Classically Fake Korean "Advertising"

Oh man.. Sookyoung De Hakyo has a reputable Korean Language Program.

But the placed article below in the The Seoul Times as allegedly written by an English speaker.

It's like... like.. they don't know how an English speaker writes, or that an English speaker wouldn't spot this as a fraud in about 3 seconds.

The first paragraph, alone, is a classic Korean version of English:

Learning the most scientific phonetic language in existence to attain the ability to communicate well in Korea does not have to be so difficult, because I aspired to express myself beyond speaking louder, slower, or continuing to mime out my expressions and requests.

I attended several Korean language programs. The type of program I desired needed to be convenient to attend, professionally taught, and provide good cultural insights of Korea and its people.

The LinguaExpress located at Sookmyung Women's University (SWU) in Seoul exceeded my expectations. Located in Yongsan-Gu, Sookmyung Women's University is accessible by public transportation. I currently attend the Regular Intensive Program beginning at ten in the morning and lasting until one in the afternoon, Monday through Friday.

Expats in Sookmyung Women's University's Korean class

I appreciate the class hours because they avoid the rush hours of cars entering the university and bypass the onslaught of noisy lunch hour crowds.

Entering the first floor lobby of the Social Education Building for the first time, I was impressed with the bright and comfortable space of LinguaExpress. The open lobby is flanked by large glass windows allowing the sun's rays to flow in.

Many table settings and sofas make this area an excellent location to relax. With a snack from the coffee corner, students exchange conversations, watch the large screen television, or practice their new language skills. Additionally, on each floor of LinguaExpress there are supplementary tables and chairs next to wide windows offering a good view of Seoul.

Expats with locals at Sookmyung Women's University

I appreciate the computer terminals located. I check my e-mails before and during my class breaks. On the second floor, the roomy and modern multimedia library has great individual workstations to practice language proficiency.

The library services are open daily at 7:30 a.m. and close at 9:00 p.m. Students utilize the audio and video materials quickly with assistance from courteous media library staff.

LinguaExpress's professional teaching staff instructs a wide variety of nationalities the Korean language by integrating listening, speaking and writing skills in relaxed and functional classrooms. Utilizing modern and updated textbooks, music, movies, and diverse dialogues to introduce a variety of everyday situations, so learning Korean is easier to understand and retain.

I appreciate my instructors approach to teaching, initially my poor vocabulary and limited ability to communicate made me shy to speak Korean. Under my teachers patient guidance, I am able to say more complex sentences. I respond more effectively to questions and engage in conversations.

Fun at Sookmyung Women's University's Korean class

My progressive ability to communicate in Korean is assisted by learning more about Korea's culture through the Special Program Workshops hosted by the LinguaExpress.

Various Korean language programs offer field trips to various sites within Korea, however, SWU's LinguaExpress promotes hands on workshops that are informative, occasionally messy, but always enjoyable.

The Kimchi 김치 Making Workshop gave all who participated a deeper appreciation of the time and effort it takes to prepare a complicated and delicious dish. Using a recipe handed down from generation to generation.

Students blend vegetables, pickled fish and spices to wrap Chinese Cabbage to produce Kimchi. Besides preparing Kimchi, my class group cooked Chap Chae 잡채, Pulgoki 불고기, Pachon 파전, Kamchachon 감자전, and Kimchichon 김치전.

The Korean Calligraphy Workshop promoted the skills of a Korean scholar. Students used brush strokes to create Korean texts with traditional ink and paper. Each stroke is praised for its own attributes. The ink for its color and the composition for its configuration's use of space and strength
of the message.

Expats learn ink painting at Sookmyung Women's University.

The Korean Paper Craft Workshop introduced an artist's skill to manipulate paper to create umbrellas, rain hats, or fans in a traditional manner. Because of our novice student status, we created paper boxes by pasting layers of paper on a prefabricated framework. Being slightly prejudice, my creation was the most artistic.

The quality of my studies and special workshops at SWU's LinguaExpress are excellent. The facilities used and the professionalism of the instructors make learning Korean enjoyable.

