경희대에서 온 선생님

I was feeling tired after seven hours of overnight flight to Incheon. My mind was drowsy and I could not wait to get on the limousine bus and continue my slumber. Two representatives from Kyunghee University were already at the arrival hall waiting for us - the NUS extension students who are participating in the one-week immersion programme. Upon our exit from the immigration door, a lady went around confirming our group attendance. I was not sure who she was. Anyway, soon we got on the bus and I slept till the bus reached our dormitory near Hoegi station (회기역). For the rest of the day I only knew that she was our teacher-in-charge at Kyunghee.



On the second day, we had our first lesson with her. She introduced herself as Kim Minjae (김민재-金民載). It sounded like a guy's name. If I got it correctly, she said that her parents were hoping for a son after having one daughter. Too bad, she was born a girl and so she was stuck with a guy's name. Her parents do have a son eventually though. That was my first experience with her storytelling ability. This is one plus point for a teacher. Her stories and her animated way of telling her stories always kept us awake in class.

There were many stories that I can still remember. One of them was about "바바리맨" or "Burberry man". We were learning the Korean words for different clothing when we came across the word "바바리 코트" (Burberry Coat). From Burberry coat came the expression the Burberry man, said 김선생님. "Burberry man" in Korea means flasher or exhibitionist and she related her encounter with a Burberry man when she was young. You should know what a Burberry man will do so I need not elaborate here.

Still on the topic of clothing, she was teaching us the use of the verb stems "입다" (to wear) and "벗다" (to take off one's clothing) and she recounted another incident. An artiste, performing in a "live" entertainment show, probably got too high and took off his cloth (옷을 벗어요) without warning. Since then, entertainment show was not allowed to go "live" in Korea. It seemed nothing "immersed" us into Korea as much as listening to her life stories.

Another day, I was standing at the entrance of the Institute of International Education in Kyunghee (the place where we had our Korean lessons), a Chinese student came up to her and spoke in Chinese about some of the problems she had with her student visa or something like that. 김선생님 was nodding her head all the way. After the student left, "다 알아요?" (you understand everthing) I asked her out of curiosity. "조금" (a little bit), she replied. Sure, a little. I would have believed her if I didn't know that she had a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese Language and Literature & Chinese Education and that she was previously a volunteer who taught Korean language to Chinese workers.

We left Kyunghee in late March. 김선생님 came over to teach Korean at NUS Extension in July. That explained why she was made the teacher-in-charge for our immersion programme and why she was feeling nervous when our teacher, Ebony 배선생님, visited Kyunghee in the midst of our programme. On the day of 배선생님's visit she was heard saying, "어떻해, 어떻해?" to one of our classmates.

For those students who are taught by her in NUS Extension, everyone will agree that she is a very good teacher. She is a master at helping students to visualise the things she is teaching. She does this by telling stories or by drawing cartoons or by playing games or by simply showing the objects she is talking about. We can also see that she does a lot of preparation before every lesson. Her training materials are very professional looking and her worksheets are specially customised for each class and lesson. She will always use the students and herself as the subjects in her worksheets. She will also put some photographs of herself to make the worksheets look more interesting. However, I am not too sure whether that has motivated the students to complete the worksheets. Anyway, she should be credited for making our Korean class interesting. Afterall, it is not easy to maintain our attention during our night lessons especially after a full-day work.

For a petite-framed lady, she has an effervescent personality that is almost contagious. She is animated and sometimes comical. Always excited about new things. We will definitely miss 김선생님 when she returns to Kyunghee next January after she completes her stint at NUS Extension.