It's a brand new school year with brand new teachers. Well, my school has a whopping 21 new teachers who are all busy adjusting to their new offices and schedules. In Seoul, a teacher has to switch schools every 5 years. So we lost 21 of our own teachers in February and have a fresh new batch of teachers from other parts of the city. One of these teachers, a man by the name of 정세창 (Jeong Sae Chang), has been quite the source of amusement. He barely speaks any English, but by watching him speak and interact with the other teachers, I can tell that he fills the role of the class clown, or the office clown(?) in our department in school. He's super friendly and has come up to me several times and has tried to speak to me, but his limited vocabulary (in English) makes it quite difficult for the two of us to hold a conversation for longer than 10 seconds. So I told him that he should teach me more Korean so that we can converse more. This morning, within seconds of sitting down at my desk after taking my coat off, I get this message from him via Cool Messenger (The Seoul School Board's chat messenger...I know...Cool Messenger...it kills me).
정세창 (Jeong Sae Chang) 님이 보낸글 >>
Hello!
Have a nice day~~~
See you later...^-^
It made me laugh and it made it smile. This guy is not going to give up, no matter how limited his vocabulary is. If my Korean students were more like him, they would learn a whole lot more in English!
We've been sending messages back and forth all morning. The process has been slow, but amusing and rewarding for both parties. Here's what I have so far...
Zenith님이 보낸글 >>
Hello! Thank you. I hope you are having a good day too!
And please teach me some Korean when you have time.
I would love to learn Korean so that I can talk with you
and the other teachers.
:-)
Zenith Bose
정세창님이 보낸글 >>
ha ha ha ha~ I saW...
I want to teach you easy Korean any time.
But I am poor at English
I'm studying.....
zenith님이 보낸글 >>
Haha. You can teach me easy Korean then. How do you say "I live in Mokdong" ?
정세창님이 보낸글 >>
I 나
live 산다(살다)
in 에
Mokdong 목동
Korean order~
I in Mokdong live
나는 목동에 산다(살아)
zenith님이 보낸글 >>
Thank you! Why don't you teach me one new sentence every week? This way I can slowly learn more and more Korean and maybe practice with you some time.
And I will help you with English also. Have a good lunch! :-)
Zenith
This has made my otherwise dull 'non-teaching' week a tad more amusing. Yay for middle aged Korean men.
