Teachers

Teaching is not something I ever thought I would do. My parents are both teachers, and I like kids, so I probably knew I had it in me. But this year in Korea teaching English at a Korean Elementary school has shown me a lot about teaching. It's a hell of a lot of work and is exhausting! This week, seeing some of the students cry and give me going away cards this week has made it all worth it.

It made me really think back to my favourite teachers growing up and how tough things were for them. Now don't get me wrong; being a bad teacher is easy. Just like being a crappy office worker. But being a great teacher, and putting yourself on the line so that the students can get the most you have to offer is a brave, selfless and incredibly difficult (not to mention physically and emotionally draining) endeavour.

The teachers who had the greatest influence on my life, were, far and away, Brian Svenningsen in Grade 7 and Mrs Maclin in Grade 12.

Brian was a passionate person who put everything he had into his students. I don't know a person who had him who didn't swear that he was the most influential teacher they've ever had. Looking back, I don't know how he did it without running himself dry.

Mrs Maclin was my homeroom teacher during one of the toughest years of my life. At the time I was a reasonably good basketball player, with all the hopes and dreams that go with it. In that year, I broke a finger, a wrist, blew out an ankle, a knee (ACL) and a shoulder (ugly dislocation).... all in separate occations. While those injuries earned me the nickname "cripple" at school, Mrs Maclin repeadedly gave me warm advice and support.

These two people had an immense impact on my life and helped make me the person I am today. Thanks guys.

Simplicity

Living in Korea for a year, and visiting neighbouring countries, not to mention being an ESL teacher, it dawns on you that something interesting is going on with language. Some people talk about English being the mother of all languages, the most dominant of the languages. Because of its broad adoption by the business community, it's use as primary language in many developed countries and it's blanketing broadcast by America's marketing machine, it has definitely become the language of choice. However, saying that English will devour all other languages is far fetched.

What is happening, is that countries throughout Asia (specifically) are using English as a common tongue, facilitating travel, business and cultural exchange. They are doing this on a general scale, through English as a second language, but more often than not, through a simplified version of English. Now, I'm not talking about the simplified English that John Kerry was told to use (which was highly publicized)throughout the 2004 Presidential elections. We call it Konglish or Chinglish or Engrish depending on what country you are in. I like to call it Englishy (and so does Virginia).

As I've posted about before, Englishy features phrases that get to the point or are more descriptive than what a native speaker would say; for example "Take away" instead of take out food, "Let's learning" where "Let's" is put in front of any word to denote group adoption, or "Coffee Story" where "story" is used around EVERY WORD you can think of to attach reputation or credibility to any product. It is interesting to see the core group of phrases that are emerging from this ESL region.

What does this mean for North America? Not much. Critical mass of native english speakers means we won't see any effect of Englishy unless immigration drastically increases (although Canada is looking to up their immigration levels from 100,000 to 400,000 people per year in the not too distant future). But in the east, this could mean the propagation of a "new" dialect of English. As the region becomes more integrated, and since they out number the total native speaker population, it may be this new dialect that becomes the prominent language.

So don't get cocky English speakers... you too may have to learn a new language... Englishy is on the rise and has an amazing number of adopters!

Kids are cool...sometimes!

As I've said before, this blog is not only for keeping those back in Canada in the loop, it's also our diary of everything that has happened this year. I know that once Steph and I get home, we will want something to remind us of the year we spent in Korea.

In my classes, I try to get the kids in my extra class to do things other than just reading and writing. I also have to keep myself interested, right? So here are some of the masterpieces my students have come up with.

It's all GOLD kids!

PS - Richard Simmons is funny!!