My Essay-2

07-04-2008 17:27

Mr. Chicken as English Teacher



By Chung In-sung

Between the 1980s and '90s, every Korean had three personal goals: acquiring a driver's license, buying a car and getting their own place to live through saving money and living frugally.

Many people rushed to driving school to learn how to drive after work or early in the morning. In those days, acquiring a driver's license was a big thing for ordinary citizens. When he or she achieved their second goal ― to have a car, they wore the car key on their waist belt like a triumphant general just returned from battle. When each driver made their debut on the street, we all remembered that they pasted a little comic rectangle-shaped poster on the rear window of a car.

The picture was a small chicken painted dark yellow, which introduced him or herself, Mr. or Miss Chicken, to other skilled drivers. The moment all drivers looked at it, they easily understood when the driver acquired their license.

The chick means novice. Of course, no one complained about these chick drivers, even though they were the cause of traffic jams during rush hour. All drivers gave way to them and prayed for them to be a skilled driver. I would like to introduce my two Mr. Chicken anecdotes as an English teacher.

At first, I graduated from Jeonju Teachers' College in 1969. I became an elementary school teacher in a mountainous village. In those days General Park Chung-hee took power through a military coup d'etat in 1960. General Park tried to attain economic growth to root out the nations' poverty. He led Korea to economic growth through three five-year economic development plans. His efforts resulted in ``the miracle on the River Han."

Also, he was interested in educational development. He built a middle school in each ``myeon" (the smallest administrative unit). Suddenly the Education Ministry had to choose many teachers majoring in all subjects to teach in middle schools all over the country. The ministry decided to give a teacher's qualification certificate to all who graduated from a four-year college through a six months' reeducation training program but it couldn't mobilize sufficient secondary school teachers with such a temporary measure. They decided to get good teachers through a qualification examination for secondary schools. I finally passed the difficult exam to become a secondary school teacher in 1975 after two failures.

In two years, I became a Mr. Chicken as an English teacher in a K High School in Gyeonggi Province. I couldn't forget the first time I faced my students. I was very embarrassed and frustrated at students' eye contact. All my students laughed whenever I introduced myself and explained something grammatical in Korean. The reason was that I spoke in a Jeolla Province dialect. There are several kinds of dialects for each province. Perhaps I used only a perfect Jeolla Province dialect in class. I tried to alter my pronunciation into Korean standard language, language spoken by Seoulites, so that my students wouldn't laugh at me any more.

In 1980, Mr. Chicken attended an English teachers' in-service training program with native speakers of English sponsored by the provincial board of education. The instructors were members of the Peace Corps who were very kind and warmhearted. For 11 days I tried to develop my English speaking ability with native speakers every day, through discussion, playing games and singing songs.

After the teacher's training program, I returned to school. I taught English to my students for the first time, pronouncing about 10 sentences incessantly. Students were very shocked at me when they found their teacher's different attitude and speaking ability. I began to be interested in speaking English after that. Also I began to enjoy teaching English. I loved my students very much and was filled with enthusiasm and passion in teaching. I have tried to attend English workshop and TESOL classes for English teachers whenever I have the opportunity during summer and winter vacations.

In conclusion, mastering a foreign language in a short period is a very difficult job. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the famous German novelist, said ``He who doesn't know a foreign language is illiterate for his mother tongue." In the 21st century, speaking English fluently is a good talent and blessing for Koreans. I believe that this good talent and blessing is only possible when a learner strives to master English little by little every day like the story of ``The Rabbit and a Turtle" in Aesop's Fables.

The writer is a teacher at Sanne Middle School in Namwon, North Jeolla Province and a trainee of Intensive English Teachers Training Program of Korea National University of Education. He can be reached at flesung@yahoo.co.kr.