Everyone from the friendly housekeeping staff, to the cheerful and beautiful clerical staff with whom I chatted and practice my new skills, continue to encourage and ease my frustrations.

Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, once stated, "The only way the magic works is by hard work. But hard work can be fun." The LinguaExpress's Korean Language programs consisting of it's professional staff and special workshops makes the work of learning the Korean language easy and fun. It is magic!

"Teacher's Day," Last..

Koreans have a day for everything. For instance, today was "finally old enough to be seduced day," a day on which Korea finally frees its innocent young maidens up to be preyed upon by Hagwon English Teachers.

Well, actually, it's "Coming of Age Day," but still.

Last Friday was "Teacher's Day" and that note over there on the left was the best of the three notes I got, as it was the least formal. I also got a decorative cup and saucer, a rose, a box full of bakery treats, and a cake.

The respect Korean students have for instructors (although the students are work-avoiding missiles, just as in any other country) is just another reason it is a good deal to work in a University here.

My Students WIN!

Woot!

Just got news that the grant application for overseas scholarship (Germany and England) that I worked on, was funded!

This means that three of my students will travel to Europe this summer to do research on the penetration of Korean literature translation in Germany and England, and what the implications of that level of penetration are (i.e. associated impact). This will, of course, be a comparative study, with the Wae-Pirates as the rubric to judge by. Once it is completed, we will turn it into an academic paper and parade it around the Koreasphere for a year or so.

The only bad news is that I won't be funded to go to Europe, since I'm not a student. ;-)

Still, this is the kind of nifty thing that comes from moving to an academic university and I suppose it won't look bad on a resume or sound bad in an interview.

Now I need to get all packed for Tokyo.

Re-unification

Had an interesting talk with the Chinese and Korean students in my conversation class. These are pretty articulate and pretty smart kids, and a couple of things they said quite suprised me.

First, ALL the Chinese students thought that not only should Korea unify, but that it would. Second, the Korean students were split. Half thought there would be re-unification and the other half thought there shouldn't be.

The short explanation of this is that the Chinese kids believe in re-unification as a general notion, and are clever enough to generalize it. When I said something like "WTF you OWN North Korea, why would you give it up?" they responded with "countries should be unified." And then made an exactly parallel argument about China and Taiwan.

The Korean students, on the other hand, were split between fuzzy racialists (we are all one) and people who were afraid that the economic failure of NK would mean a re-unification would economically destroy SK.

The Chinese students found this interesting, as they identified a similar problem as the main reason that Taiwan had steered away from re-unification with China. That is, they thought Taiwan's historical aversion to China had been economic, and now that China was a tiger, this problem had gone away. Some of the Korean students were politely sceptical that this was the ONLY fear Taiwan had about Chinese rule, but I was amazed at both the depth of thought (I heard some things I hadn't considered) and their willingness to try to express it in English.

Taking an assignment and "running" with it

The cute kids in my communications class do an advertisement. Just for BAX, I think they are calling the drink "Super Eight!"

OLDLOL catz...

My students are fucking brilliant....

so brilliant that I'm dragging myself off to sleep at 9:46 or so on a Friday..

This weekend is off to Gwangju with the OAF and BKF and JAE (and the great re-unifier!)

But I do plan to get back to posting about my students. They betray a common (and often realistic) notion about Korean students being test driven..... and that is all.

My kids... they raWkZ!

BPU2 ranked among top 18 Unis in Physics

Go beloved employer!

here

Unfortunately, as in most Korean (English) papers, there is no link to the actual study data

Did you ever see the faces of the children, they get so excited?

Booyeah!

Call from the BPU2 and they want me to come up this Friday to something like their MT ("Membership Training" and, no, I can't really explain what it is, but this link will) and give a 40 minute speech on translation and editing and meet the kiddies.

And, then, of course, drink.

I couldn't be more excited by this, both because it should be grand and because I should be able to suss out the skill levels of the kiddies.

I'm outlining the little presentation thing in my head.. a personal intro.. some talk about literature.. then something like "advice for a young interpreter"...

Let's just say that stories of working with the BKF will be liberally interspersed.

