Be Respectful One's To Parents

ooOOoo two posts in two days- how did you all get so lucky? I'm spoiling you guys, but it's ok, you deserve it. I wanted to fill you in on the speech contest today! To begin, a little background about these speeches. Students at Little America are given the opportunity to compete in English speech competitions and win a trip to America. Sounds pretty fantastic, no? A few minor details however- firstly, for the most part, these students are told they are doing the contest even if they do not want to. This decision is made by the teachers, parents, and/or both. Secondly, the students work tirelessly on these speeches for months and months and months. They practice in front of their Korean teachers, American teachers, all of the students, and their families hundreds of times until you can tell all emotional connection to the speech has vanished. The speeches are also recorded on the computer, so the students can listen to the "proper" pronunciation of their speech and practice it properly. For the past month I have heard the 6 competing students' speeches countless times and could probably recite each one of them to you. I will save you from that though- you're welcome. The students chosen to do the speech have a lot of courage to stand up in front of a room of their peers and practice daily, sometimes two or three times, in Little America- but also in front of an audience of strangers at this competition. The third thing about the competition is that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners get a trip to America...however it is not paid for. So they win...the idea of going to America? I couldn't wrap my mind around why students would participate in competition like this. I suppose it is an honor to tell people that they won an English speech competition? I'm not sure. Anyways- that is the background to what our day consisted of!

Amanda Teacher and I met up with Patti, Liz, Jennifer, and Tina Teachers at the big shopping complex for brunch before leaving for the competition. We then hopped in the "Little America" bus with some of the students competing today and their families. There was a nervous energy in the air. You could tell the students were repeating their already perfectly memorized speeches over and over and over again during the entire trip there. Some family members tried to keep minds off of the event by playing games or taking pictures, but other student sat quietly the entire way there. The competition was held at Sangmyung University in Seoul. Firstly, getting to the University was an adventure of itself. It was at the top of one of the steepest roads I've seen since arriving here! I was actually semi-nervous about the bus being able to make it to the top of the hill without unloading some people first. But don't fret-we made it. The "campus" itself was a neat juxtaposition of concrete buildings and mountainous terrain which was actually quite breathtaking. 

Korean students from schools around the area came to compete today. I think there were around 400 based on their number cards pinned to the shirts and dresses of the competitors. Actually, Loyola Marymount University in California was one of the sponsors of the event! Kinda neat. The speeches were mainly about Korean traditions, culture, cuisine, and important geographical sights. The company that sponsors this event sends out speeches that students may use if they do not want to come up with their own...meaning many students did the exact. same. speech...I don't think I could know more about the traditional Korean folk song "Arirang" or how to make "jigae". Our students were some of the few that had original, and actually interesting speeches, which I think definitely helped their standings!

The judges sat at a long table on the side of the stage and wrote comments and scores down for each competitor. The speeches had to be under 2 minutes, and if they went over this time, a bell was rung and they had to stop mid-sentence and leave the stage. The awkward silence when a student completely blanks on his/her speech is one of the worst situations I've had to experience. Their face has a look of complete and utter fear while their Korean teacher/coach frantically tries to mouth the words to them from the audience- or in some cases yells the speech aloud with no concern for the possible effect on the student's score. The abilities of the students ranged from monotoned-robot-like voices with the emotions of an eggplant to those over-the-top, to-the-point-of-haunting-my-dreams, squeeky, please-for-the-love-of-all-things-beautiful-will-you-stop-talking voices. Some speeches and posters even had incorrect grammar which was surprising to Amanda and I who turned to each other during one speech and said, "Wait...does that poster say 'Be Respectful One's To Parents'?...yep". Tried to get photo evidence of that but the stage lighting was not conducive to photos unfortunately!

Anyways- our students really shined throughout each age group. We had 6 competitors in a wide range of age groups and 5 students placed in either 1st or 2nd! The sad thing is that the student who didn't place will not hear the end of if from his mother, who put a lot of pressure on him to win. He worked so hard and did the best he could! I will be sure to tell him how proud I am of him Monday at school. You could just see the weight lift off his and the other students' shoulders after putting months and months of time and effort into memorizing their speeches! Not that I have a bias or anything but honestly our students sounded the most natural and had interesting (and grammatically correct) speeches. We also had different displays for our speeches. Most other students had posters or no artistic display of information. Our students had shirts or apron-like picture displays that they could manipulate during their speech to give more information. Overall they did an excellent job and I am SO glad I went to support them! While it was a long day (left around 12, got back after dinner around 10), it was so worth it to see the relieved smiles of our kids after they were finished.



After we found out the last student's results we piled back in the bus and Amanda Teacher and I met up with Shanna for some Mexican food in Hongdae at a place called "Macho Mexican". We shared some Margaritas and surprisingly decent Mexican food to finish off a longgggg day. It was an excellent ending! I will have to visit Hongdae again for a night out. There were lots of cool shops and bars around- I'm sure the other teachers and I will make it out there soon enough.

Korean phrase of the post: 배부른 (beh-boo-reuhn) "I'm full".

xoxoxo