Reflection on culture exchange

When I started the culture exchange project among international students, I believed that Korean students can casually write their thoughts about various topics related with Korean, American, and Korean cultures. Therefore, I argued as followed.

"I argue that Korean students' English is good enough to communicate with foreign friends in a casual manner. Moreover, I hope my students will achieve high scores from Korean SAT. I study the patterns in English learning under the ESL context and the EFL context because a language and its context determine the ontology and epistemology of a culture, the meaning making system. Let's exchange our inquiries about cultures and languages."

However, I found that Korean students' communication using English took place only when the counterparts are ready to communicate with Korean students. Korean students complained to me that they hope to join the conversation through commenting other students’ blogs but it took too many hours for them to write their opinions in English. I frequently guided students to read other students blogs and post comments. It took 30 minutes to two hours for me to help one student to complete the whole process to do blogging.

Nevertheless, communications go on under such a powerful hegemony of English since students of Anderson High School and those of Hawkesdale tried to leave their comments to my students’ blogs and guess what my students mean by their English comments with a number of ungrammatical errors.

I have struggled for my students’ successful communication over three blocks. First, Korean SAT took away almost all the time from my students who might try to invest their time for culture exchange project. Their preparation for college entrance narrows students' focus into only studying for tests provided by private academy and Korean government.
Second, Korean students use diverse portal sites such as cyworld, naver, and daum rather than google. Therefore, it is hard for me to let my students to create a new g-mail account and blog account, giving up their resources in their websites in other portal sites. Korean portal sites usually set up strong user-friendly systems when it comes to Korean students' personal website management.
Third, Korean students are too busy with utilizing a barrage of electric equipments such as MP3, PMP, cell-phones, computer games, various web sites of academic materials and cable TV programs. It is hard for me to persuade my students to find time for blogging with foreign friends communicating with new way, namely, using blogs, in foreign language.

Finally, I felt rewarded because the culture exchange raised Korean students’ cultural consciousness and sensitivity on various peoples. Korean students are homogenous when compared to students of the Anderson High School. Therefore, they are not aware of the existence of various immigrants in the United States. In addition, Korean students find opportunities to make as many friends through utksa1.blogspot.com. The site seems to work as the portal site for students who are looking for foreign students' blog with critical perspectives on diverse issues about peoples' diversity in the world.

I slightly change my argument now. Korean students can communicate with foreign students only when the counterparts are ready to communicate with Korean students. Students’ understanding on each others’ culture absolutely facilitate their communication.

Yuna Kim, Korean figure skater

Grown up (Christmas list)

Culture exchange package from the USA

앤더슨 고등학교에서 소포가 도착했습니다.
학교 티셔츠에 모든 학생들이 싸인을 했고, 학생들의 사진과, 학생들이 직접 녹화한 시디가 담겨 있었습니다. 이 글을 보는 학생들은 김수미 선생님께 와서 미국에서 온 소포의 내용물을 확인하세요.
혹 호주에서 온 소포의 내용물을 확인하지 못한 학생들도 언제든지 와서 구경하고 가세요.
모두 대환영입니다.
선생님 자리는 교무실에서 가장 중심에 있습니다. 조만간 이번 문화교류 프로젝트에 참가했던 모든 학생들을 만나고 싶습니다.

I received culture exchange package stuffed by students of Anderson High School.
There were the school T-shirt with signs of all the students of Anderson High School; a CD composed of students' reflections on this projects and greetings; and photos of the groups of students. I am excited to show this to my students. All the students have gorgeous and kind smile. My students will be motivated to leave more comments on other students' blogs. I wish there would be more and more comment exchanges.

student's comment on culture exchange

Jaeha, Youngsoo, Joohan

Thank you video

Unexpected gift from heaven

I heard some screaming in the middle of class time.
Something exciting must have happened.
Looking outside the window, I found that snow came down.
It's rare that we have snow in Busan although it is winter.
My heart leaps like those students who record this moment with their friends.

When I was at Austin this january, I had three additional days off school becasue of snow on the beggining day of new semester. People in Austin were excited with snow since they had rarely had snow. Do you remember?

Messages from Korea

Some of students wondered if American and Australian friends received their messages or not. I told my students that Thanksgiving season in the United States were peaceful and relaxing. Therefore, it took more time for us to receive the response from students in Anderson High School. My students and I are waiting for responses on our messages. I have showed the video uploaded by Ms. Anne and her students reading my card and students' introduction. My students were excited. Some of them came to me and asked if they were able to join the culture exchange project though it was the last moment. I explained them how to create a google account and so on. However, they seemed to be busy in preparing their final term exams. ;-)
I felt sorry for Hyunjung's friends in the Anderson High School since I had sent her card to Australia. Please leave Hyunjung and Sanghyun's blogs friendly comments if you don't mind. I post a picture of her work and Sanghyun's work.