(upbeat techno music)
- Hello, (speaks in Korean).
My name is Rosa and I am here in Tongyeong, South Korea.
Let's see, a little bit about me.
I'm originally from Chicago, Illinois.
And as of today, I have been living
in South Korea for exactly one year.
If you're curious to see what I've been up to
for the last year, I will post my Instagram account here
so you guys can check out what I've been doing.
And yeah, so I am excited to take you all with me today.
I am allowed to film inside my school and inside my classes
so I'm really excited for you to see that.
I work at yuchiwon, which is a kindergarten/ hagwon.
So I teach yuchiwon from 9:00 to 3:00 PM.
And then from 4:00 to 5:30ish.
I teach elementary school students, hagwon students.
And my age groups are as young as two years old
to our oldest student who is 10 years old.
So yeah, I'm excited to,
Well, I don't have a ton to say
unless you all ask me questions.
I will put a box here somewhere
and I will try to answer your questions
to the best of my ability.
I will let you know that I do live alone
and I do have bigger apartment than most teachers do
when they first come to South Korea.
I got really lucky as well as with my hagwon.
I love my hagwon, of course, nothing is ever perfect,
but I got pretty lucky
with my school, my housing.
And I will show you that a little bit later today.
But overall, I'm excited.
I'm excited.
Are you excited?
Because I'm excited.
So I won't post until a little bit later today
'cause I do have kind of a really busy day today.
But yeah, I'll take you all along with me.
Let's go.
Okay, Whoo!
Swim, how do we swim?
Good job, everyone.
Okay.
What about walking, how do we walk?
(heavy footsteps)
Good job, Chuwi.
(children shouting) (Rosa laughing)
And sleep, how do we sleep?
Oh, (Rosa snoring).
Very good job you all.
Okay.
Let's listen.
- So I am getting a lot of questions.
I will answer them all later today when I get home.
I am on my 15-minute break which is used for making copies
or just getting a snack or whatever.
It is that I need to do.
I do have two more classes right now
with age group six and age group seven.
They're gonna be back to back, 30 minutes each.
And so yeah, I will show you a little bit
of what I do in those classes.
And I forgot to mention that my material,
The material's already prepped for me
I just have to oversee,
like go over just to see how I can be as animated as I can
for the kids and just be able to know what I'm teaching.
But yeah, I do little to no prepping, which is a plus.
So, yeah.
(children singing) (happy children music)
Everyone. (Rosa clapping)
(children clapping)
(Rosa clapping)
(children clapping)
(Rosa clapping)
(Rosa tapping foot)
(children clapping)
(children tapping feet)
Whoo, we got it. (Rosa clapping)
Okay, so I had two more classes after lunch
but I didn't film those because we were really busy.
So I just had to power through them.
But I did wanna show that my school does have a rooftop
and this is our amazing view.
So I'm gonna film inside my school now.
I do wanna let you know that the entire building
is dedicated for just a school.
It's not like your typical yuchiwon hagwon
that it is just one building or one floor in a building.
It is an entire school.
So obviously you need to change from your outdoor shoes
to your indoor shoes.
And the system main floor at the first floor, the lobby.
It is a little bit fancy,
but this is typically the first floor
where the parents come and have parent-teacher conferences,
as well as
hosting events.
We do have a swimming pool
with an amazing view.
And yeah, this is the first,
So I'm off work.
I've been off.
I usually get dropped off after work.
Sometimes picked up too,
depending on whether I want the ride or not.
I'm in my area and I just wanted to show you all
that spring is finally here.
There's cherry blossom.
And I just wanna sprinkle this joy to you.
So get ready to see beauty.
Just look at all the cherry blossoms.
They're so pretty.
And the road just goes down full of cherry blossom.
Yeah, before I get home to have some dinner,
I just wanted to show you one of the views
that I have here in Tongyeong.
