Two of my students who are brothers have haunted me all across town. The sixth grader I’ve seen at the Lotte Mart crosswalk, most recently with his mom. I wondered how long it would be until I met the whole family. Both found me at the cherry blossom festival where we took some selfies together, one more a close-up of little J’s nose as he had grabbed my camera mid snap while giggling to himself. We parted ways at the train tracks and I met up with a friend. We took turns taking each other’s photos among the thousands of other tourists doing the same and it wasn’t until I…

Figuring it was Friday and I would simply shower at the gym, I rolled into school with a barely dressed up shirt and unwashed hair. But the universe is a trickster. “Are you free tonight? I can take you to pick up your dry cleaning and tailoring and then we can eat dinner with my son.” MJ proposed at 8:30AM. You know I’m never one to turn down a meal, though I had strong second thoughts when I felt my greasy roots. Guess I’ll just slather myself in hand lotion and hope the smell of Korean spices will hide the rest! She and I made it through the day and…

A tittering came from one corner of a fifth grade classroom. “Teacher,” informed one girl student, “this boy said he’s a cute girl.” The boy in question stuck to his principles with an “I said what I said” shrug. Note that week later, he would pretend to be a chicken and manage to do all his work with only his elbows sticking out of his T-shirt sleeves. The other kids started giggling at his mistake. “So he wants to be a cute girl? Okay, that’s fine. Hello, cute girl.” I said, playing along. Hi wiggled his shoulders while the a potential rising tide of mean-edged chatter loomed on the horizon.…

Inevitably, every time I speak to a first or second grader in Korean, this exchange happens: “안녕하세요,” the student says while bowing. “안녕,” I reply, in appropriate casual speech. I continue walking past the student. A moment passes, and then I hear the chaos unfold as the student reports back to the class or surrounding peers. “Was that the English teacher?” “The English teacher speaks Korean!” “But isn’t she a foreigner?” “But Koreans speak Korean. So is she Korean?” Their chatter continues. I don’t turn around. Cool guys don’t look at explosions.

“선생님, 선생님 팬이에요.” Teacher, I’m your fan, Several fourth grader girls while gathering around me in the hallway during break “I’ve only had two students who’ve ever reached true native speaker level. I think you could be the third.” My Busan Korean teacher, once upon a time “You should try doing a fitness competition.” My personal trainer, before making me do leg curls until I wanted to cry “If you do a fitness competition I’ll come watch.” MJ “I’m really impressed with your teaching skills.” Fourth grade homeroom teacher, after unbeknownst to her I had to retool my lesson on the fly “Wow, she’s so cool.” Fifth grade students after…

Two days after Wendy attended my class, I attended Wendy’s English class; it was the loud sixth grade class I constantly have to reprimand but they all clapped and cheered when Wendy called me up to clarify some pronunciation. “Thank you, thank you.” I bowed. Wendy had an interesting reading tactic: she made three columns on the white board. Each student had a magnetic white board tile. If they didn’t know how to pronounce a word, they wrote the word on that tile and stuck it in column one. Words they didn’t understand went in column two. If they had no questions, they wrote their name and stuck the tile…

Wendy attended a special training for Korean co-teachers last week and came back with a worry. “We have to do an open class together but we don’t actually teach together,” she started. As you know by now, my main school is so big that I rotate to every homeroom and teach English to 20 separate classes every week. Legally my title is “assistant” so I’m supposed to be accompanied by either a co-teacher, or if that’s not possible, the homeroom teacher is supposed to be my co-teacher (I’m laughing). “The trainer said that our case is the worst case,” she went on, and I had to wonder why the trainer…

For the months of the year lesson, I have a particular set up. After our usual warmup, the kids watch a catchy video and sing along. Then, we write each month one by one. I on the board and the students in their notebooks. I ask students who has a birthday in each month and then write their names in Korean. They get a huge kick out of it, and get more excited as class goes on. Some classes try to prank me and the student in question by shouting out wrong spelling. Other students get louder and louder if I can’t understand them through their masks and the general…

“Excuse me,” called a chipper voice. Wendy leaned around the partition and said, “I need to talk to you.” I know this is just her style, but every time she says that my heart stops. “I have two things to tell you. First, I ran into the fourth grade teacher because we live in the same apartment. She wanted to explain that snacks are hard biscuits in Korean.” Last week, I had talked about the meaning of “snacks” with the kids while the homeroom teacher squinted at me from the back. It’s not breakfast, lunch, or dinner but the small food you eat between meals. “So is pork soup a…

Sometime in the afternoon Wendy appeared over my computer. “Don’t get me wrong, I like you,” she started and my heart dropped all the way into my stomach. What had I done? I put on my self-protecting “customer service” face to prepare for whatever was going to come after this sentence. “I want to put a partition between our desks. Don’t take it the wrong way,” she emphasized, “I like your questions about Korean!” My immediate reaction was relief that I hadn’t irrevocably committed a terrible faux pas and was being chided, but my neck still felt hot. “Okay.” I said. “No problem.” “Well, can you come with me?” She…