One Night in Boseong

Every now and again EPIK (English Program in Korea) will call us away from our daily classes for different workshops and trainings. Last week, Eric and I, along with 160 other Native English teachers, were whisked away to Boseong, a seaside resort, to partake in a two day workshop to hone our skills of classroom management, lesson planning, and to share successful classroom activities. We arrived in Boseong around 11:30 am on Thursday and after checking in and going over the schedule we jumped right into the variety of lectures that had been organized for that day. I attended four session: icebreakers, useful classroom activities, an lesson plan sharing session, and classroom management/discipline. By far my favorite lecture was the one on classroom management. Since my students do not have the strongest command of English, I have learned that trying to control a classroom of 42 middle school girls can prove challenging. What I especially liked about the techniques discussed at the workshop was most of them were non-verbal, relaying a lot on eye contact, desk tapping, and a constant patrolling around the classroom. These things are understood across the language barrier my students and I sometimes come across.

After the lectures were over, the night was ours and everyone split up into their assigned rooms. Since it is only customary that married couples room together, Eric and I were split up. I roomed with some girlfriends I’ve made since living here. For all of us girls, this was the first night in a long time that we got to ourselves, no boy in sight. So we decided to bring a couple bottles of wine (don’t worry there were four of us), indulge in some sweets, and wear the most comfortable, elastic-band wasted pants we owned; it was glorious. By night’s end the wine bottles were emptied and candy wrappers were strewn all over the coffee table. Despite our room being Korean style, meaning no beds, it was the first night for all four of us that we didn’t have to share a twin sized bed with someone. We were happy to stretch out our legs and arms and use as much, if not all, of the blanket we wanted. The funny thing is, despite having a lot of extra space we never used it. We all opted to sleep in the same room, laying four across. We all managed to get a little more room than normal, but I guess once you become accustomed to small spaces, large ones just seem unnecessary.