Friday, July 2, 2010

How it all started


When I was young, I've heard of "Korean bug" from my uncle. He used to fed his fighting cocks with this tiny little creatures. At that time, I kept on saying the words never realized that somehow it will become a part of my circle of interest (not the bugs but the word Koreans).

During my teenage life, I've also heard of Korean moonies. I've had it in my mind but didn't bother to know, as I was busy with other teenage stuff. When I was in college, my bestfriend encouraged me to earn extra. She introduced me to her Korean friend who wants to learn English.

Along the way, I've met a lot of Korean people thru my sister, whose an ESL teacher. She invited her students to our house whenever there's an occasion. I still have a lot of Korean people, food, situation encounters. So I sort into writing this blog, some kind of expressing or documenting my experiences with Koreans plus my love for them.

9 comments:

  1. It's nice to see that you are so positive about Korea. The first time I came to Korea was in 2004. I used to practice Taekwondo, so my first experience with Korea was at a Taekwondo tournament. It was an international event so I was able to see people from all over the world. I can remember distinctly the team that came from the Philipeans. They had a big team with a lot of team spirit. They kept on chanting "Phillapinas!!!!" and then they would follow that by clapping their hands five times. They all seemed very nice.

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  2. Thank you for dropping by and leave something for me to read. I am looking forward to experience stepping on Korean soil, I hope my dreams will come true soon..fighting!

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  3. Well I hope you can make it here. The Korean government is getting a little bit more flexible in letting people from the Phillipeans become English teachers. There are a couple of ladies from there who work at an elementary school near by my middle school. They are married to Koreans though, so they have easier times getting visas (or getting Korean citizenship, though I wouldn't recomend that.)

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  4. If I'd fell in love to a Korean then marriage is possible.lols, I've taught ESL to Korean students here. Im just curious about your nationality?

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  5. I'm from America. I only mentioned the women from the Philipeans because I know that they do an excellent job teaching the Korean kids. A lot of people come here from America and Canada with no experience in E.S.L., or interest in Korea, and they don't make much attempt to learn Korean. However when people come here from countries like the Philipeans they learn how to speak Korean well, and they work harder at teaching, but oftentimes they face discrimination by Koreans.

    Now I'm not trying to discourage you from comming, I hope that you can follow your dream of comming to Korea, there are many nice things about this country, and many things that annoy me, and usually non Koreans go through phases when living in Korea where everything is great, and then it seems like everything makes you angry. But yeah, most of the time when you follow your dreams you don't have any regrets.

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  6. Thanks for the points though. They prefer to learn English from native speakers. I've watched documentaries in our country about Filipinos in Korea and they are not given rooms for teaching, I respect their preference though. If fate won't bring me there, I deserve a better place somewhere.lols fighting!

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  7. Fate doesn't really have that much to do with it. You could just call the local Korean Embassy, or Korean consulate in the Philipeans and see what they have to offer. Other than that there are tons of job websites you could check out. (You probably already know about them though.)

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  8. Actually I think that learning English from somebody who can speak it well, and who is not a native speaker has more benefits than someone who is a native speaker, since the excellent non native speaker knows what's necessary to study English. I get more ideas on how to teach English from when I studied Spanish in high school. Koreans spend 10-11 years studying English, but many can't speak it. I feel this illustrates problems in the way that it is taught, and I don't think that native speakers are going solve any problems until the system changes. I have a Korean friend who couldn't speak any English until he went to India for six months. Just having to communicate with people made him more proficient than ten years of school.

    Korea has teacher exchange programs where Korean teachers go to the U.S. to learn about American teaching styles. I think that it is a bit of a waste of time for them to go there because many parts of the U.S. aren't bilingual. Instead, if they want to learn how to teach English they might go somewhere like the Philippines, where people are good at being bi or tri-lingual. (Americans aren't really good at that, except for people who live in big cities or in the southwest where a lot of people speak Spanish.)

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  9. You have a very good point. I really appreciate your effort to answer and give pieces of good point and advice..^^

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