At the moment I'm uncertain as to how I should introduce the fact that 50% of working with him (in person) is ducking the wild, and potentially dangerous, flailing of his hands. ;-)

Then, there's the requirement for some beer - can their young minds handle the fact that you must first unmoor before you can connect? Could I make a joke about Othello in there? Will they stare at me as though I had just dropped, naked and fat, from a tree? How does one (in a culturally sensitive way) drop the notion of trading grades for sex? Will one of the youngsters outdrink me?

There are many questions.

But for the moment, I'm totally pumped about this opportunity to meet everyone.

10000 hours....

It is now the end of my second complete semester here at BPU and as good a time as any to take stock of what I’ve learned. I’ve been reading (about) Malcolm Gladwell and have recently been amused to see that his reputation as smartest hipster around has begun to make him a target (here, here, and here are some representative attacks). It was inevitable.

His latest “work” includes the theory that you can become good at something if you work at it for more than 10,000 hours. That’s over 400 days and I think it’s fair to say that the only thing I’ve worked at that long is drinking.

And I’m still not quite at the level I want to achieve!

Oh.. I should add in sleep.. and again.. I just haven’t got it quite right.

I had this 10,000 hour thought after walking down the stairs from the final exam of my Japanese Studies class. They all moaned and groaned when I did the listening part of the test, but to my surprise all did well on it. They had a bit more trouble on other aspects of the test, but part of that was due to really poor test-design. The test included instructions that were difficult for me to decipher, and vocabulary that had never been covered in the class or the workbook. This semester I decided to use the test provided by BPU, as opposed to last semester when I wrote my own. This was a mistake and leads to learned thing #1: Take as much control of the course content as you can. Sadly this conflicts with LIFE-LEARNED lesson number one: Be lazy. Still, it makes me glad I’m moving on the BPU2 and close to complete control of the syllabus and methodology. Some time soon I’ll post the rather detailed syllabi I’m compiling (replete with works stolen from very many of my betters).

Anyway, I was walking down the steps feeling I’d given it a fair go, when Gladwell’s equation popped into my head. I did some quick figuring, and so far I’ve taught 525 hours at this level. I’ll give myself about half of that in preparation time, grading, and reworking things for a closer fit in the classroom. So that puts me at 787.5 or so.

On the other end of things, I’m not sure what to assign all that time I worked as an IA in the CC system. I should certainly get full credit for time in Mass Comm 6 at Chabot, since I not only wrote the thing but taught it; I’m not sure what I should assess for doing the tutor training; all the pedagogy work I did on the ESL/CALL interface should count for something; heck, I might even count in time spent as being student, both for myself and others; Time spent researching and writing academic papers and presentations, and; I suppose, some things I forget. Optimistically, and giving myself full credit for things that were in fact half-assed, I have about 5,000 hours. Probably far fewer.

Which means I have 5,000 to go.

I won’t live that fucking long. ;-)

Doesn't matter anyway - BKF is gonna become a world-famous translator and then I can retire from the teaching fray to the more gentile world of text-editing, canapes, and the occasional caress of the rattan cane.

Today was also the second-to-last day of my International Student Lab Class. They have three finals between today and our final class on Friday at 10:30. They go from that class directly to another final. I asked if they would rather study during my class, or have another presentation and discussion on Western Culture. There was a 100% response in favor of one last day of work. This means at least two things. First, they feel prepared for their finals. No surprise, as they actually study and learn. Second, it means they like my class, since they had a free pass to not come to it. Which leads to learned thing #2: I prefer to work with motivated students, “good” ones, even (though we aren’t supposed to make such invidious distinctions). To be honest, I’m not drawing a line that would mean much back in the States. In the CC’s in California, even the most basic of remedial classes contain students better at English than the Korean kids at BPU. The Korean kids at BPU aren’t, largely, interested in English, nor do they have reason to be or should be.

Additionally, today was my second-to-last “running all over the fuck” day. My morning class is at the “Nearly a Bizness Skool,” then I run up the hill to the University, finally scramble back down to the Institute for my night class. These days are always hectic, even if I have brilliant and complete lesson plans (or, I imagine they would be hectic if I ever did!). Which brings me to learned thing #3: I don’t like working all over the known Learniverse.

