Today I bring you three tales of victory!

Yesterday I taught the grade four slow learners' class.  I'm not sure what the PC term is for that any more.  We just use the Korean term, 부진 (literally "no progress"), at school.  They're kind of a pain in the ass, not because of their lack of ability (I can deal with that), but because they know they're behind and don't like it and so there's this desperate struggle to claw themselves up over the other students one way or another, and none of those ways include studying hard, so I'm constantly mediating disputes and telling kids not to call one another stupid.

So there's one girl, Munjeong, who spent her first year or so of English unable to even say hello.  She was scared of me and any time any teacher would call on her to answer a question in class, she'd cry.  I don't know what her background story is, but the other teachers said she's "multicultural" and doesn't really speak Korean well either.  In any case, she's actually so far behind that she's totally bypassed the wangtta (total social outcase) stage as no one, I guess, sees her as any kind of threat.  Her pronunciation is bad, in Korean as well, and given my lack of training in speech-language pathology I haven't been able to help much with that and have to guess what she's trying to say based on context.  Still, she's picked up a fair bit from the extra classes.  Last week she actually said "see you again" when she left the room - okay, so it sounded more like "tee you den", but it was clear what she meant from the context, and I was pretty floored.

Then, yesterday, I was trying to get them to sound out some vocabulary words.  The first one was "car", so I asked what letter makes the sound /k/ and she, along with another boy, said "c".  I thought, well, we just studied it this morning, so maybe she remembers.  Then we got to the /r/ and no one knew until Munjeong piped up with "r".  Then she knew the "p" and "n" in pencil.  It was all quite shocking, and it was one of those times that makes me really happy as a teacher.

That night I went to Korean class to hear the results of my tests, a matter of some concern for all of us since we'd all like to graduate.  Our teacher, of course, made us wait until the very end.  We pleaded, but she's an ajumma (albeit a very well-educated one) and wouldn't give in.

Our class this term started with seven students.  One gyopo (person of Korean descent born outside of Korea) dropped out early, and another stayed until the end but missed so many classes that he couldn't graduate for reasons of attendance alone.  Then there was John, a sixty-year-old American with grandchildren, outspoken and opinionated as older Americans are wont to be, but generally a really nice guy.  The other three were Japanese businessmen, all from the same company.  I always think the Japanese businessmen who attend the classes are really cute, not in an attractive way, but in that they all invariably come to class wearing suits and carrying briefcases, complete all their homework and ask about assignments well in advance, never speak unless first spoken to, and spend all their class time diligently writing notes and looking up words in the electronic dictionaries they keep on their desks at all times.  Taiichi, the oldest of the three, speaks possibly less than I do and seems somewhat shy.  Masafumi, the scholarship winner, has one of the kindest faces I've ever seen; I have no idea what his actual personality is like, but he always looks like he's encouraging everyone.  Hiroyuki was with me in my level four class, when we learned a word that means "calm, unflappable, stoic"; when the teacher asked us which of the students in our class exemplified that word, all eyes turned to Hiroyuki.  He doesn't seem to have any facial expressions at all, even compared to the other Japanese guys.

So last night, by the third period, we were all well on edge.  The teacher mentioned that our writing test results were "sad" and gave us our listening and reading tests first, then asked for questions.  Hiroyuki's only question was, "Can I see the writing test, please?"  I had the same question.  Both of us sat, single-mindedly staring at the pile on the teacher's desk, jiggling our legs, looking worried.  When she finally gave us the results, I let out a sigh of relief upon seeing mine; Hiroyuki let out an even louder one, which was the most emotion I've ever heard from him.

On the way home Hiroyuki and I start on the same bus; I was a bit late and had to run for it, and when I got there, he was already sitting down, alone, and smiling off into the distance.  It probably doesn't seem like much (Japanese man smiles on bus!  Stop the presses!), but to see him smile at all is such a rare event that it really touched me, and I was happy for him.  And, of course, for myself!

After I got home I set to work on my resume and such changing all the places I'd written "will graduate" to "graduated" with, I admit, a very satisfied smirk.