopedy Pressos

Gogopedy Pressos (60)

One of my neighbors moved out. Now their apartment is a big, empty room! So, I secretly went in to play guitar. I used the sound recorder utility app on the iPhone and the it really picked up the natural reverb in the room. I hope the apartment stays vacant.

Shenandoah

This clip is from one my lectures during my EPIK orientation. The speaker is a Korean Americalt named Charles Ko. He had one of the most entertaining and fascinating lectures of the whole orientation. One of my friends said his lecture felt more like stand up comedy. 

This is about a minute of his stories about his friend, Gavin, who was kind to Charles when he first moved to America from Korean at about 5 years old. Charles couldn't speak any English, but they became friends nonetheless. Here, Charles tells us how that was possible. 

I love this bit because I find myself relating to it quite a bit since I've been here. I love striking up English conversations with Koreans (after drinking). It's constantly like, "What's he doing. Okay. Ok. Follow along. Jesus! Another shot? Oh, oh she wants me to eat the leaf." The only way I can understand with a barrier like language between us is through gestures and laughing. I think this clip speaks to how much I really have to "go with the flow."

English Comprehension Story

This is a snippet of some down time between classes with a few second graders. One, in particular, is always a blast to hang out with. This was the first time I realized it. She constantly mimics me, and it is adorable. It makes me feel adorable too. You'll notice she stops at the letter P. That's because I hadn't taught them Q just yet. Sometimes, when I am working with a student on the most basic fundamentals of the English language (like, I dunno THE ALPHABET), I wrestle with myself over whether I'm actually using my hard-earned English teaching degree. The answer is no. I'm not actually using it. I'm ...qualified to teach middle and high school. I am teaching Korean Elementary students. BUT the more I think about it, I can really appreciate the whole spectrum of English in a new way. I like reading poets' posts on Twitter, I am trying to read Moby Dick all of the sudden, and I sing "A is for Apple -a -a apple, B is for Ball -buh -buh ball" almost every day. It's just really cool to think intensely about the language at all those stages. I also love talking to Elaina about her realizations about  English and its quirks. The other day she was like, "It's so weird that o'clock is just 'of clock.' Like, that's weird! I never noticed that."  

ABCs And Throat Clearing

Here is a true sound of my day, the sound of the elevator in my school. I ride the elevator every morning to the 4th floor, where the English Zone is at Jungang Elementary. Yeah, I could climb the stairs, but I have my bike. I park it right behind my desk. I asked about a place to put my bike during the day, and my co-teacher said I should just put it in the classroom or else students would let air out of my tires...I think. 

Maybe I was a little desperate in trying to pass this off as a sound worthy of posting, but it is the nitty gritty. I usually take a few deep breaths in the elevator and go through the day in my head, typical elevator stuff I suppose. I don't think it is ever used, so it smells somewhere between Home Depot and new car. 

The metal box makes the sounds ring out for quite a while. I think that's what prompted me to record it. The beeps are BEAUTIFUL and the robot voice is airy and pleasant. I am not sure what she says. I imagine it is something like, "All of your hair is in its right place today, Bryce Teacher."

Elevator At School

Here is a clip of me playing The Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" at the Jungang Elementary School festival. Quite the back story to this, so here goes.

About a month ago, my co-teacher told me there is a performance each year that involves all of the students creating dances, learning songs, and other weird things. I had mentioned that I liked to play the guitar and would be into playing songs and nursery rhymes for the classes. So, she asked me if I would like to play a song in the talent show.

I said yes because you don't say no in Korea. She suggested I sing some really annoying English songs that the students like a lot (have you heard "Lemon Tree" by Fools Garden? it sucks, and Korean kids love it). I asked her what parents would like to hear. What is an English song that is popular in Korea? She said "Yesterday" by The Beatles is a very popular song here, so I told her I'd play that. 

I learned it that night. It's really a beautiful song, and you probably already know that. Sit and learn to play it on the guitar, and you really start to understand the parts that really get people. For me, it's how it keeps dropping "far away...here to stay...Oh I." I started to get kind of excited to sing the song. 

Then, a few days later, my co-teacher said the principal was afraid too many people would cry, so I should choose another song. Fair enough. 

I still wanted to do a slow song. I just thought it'd awkward if this white person gets up there and does some really hokey number alone. I suggested some standards. "Too much like lullaby, too romantic, I don't know this song." We'd been practicing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" as a bit of a warm-up with a couple of classes. It's a great way for students to hear some English. I knew she wanted me to sing that, but I like slow songs, okay? I asked her if I could do it like they did it on Glee or in Across the Universe. It sounds nice slowed down. She said yes.

So, I practiced a slow version of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" for about a month, I guess. I thought it sounded nice, really brings out how desperately this person wants to hold the other person's hand. 

So, rehearsal day came. I played it for the students and faculty on the stage. I was nervous a bit, but I thought it might catch them off guard in a good way. Wrong. So wrong. Everyone who could speak English hated it. 

I think it is better if you play it faster.
But, you told me I can do it slowly. We talked about this.
Yes, but the principal and vice principal think it is better.
Well, okay.

So, two days before the show, I had to change it. Not really a big deal because that's how the song goes, that's how I learned it in the first place. I just wanted some artistic freedom! 