Which brings me to learned thing #4: I should really prepare my classes better (this is strongly related to learned thing #1, but slightly different). Which, as I will post later, I think I already have started to do.

I hope this all adds up to BPU2 being a better school for me. The fact that I get to make all the content up should naturally lead to better answers to learned things #1 and #4. I don’t think I will be sent off campus, so I should have more time spent working. Finally, the students in a translation program will probably have to be better than the average ones at BPU.

Also, I hope, BPU2 will give me an office computer that works. ;-)

And, to be fair, that trading grades for sex thing never really worked out here at BPU and I need to give it another shot at BPU2.

Back from the Conference

Which was a spectacular combination of lame and wonderful (about which, more soon)... For now I'm in a cafe having a cup of coffee before going off to meet the OAF who is finally well enough to go outside..

At the moment though, Americano and cruising through the Conference Document. It’s a snappy little deal of some 923 pages. ISBN number978-89-922250-054 - you should pick it up when it comes to a bookstore near you; sometime right after Hell thaws, I think

Anyway, right after the riveting (at least as I read it I wanted some rivets pounded into my head) “Individualized Cookery on How to Improve Farmhouse Cuisine” (now what does that have to do with tourism), comes “Different Factors Affecting the Selection of Anaphoric Forms.” This is on page 301, if you happen to have this volume handy. It features the following abstract:

The selection of anaphoric forms is not random in context, but a complex multi-dimensional phenomenon affected by different factors. It is not only affected by the discourse structure but also affected by the context, relevant principle and conversational principle. This paper discusses several different factors affecting the selection of anaphoric forms, aiming at a further understanding of the contextual consistence and playing a significant role in anaphoric form selection.

Now isn’t THAT a pretty impressive, brimming, frothy cup of delicious WTF? Or, as a poet whose skills far surpass mine once put it, “What you talkin’ bout Willis?”

Thank god the actual article is in Chinese, because I think reading anything more along the lines of the abstract would have produced something syncopial in my head.

I've also finished the line editing for GREY DREAMS OF A TIN GOD, and that means I can move wholly to the BKF's work. Sweet.. there may be some more time for reading soon. ;-)

at Ye Olde "Nearly a Bizness Skool"

That spooky thing over there is one of the corridors of power at the "Nearly a Bizness Skool" here at BPU.

Where I may work next year.

We had the meeting with admin and it sounds like we might get a chance to semi-change status and also create the English program here.

Right now we have students coming in from about 14 countries, and about .25 are not sufficiently Englished-up to go directly into business classes. So some of them need to take a year of English (100 and 300) and even some of those who are in the BBa and MBa programs need to take classes.

So this is 20 hours a week at the 100 level, 16 hours a week at the 300 level, and three hours of (now) optional lab at the higher levels.

But because the problem is larger than NBS expected, and they need instructors with Master's degrees, and because this program was thrown together ad hoc style (a bunch of shit flung at a wall to see what would stick), they know the need something done.

Add to this the fact that teaching at NBS is far more time-intensive than at BPU (where we essentially work out of workbooks, and the syllabi and content is provided us) and you had some stirrings around here.

So it looks like, maybe, if all goes right, we will be given "projects" instead of classes, during the intersession, and this project will be building an entire English program from the ground up - decide on the curriculum and standards, pick the materials, create the syllabi, etc. This has several important aspects, the first of which is the experience, since not many people get this kind of foundation-up exerience; the second of which is the resume filler; the third of which is that I will get about as much pay as anywhere else, and; finally, I will get to keep my killer apartment on the top floor.

With all that said, today I sent out job applications for places in Seoul, and I'll be interviewing at Buddhist College on Monday... ;-)

Learning Korean: Now it Begins?

Today should be the start of a leap in my Korean speaking ability as I have put together a nifty little schedule of instruction.

On Tuesday I have the beginner class offered by BPU to foreign staff. About an hour and a quarter of really basic stuff.

