Englishee

I had my first dream about teaching English at a school. In my dream, I was going to give a recommendation for a student who had diligently called a place about some sort of internship (though she was probably about 12) I called the place and they asked about where I worked... suddenly I couldn't talk, as if I could not articulate where I worked, what I was doing, or who the president of our school was... I woke up and thought it was weird, but it made me realize I had not talked about a very important subject.

I teach English, and have a group of friends who speak English, and so I am, for the most part surrounded by English. Yet whenever I go out, be it to eat, to shop, or to wander, I can not understand a good deal. I can absolutely function. But as I pass people on the street, they could be saying how odd it is that I am walking on the wrong side of the road, and I wouldn't know. When I was at the stationary store last night I decided to let gesture AND speak English. He wasn't going to understand any of the words I was saying, but the gestures flowed very naturally and he was able to find what I was looking for. But how nice would it have been to simply ask for a hard bound notebook, instead of pointing to paper, then cardboard, trying to mime the words? In addition, I can only speak enough Korean to point at what I would like to eat, tell the waiter how many of it I would like, and order cola, or beer. I can't ask how they are doing, what is on special, or is recommended, or if it comes with octopus... which limits some of my choices as I do not like the texture of octopus... Anyway, its a very interesting situation. When I was in Germany, I knew enough to be friendly. I knew enough that they knew I was trying. Here I feel like smiling and saying thank you get you by, but I would like to delve deeper. I would like to actually be able to say I am sorry to the little old lady who I bump into on the street, or be able to understand what people are saying as they walk by. I would like to know why the bag of potato chips says MSG and then some Korean. Is that MSG free? or MSG delicious? Glimmers of English are everywhere, which is helpful, but nothing beats understanding people and things in their native tongue.

I think about people who live in the U.S. or even the Koreans here who struggle to speak to me (though they can speak and understand more English than I Korean) and I understand why there is such a push to learn English. Being able to communicate on a deeper level is so important, and enriches our lives. My students always say that the reason they learn English is so that they can travel and be diplomats, judges,scientists, mathematicians, work at the UN, and be famous. No matter what they want to do, they want to be able to speak English so that people will take them seriously. They are so young and yet they are so aware of the global world around them. They don't want to be thought of as dumb, and for them, that means learning English.

I am curious if students in the U.S. are also so aware. I think the extent to my knowledge of the world outside Aloha was a mock trip my 2nd grade class took to Mexico a.k.a. the cafeteria stocked with chips, salsa and pinatas. Not to say that I didn't find out more about the world as I got older, but these kids are talking about climate change, and pollution, and the rain forests, and extinction. In ENGLISH. I am glad to be helping them achieve their goal.

For awhile, while I was in Germany, I had decided that I thought it was kind of bad that everyone was learning English because it meant a loss of cultural concentration. I still think that this is true, but it seems inevitable that this will happen, and we might as well be able to discuss this loss with one another on a level that is more than pointing and gesturing.

Hopefully the class I am signed up for will find 2 more people to join, so that I can spend the next two months learning Korean twice a week for two hours... If not, then I am going to have to find another way...