Teaching English to the Waegukin [Jae Min]

[Clement Evans]

Once Clement had finished his punishment essays, one on the evils of alcohol and the other on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., copies were sent to the teachers evaluating him. They were enlightening. For one, they were handwritten, an oddity in the era of computers. The cursive was surprisingly legible, if a bit cramped, and hints of erased Hangul could be detected around the margins. Despite Clement's best efforts, there were still a number of misspellings and grammar mistakes, though curiously enough they were mistakes that a Korean learning English would make rather than a native speaker - very occasionally a plural lacked an 's', the word 'very' sat in place of other more natural adverbs, and sometimes his idioms were stilted or odd, having been either badly translated from Korean or Korean in origin. But what it also showed was that Clement had a distinct writing voice, presented his thoughts clearly, and could write a factual paper in his own words while making it interesting to read, three things none of the teachers had expected. (One of them searched for it online to make sure it wasn't cribbed, but found it was all good.)

The testing, however, showed that Clement was reading at a fifth grade level, had atrocious spelling, needed a lot of work on his grammar, and even more on comprehension and vocabulary. His listening comprehension was very good though, and out of curiosity, when a tester read Clement a paragraph and had him repeat it back, only two words were missed. The math portion of the testing also showed this dichotomy; the written portion was abysmal, but Clement could recite his addition and subtraction just fine and the times tables correctly up to the sevens.

For pre-school tutoring, Clement had been given the fifth grade English textbook, a mix of fifth and early sixth grade spelling and vocabulary words, a student dictionary that explained things just simply enough to make Clement feel insulted, and a set of workbooks that had only the back halves remaining, the front pages having been completed and removed. A reading list tucked into the text included old standards like Where the Red Fern Grows, Julie of the Wolves, and The Giver, and newer selections like the first books in the Percy Jackson and Harry Potter series. After admitting he had not read a book outside of school (in English) in... ever... he'd been told to choose a book off the list and that a report on it would be due at the end of the first week of school.

The text, two workbooks, dictionary, folder, papers, and notebook of his own looked like a lot of Serious Business piled up on the table in the empty classroom. Enough so that he'd just left them in their little stack and had gone to look out the windows. A pencil and a pen poked out of his right jeans pocket. A patch of gauze was taped to his left shoulder under his t-shirt, where he'd scratched at the healing skin too hard. The middle of his face still had a pink rectangle of scar tissue he was told would fade to something less noticeable, and it peeled like a sunburn around the edges from where he'd scratched. Healing burns itched like crazy.

When he heard someone come in, he turned.

[Sung Jae Min]

Jae Min had been asked to help out with a student having trouble with the written language. He'd been told that the boy had a very low reading level for his age, around fifth or sixth grade. Jae of course accepted. He wanted to help out with students who have trouble, rather than give them more grief. He was willing to change his teaching styles to help out too. He just wanted what was best for the students. Which kind of sounded like something a parent would say to their child when the kid is very unhappy now that he thought about it.

Since he was their to help, Jae was given a copy of Clement's papers. They did show that he was able to gather his thoughts into a workable essay with his own words. The problems were his grammar and spelling. Adverbs had been switched around and many plural words were written singularly along with other more trivial spelling errors. What intrigued Jae though was the barely visible Hangul written and erased on the sides. The more he looked over it the more he noticed it was the kind of errors from a Korean speaker rather than a boy who was just having trouble with reading and writing. Even Jae made those mistakes before his memory began to kick in, and his sister, Ae Sook, sure did.

Jae had a small stack of papers and couple of binders tucked under his arm as he went down the hall on his way to see Clement Evans. He entered to see a brunette boy already in the classroom. He gave a smile to the boy. "Hello, I'm Sung Jae Min. You are Clement Evans I presume?" He set the binders and papers on an empty desk. "No need to worry, I'm here to help, not say I'm helping and just give you loads of grief."

[Clement Evans]

Like Clement's other prospective teachers for the coming school year, Mr. Sung would've been told Clement was bilingual and that his other (and better) language was Korean, an irony both of them would appreciate in the fullness of time. But Mr. Sung was uniquely skilled as a native speaker who knew the culture, who might pick up on Clement's more subtle verbal and behavioral cues. And being Korean-English fluent himself would certainly help them both.

"Hello, I'm Sung Jae Min. You are Clement Evans I presume? No need to worry, I'm here to help, not say I'm helping and just give you loads of grief."

Staying by the window, Clement sized up his new tutor. As Hammel was an American school, Clement naturally assumed that Min was the surname, but with more thought it was possible Sung was. Both Sung and Min were surnames as well as given-name components, so Clement was left not knowing how to address him past 'seonsaengnim'. He watched the man's body language, automatically noting where his hands were. Clement chewed his upper lip as he looked at the materials, feeling nervous. He trudged to the desk, but didn't sit.

"...Yeah, I'm Clement," he said, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. And since it needed an answer, he asked, "Are you Mr. Sung or Mr. Min?"

He pronounced both the Korean way, sohng and meen, and now that he was closer, he looked at his teacher's face. Clement thought it seemed easy-going enough, but they hadn't begun yet. He sat with reluctance, glancing from his pile of books to his tutor, wondering where they'd start. Clement rubbed his tongue against his teeth, hoping it might not betray him this first session.

*-seonsaengnim - the suffix used to address a teacher, with added article of respect

[Sung Jae Min]

Jae noticed how Clement bit his lip at the stack that was on the desk. "Oh, don't mind the papers." He held up the small pile. "These are just a bunch of summer book reports a few students passed in early. If I was their classmate I would call them over achievers, but apparently I'm not supposed to talk about my students like that." He chuckled quietly as he stopped.

"Sorry, it's Mr. Sung. I really specify which, I get asked that often actually." Jae's smile widened. "You have very good pronunciation." Getting his name pronounced like the past tense for sing was admittedly annoying. He bore with it though and calmly corrected the students.

The teacher sat down next to Clement. "So, shall we get started? Let's work on grammar because it's hard to write or read aloud without it." He offer in a laid-back tone. If Clement didn't want to then he could try another subject, it was that simple. There was no need to force something on anybody.

[Clement Evans]

"Oh, don't mind the papers. These are just a bunch of summer book reports a few students passed in early. If I was their classmate I would call them overachievers, but apparently I'm not supposed to talk about my students like that."

Something about those words bothered Clement. He knew it was just the teacher trying to make him feel more comfortable, but part of him wondered then what he'd call kids who needed remedial work to those others who were 'overachievers'. But he shrugged. How the guy talked didn't matter. It was if he could teach.

"Sorry, it's Mr. Sung. I really specify which, I get asked that often actually. You have very good pronunciation."

"[Thank you. I had a good teacher,]" he said, in accent-less Korean, just to see what would happen.

When they were seated, Clement watched again for where the man's hands were. He didn't think Mr. Sung would do anything, but it was automatic, but the ritual of it made him feel more secure. When he said grammar, Clement opened up one of the workbooks to where he'd been working on subject-verb agreement and identifying adjectives and adverbs. They were basic exercises that had him circling the correct verb and which words he thought were the adjectives and adverbs. Most of the former were correct, but in the latter a lot of the adjectives and adverbs had been missed.