The Korean school year began this month, and Lena started in a new class at her kindergarten. Despite the growing number of expat kids at the school, Lena is the only English-speaker in her class. There are pros and cons to this.
On the pro side, it really pushes me to learn and practice Korean. At this age, my brain is more of a pumice stone than a sponge, so anything that forces repetition and memorization is a good thing. Lena’s teacher is super sweet and understanding, so she’s patient with me and offers thumbs-up when I get something right. Although, sometimes, she beats me to it. I’ll spend the entire walk on my way to pick up Lena mumbling, 내일 뵙겠습니다…내일 뵙겠습니다…내일 뵙겠습니다…* to make sure I get it right, then just before I can say it, her teacher will blurt out, “See you tomorrow!” She doesn’t speak much English, but apparently she is also using this opportunity to learn more. Usually, we just text each other, since Google Translate helps with that.
On the con side, we sometimes have communication issues with the school on technical issues. A couple of teachers at the international school have kids at this kindergarten, so they have been amazingly helpful, but there’s still a communication gap there. For instance, we need to pay our milk fees. We keep offering to pay our milk fees, but they won’t give us a milk fee bill. We also had to fight to get a bill for education expenses (and, no, it didn’t include milk fees). I don’t care if the bill is in Hangul, just take my money!
And lastly, on both the pro and con side is Lena’s lack of Korean. The school is a great place for her to learn some Korean, but she kind of doesn’t care so isn’t really trying. We now have put the kids in after school Korean lessons in our home, so that should help. But because she’s not trying, she’s missing out on opportunities. For example, one day in music class the kids got to play with ribbons on sticks (the type rhythmic gymnasts use). I noticed later in the photos that Lena was standing to the side without one when all the other kids were dancing around and laughing. I asked her why she didn’t have a ribbon stick, and she told me that the teacher handed her a yellow ribbon and she said, “aniyo,” (“no”) because she wanted the red ribbon stick. But the teacher thought she didn’t want any ribbon stick so didn’t give her one. Lena and I talked about what she could do next time (even pointing would help), and I’m sure she’ll eventually get more comfortable expressing herself. I’ve actually already seen improvement just this month.
But overall I really like this little school. They do a lot of fun things with the kids. I signed up Lena for their weekly ballet class, which she loves. They also have PE classes, posture and health classes, cooking classes, art and music classes, field trips and nature walks, English lessons… they even started ukulele lessons this week. There’s lunch and two snacks each day, and lots of play time. Lena usually plays house or teatime with a couple of the Korean girls.
I’d love to help in class, if possible. There’s not much I can do with my crummy Korean skills. Maybe read a book in English to the kids? I need to figure out how to ask about that.
*“See you tomorrow,” in formal speech, is the tongue-twisting “naeil bwepgetsumnida”… I can say it in my head, but it doesn’t always come out of my mouth correctly.
**Fun fact: “Ballerina” in Hangul, 발레리나, includes Lena’s name: 리나 (ㄹ is both L and R)