Tonight I started teaching Korean students. The first class was fifth graders, and it was fairly chaotic. There were some audio problems on their end, so I couldn’t hear everything the kids said, but even when I could hear, I didn’t understand a lot of it. Still, they seem very bright and enthusiastic. The second class was sixth grade, and the students were much more subdued and polite. I couldn’t always understand them either, but their teacher would have them all recite in unison when that happened. I was surprised by some of the questions they asked: Do I ride the bus? Do I ever eat Korean kimchi? (I was glad to be able to say yes to both of those. I didn’t mention that I haven’t had kimchi in probably 10 years.) What city do I live in? How old am I? That wasn’t a surprise, actually; we learned in training that it’s very important for them to know because it tells them how much respect you deserve. After I told them, they all laughed and then started telling me their parents’ ages, some of which are below mine. (ACK!) Then two of them started chanting something over and over, and I couldn’t understand–I thought they were saying “You’re 24!” and finally realized that they were saying “You’re beautiful!” Which was sweet enough to make up for “my mom is younger than you.” 🙂

Before the training, I’d been really concerned about Bishop wandering into the webcam frame. But the trainer’s dog did exactly that, and she said, “Oh, they love pets. They’ll want to know all about your pets!” Sure enough, Bishop meandered into the frame during both classes and they were delighted. The second class even asked if I could get him to come back so they could see him again. I called him over, and they all cheered. So I offered to print out some pictures of him and the cats to show them next week, and they were very excited–they asked me to promise that I would.

I’m really excited about this, now that I’ve done it a couple times. Once I got over being nervous and figured out how to communicate despite the technical and language difficulties, I had fun. So I hope my schedule fills up–supposedly it’s going to, but so far these are the only two classes on my calendar. At any rate, I’m glad to have finally started this!