On Wednesday I have a two hour class with some instructors here, one native and one not. This will probably end up being two hours a day.

On Thursday I will meet with my tutor whenever I can. One and a half hours here.

Friday I go to the restaurant and take an informal lesson from the bosses' wife. This will probably end up being 45 minutes or so.

If I keep this up (unlikely?) I should improve my Korean at least a little bit. Which would be a good thing as it is currently shit.

One class down and three to go for this week..

Today I will Save the World!

It goes to the top of my list, because I just got a link to structured procrastination, which suggests that if I try to save the world I actually will get around to..

1) Writing that Conference paper
2) Updating my CV
3) Blogging some pics of Seoul.

Tip of the hat to: MAF

Suwheeet!

The long missing Peace Education Conference just contacted me, and I am presenting on September 27th, in the afternoon.

Book me that ticket to Seoul!

And, or course, BKF is co-writer on the paper, so it's a win all around....

now.. I must party... they will find me just like they found Heath Ledger...

well, except he was fit and handsome.. but you know what I mean. ;-)

Updates...

Some Notes about the Academic Silliness

1> Somewhere in the WayBack Machine I'm sure I mentioned that I've found new stories by my lovely author. But I've also found a book called 미주문학 (America's Literature) that has a 56 page article on my main man. The thing is in Korean, which has already caused me to spend about a half an hour struggling with Korean names, words, the way they list things, and all of the "markers" Korean uses to denote role in sentences and... and.... I translated one sentence.. kind of. ;-)

I spent some time with my tutor working on this and I hope it will eventually go faster.

2>The lovely tutor has also tracked down what is supposed to be a 60 page collection of The Author's notes on his own writing. 60 pages each of the English and Korean version. Man, I'm salivating about getting my hands on that baby...

Then, I just sent off to the BKF my second iteration of edits on the Camel Pouch story he is turning in to the Korean Language Translastion Institute for their annual competition. It is due August 31 and I just feel that this one has a better chance than last year's. Lots of slogging ahead, but time and will to do it.

3> Last weekend's trip up to Itaewon did result in my grabbing two key books for my MCTA presentation. I really should blog the pictures of that trip since the OAF and I had some pleasant surprises all around.

Anyway, it all seems like progress, albeit in small ways. ;-)

Tonicing the Troop!

This should be the first of three re-focusing posts that will probably bore my rare readers senseless. Really, it’s a lot like I am there with you! First one is about instruction, second one will be about schedule and the third one about quarterly re-focus.

Having been once through the highly prescriptive “communicative” textbooks, and with three very different classes, I have learned a great deal. Mainly that when I got here I was a pretty sucky instructor. ;-) This was partly due to being tossed into three classrooms with three different books all of which had different approaches and resources. But it is also safe to say that I took the path of least resistance. Now, having spent more time thinking about things I have about 5 changes in teaching style.

1) THE BLACKBOARD - As mentioned before, I’m going back to the blackboard. I started my blackboard work based on a staff-development presentation in the first week. This included a bare-bones outline of the daily class and three sentences:

“In English that means _____________”
“In Korean that means _____________”
“Go Out!”

This didn’t work that well for me, so I gave up on the blackboard a bit and tried to do everything “scampering monkey style.” Which I’m ok at, but it left a lot of things unsaid and working directly from the book can be a pain – it’s easy to lose your place, among other things. So next semester I am going to outline everything (minus vocabulary) in the days’ lesson plan. Even if we don’t cover it all we will know what we should have covered and what might end up on the test.

2) THE BOOKS - I now have a far better idea of the kinds of things that are in the books. This will help me when I get the new set. I should be able to take them home (that would be this weekend for the summer classes) and assess what they have to offer. I will spend a bit more time figuring out which exercises (all the books essentially rotate the same 10-12 exercises, but with different content, from week to week) work and concentrate on them. I’ll also check out the websites and the handouts/tests/homework. Which leads me to –

3) THE HOMEWORK – I’m going to assign a bit more of it this semester and I’m going to grade it rather than use the money system. This will give me more backup if there are problems with grades (in case someone challenges them) and it will give the students just a bit more work in their 2nd (sometimes 3rd) language. The money system is too imprecise a homework payment system for me, since it is easy to apply unevenly and doesn’t have much scalability. Also, I want to separate academic issues (other than speaking English) from behavioral issues. This leads me to…

4) THE MONEY – I will still use the money for in-class English speaking, emails, office visits, and supportive behavior. I can’t think of a better way to do that on the fly. But that will be the limit of it.

5) THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT – I have also been able to find a few things that all the classes loved. These are the clown car things: I act something out; I draw; we have games pitting the men versus the women; even spelling, for money or competition, seems to get the class going. The movie I showed in one class was worth its weight in gold. So I will formally schedule these events into my class and into my lesson plans, so I do not forget to do them.

I think that these five changes will make the classroom experience a lot better for me and for my students. If I’m going to hop up to Seoul next year, I’ll need to have my game a bit tighter than it has been here. The good news (segueing to the schedule post) is that I have some college and university classes on the intersession.

Terminal Degrees Kill. Ph. D.s kill Absolutely

This comes from a PHUD I work with:

Name Redacted:

I am in the midst of gathering information critical to our institutional “Focused Midterm Report” for the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, due on October 15^th. In that regard, the following information would be very helpful in fashioning a comprehensive, compelling report.

Specifically, and given your role in our various marketing efforts, could you provide some manner of summary update—a kind of “state of the nation” status report--regarding our various efforts and endeavors toward improving internal and external communication (and especially marketing) so that commentary specific to such matters can be included/incorporated in the report?

Your help, most certainly, is much appreciated.

All of that ads up to, "Please tell me about marketing. If you could, please make it relevant to the Accreditation Report."

Amazing...

Hmmmology.. the study of uh.. uh...

My lovely discussant had promised to return comments on my conference paper by "this weekend" and as the weekend is almost over and I have heard nothing back, I think I shan't. Since she's out there in an expired time zone, I am even more certain of this conclusion.

There are several interpretations...

1) My paper is so excremental it can't be helped by comment
2) My paper is so brilliant she is slumped in her bathroom, under the sink, wondering why she payed all that money for her PhD when she just could have dated me
3) She's busy

Doesn't really matter...

I have another conference in my sights in January and will be sending off an abstract this week.

If the swine in Korea (who rather owe me, but who knows how that works with a Waygook?) won't find me a job I'll just keep plugging away here. Nothing else to do, really. Work for some big vacation time and try to do my research on vacations. I don't believe they'll let me down, but I have yet to see anything since Mr. Pak had something lined up for me last March.

The conference will happen, the reviews will publish, and I will continue to gnaw away at this thing....

Like the tailless rodent I am.

Screwy in St. Louis...

Well...

it's fixed now. I have lodgings at the lovely Chesire Lodge and my flight is cleverly planned so that I need not wake up early on either departure date.

The lovely discussant promises her feedback on my paper by Saturday. The BAG fulminates darkly about how Koreans always "love to hold me up." Hey, sometimes I stagger baby, sometimes I stagger! And I think a six day turn-around on a conference paper, for a post-doc who is reading several others, is just fine. As far as I'm concerned it means I don't have to do any more work on the thing this week...

Work itself is oddly under control... all these events are unfurling as planned and I seem to be marginally better at planning them. One community event and one Major Conference Entertainment to go, but with luck these will be the last for a very long time.

On a more (less?) amusing note, one of the previous wives of the "Just Married Uncle" has had a stroke pursuant to surgery. The surgery had been scheduled on the same day as the JMU's wedding, which led to some speculation that it was a sort of dramatic "fuck you" to the whole day.

As I noted to my BS, if this were true, the ex-wife clearly hadn't thought her brilliant plan all the way through. A death the day before would have had some swing, now it becomes a very sad footnote. I wonder how the JMU feels? If this has any impact any longer...

Oh well... as I sit at the bar waiting for

1) My laundry to dry
2) The BAG to get here
3) Total Consciousness..

I don't wonder all that much.

Because I'm selfish.

And all I really need is a good reason. ;-)

The Actual Thingie...