But, the worst part is she made me practice it, Loudly. In front of her. She kept making me start over and play faster or sing higher. I don't think she understood that I couldn't actually sing (period) as high as she could. I had to explain to her that I had never had any vocal training, so it's hard for me to imitate some of the most creative and bizarre singing melody composers to ever live! Not to mention, the Beatles songs when John and Paul both sing, sound so terrible with just one of them! I can't be John Lennon and Paul McCartney!?!?  Despite all of that, she made me keep trying over and over again. Probably 7 times altogether, interrupted by kids mocking me and a number of phone calls probably telling her to get the damn native speaker's head out of his ass and sound like John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It was so painful. 

Singing, at least for me, is sort of personal. I am not super confident in my ability, and I just started enjoying playing in front of my family right before I left. As I tried to look at the bright side of this uncomfortable situation, I was being forced to push myself. I usually just don't let that happen. It was really intense, and I think it was probably good for me.

So, anyway, to sum things up, I was still very nervous, but there were a lot of lights, and I just tried my best to have an out of body experience. It was over as soon as it started, and the principal gave me a thumbs up which is a huge compliment. 

Listen, and you can hear some of the students singing along. It was a big gym full of people, so I guess it was the biggest show I've ever played. I bought a hat. It says "Strange Days" on it.

"I Wanna Hold Your Hand" at the school festival

This clip comes from one of my first days teaching first graders. We have been learning the alphabet since I've been here. We learn one letter every class. So, that's about 40 minutes to spend on one letter. The kids aren't angels either. They're actually way more rambunctious than I ever remember American students being. Sometimes it comes across as enthusiasm, but most of the time they are just eating me alive. It's very difficult to find a good game or activity that is so focused on individual letters of the alphabet. At this point, I'm just trying to get them to recognize all of the letters and their names. Then, we will move onto initial consonant sounds NEXT YEAR. It's slow going. 

I thought this activity was going to be such a flop. Everyone has a mini erase board (I suppose paper would work too). I have one at the front of the class. I write a letter without them seeing, and they write which letter they think I wrote. It just seemed too half-assed. I would say, "OK, my letter is between A and G." I just flip it when they've written their answers. Probably better if I would have said the letter. What I'm trying to say is, THEY LOVED IT! You really need to count your points in this crazy ass elementary world. Here they are going apeshit because I wrote the letter "I."

Guess The Letter

I know my last upload was of my first grade class, but they just yield a lot of adorable moments. On this day, I was teaching all about the letter, U. It was a fun day, we played limbo (Under) and we colored the US flag. I guess that was not weird. I thought it would be because I think nationalism is pretty strong in Korea. I took some pictures. I also introduced the word, "Ukulele" to them.

Clair, my awesome neighbor, let me borrow her ukulele. I wanted to try and give my students a  one time only, intimate, live performance of some all-time favorite classics of theirs like "Phonics Song 2" and "BINGO." 

I've never had my own ukulele to learn to play, and I had just sliced my finger open a few days earlier. So, playing the ukulele was difficult. Luckily, both songs are no more than 4 chords. 

I thought the students would be thrilled that I was singing and playing an instrument, but it was kind of like, "Ah yes. Ukulele starts with U. Makes perfect sense." 

I love the phonics song, and the YouTube channel it's from, KIDSTV123 has been a never ending resource (and time filler) for my first grade class who learns one letter a week. I recommend their L song and Big Numbers Song almost legitimately for easy listening. 

I mess up a little bit. There are a lot of letters, man.



Phonics Song

Here's Korean men (my principal, vice principal, head teacher) watching sports. 

This is from one of the first times I ever went out for a staff dinner. If you know anything about staff dinners in Korea, you know none of us were feeling much pain at this time. We had just finished our dinner and then someone suggested to go to another place. Of course, I had no idea what was going on; feel like I don't need to tell you that anymore. So, the place we ended up was a simple little restaurant with a twist...chicken feet. They were actually pretty delicious, but just too much cartilage and bone for me and my ulcer laden intestines to stomach. 

This was still pretty early on in my time here, so everything was unfamiliar. Nowadays, I'm like "Aw shit, chicken feet? Bro, I'm busy!!" So, I'm sitting there, and they change the television to the Asian Olympics which are a huge deal. Korea was playing ...another team in volleyball. 

I immediately felt like I was watching sports with people back home! All of the same tense feelings were there with predictions about the next play or what the guy on the left was doing wrong. So familiar. I could even tell that the Vice Principal was not all that into sports and was probably saying things like "Score a point! Hit the ball over the net using your hand!"

All the while, I'm sitting there recording them. Gosh, I'm kind of a sneaky dick, huh!?

Korean Men Watching Sports

Here is a one on one session with one of my favorite, most successful students, Kim Min Yeong. He is the English representative of the school. This is a clip of us practicing classroom English in preparation for an upcoming English competition in the city. I'm happy to report he came back with a silver medal.

He earned it too. He came to my desk every morning for about a month just to do these monotonous flashcard exercises. We were trying to spice it up, so I split up the flashcards like I was diagramming a sentence. We just had a few piles of flashcards for each appropriate part of a sentence. For example, "I (or he/she/they) want to buy (or have, see, love, use) seven (or some other number) pretty (or some other adjective) horses (or some other object). I just flipped through the piles randomly, and he would use the pictures to create a sentence ( a picture for each part of the sentence). Anyone who teaches over here knows how difficult it is to get your students to use full sentences. I suppose that's the case back home as well. I was so impressed that he was able to pick up on what I thought was a tricky activity, sentence diagramming. He nailed it though. 

His mom told him he could have a bike if he placed in the competition. A few weeks after the competition, he came in with a busted chin. He crashed on his bike.

b_r_y_c_e

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