Do I Sound American Now?

One of the things that attracted me to the private English academy that I ended up working for was their class structure – for a brand new teacher, it was extremely comforting to know that basically every minute of a three hour class has already been planned out. During our week long training in Seoul, we took extensive tests on the order of each class: five minutes for attendance, ten for homework check, fifteen for the review test and so on. As my company has schools across the country and is generally regarded as one of the most prestigious academies for parents to send their unsuspecting kids to, the main offices in Seoul have worked hard to ensure that every classroom that bears our company logo, no matter its location, adheres to the same rigorous curriculum and standards. Thanks to this centralized system, my class in Busan is no different from a class in Daejeon or Changwon or Seoul. In theory.

The only problem with this class structure is that while it works for the first couple of weeks, as the kids’ English improve and they become accustomed to the routine, they slowly creep ahead faster and faster, and soon what used to take thirty minutes now takes five and you have the better part of a half hour to kill. Some nights, I’ll spend longer on certain sections (and who can give me another example?) but on some nights, I knowingly veer from my script to tell a (hopefully related) story, or get the kids thoughts on the reading, etc. Most nights this results in a great classroom discussion where I’ve managed to get the kids engaged and all clamoring to speak English over their peers. And other nights I lose control.

I’m not even sure how tonight’s discussion started. The book we’re reading in this particular class deals with the history of rock and roll music, and so for the past couple of weeks I’ve been playing the corresponding songs off my iPod and talking about their effects on popular culture. Fats Domino. Chuck Berry. Elvis. The Beatles. Needless to say, I’ve been having a blast, and still can’t get over the kids who have never heard The Beatles. I didn’t know that was even possible.

This class is usually my quietest group of kids: five junior high school girls and one lone thirteen year-old guy. They’re all very smart, but it’s taken me almost ten weeks to get them to let their guards down – something I accomplished by making an ass of myself pretty much every night. But slowly, as the weeks dragged on they began to talk more, ask questions and generally come to life.

And so tonight, in the middle of a sprited discussion on whether or not Beyonce’s music qualified as rock and roll (but Teacher, the book says black people and R&B started rock and roll. So she’s black and sings R&B. That’s rock and roll, right?) somehow the conversation meandered into the profanities that have come to populate many rock songs.

    One Student: Many bad words in music now, right Teacher?
    Me: Um, well. Yes, I guess there are.
    Another Student: Bad words? What is bad words?
    One Student: Yes. Son of bitches?
    Me: (mouth open)
    Another Student: Oh! Yes! What about shit? Is shit bad word, too?
    Another Student: Ass?
    Another Student: Hell? (slowly, trying to remember) What...the hell...are you talking about?
    Yet Another Student: (happily chiming in) Shut the f*ck up?
 
    

At this point, I couldn’t stop laughing, which only made them shout their various vulgarities louder and demand to know if they were getting it right. I had a roomful of sweet looking Korean kids that suddenly sounded like truckers, each waving their middle finger at me playfully, trying to figure out if they looked like the people in the movies. Not about to include a mini-lesson on the proper syntax of swearing (“Bitches is never plural. That just doesn’t make any sense.”) I quickly quieted them down and got back to the lesson.

We might be reading the same books and doing the same tests as kids across the country, but I bet they weren’t doing that tonight in Seoul.