So we have two bridges,
and this one actually lights up during the nighttime,
but you can see that it's not lit right now.
So,
also one thing about spring, mosquito season.
There's plenty of mosquitoes around me.
But yeah, I just wanted to show you guys the view.
And like I said, I'm surrounded by water,
so plenty of water views.
I'm gonna head home, get some dinner now,
and answer any questions you have.
So let's do,
Okay, so I just got home.
I'm gonna show you my apartment really quickly.
I don't want anyone to feel bad
and I'd also don't wanna give anyone false hope.
Like I said, I got really lucky with my apartment,
but yeah, I'll show you like a really quick outline of,
Okay, so like any traditional Korean apartment,
you take your shoes off before you come in.
To my left is my dining area.
This is where I eat.
This is where I cook.
That's where I wash my dishes.
My fridge.
Room one where I'm currently sleeping.
Room two which is my old room/entertainment room.
And bathroom.
That is a wet room.
I just know the basics.
I started learning Korean two years ago
and I am nowhere near close to being fluent.
You don't have to know Korean to come here
but it does help.
Question that I got repetively
was where did I find my hagwon
and
if I used a recruiter or not?
I did use a recruiter.
I did start off with using 90 Days recruiters,
but I wanted to work with multiple recruiters
just to see what options I had.
I am a little bit older.
I am 30 years old so I just wanted to see
what options were there for someone
that's not fresh out of college
and has a bit of working experience.
So I ended up with Korvia.
Before even selecting a recruiter,
definitely do your research.
It took me every day long time
to find out how to get to Korea and what I needed.
And I actually had a timeline planned out.
So that's one thing that helped me.
And like I said, I worked with recruiters,
but I ended up going with a job selected by
or presented to me by Korvia.
And I have no regrets ever since,
but yeah, just do your research.
Definitely do your outline on the school.
And if you don't find anything online,
look on Naver because sometimes
they'll have a blog post on Naver or KakaoMaps.
Those are two things used here in Korea.
Because they might not have anything online,
but they might have something that Naver or Ka,
Brought a phone with me from the States.
So I bought a phone right before I left
and I knew I was gonna get a phone plan anyway.
So yeah, I just got that on a phone on lock,
then it works here just,
I don't think I can answer this
just because back in the States,
I was working with refugees.
So I kind of have the experience of working
with that, a language barrier.
But I will say that I think that one thing that I was,
Obviously, I am a person of color.
I am Chicana.
If you don't know what that means,
it just basically means
that I'm a first-generation American.
My parents are from Mexico
but I was born and raised in Chicago.
My parents have lived in America
for 15 years prior to my birth.
And in total, they've been living in America
for over 45 years.
And one of the things that I thought
that was gonna be such a huge, huge, huge
thing I would have to face
was that I wouldn't be considered American enough
to teach certain students because that's one thing
that I actually came across
while doing research into coming into South Korea.
But thankfully, my students' parents, they love me.
They get us gifts all the time.
So I'm really so, so, so happy
that
they see me and they love me,
and they wanna send,
This is gonna be the last question
and then I guess that will be it for today.
If you have any more questions,
feel free to message me on my account.
And I will be glad to answer them
to the best of my ability, of course 'cause everyone,
You have to really do your research
on where you wanna go and where you wanna be.
Definitely look up the area.
One thing that I do recommend
is that you look for Facebook groups
because some areas in Korea is so secluded
that you're the only foreigner miles away.
And there's other areas that have a bunch of foreigners.
I'm so thankful that Tongyeong has a small community
of English teachers and we all know each other.
And before Corona, there was weekly meetups,
but because of Corona, it's been limited.
But you make,
that's how you make friends here, foreigner friends.
It's really hard to make Korean friends
but that's a whole another subject
for a different day, different story.
But yeah, I do recommend that you look into Facebook groups
and find ESL groups in your area.
If your city for some reason,
they just don't have a Facebook group,
Join that ITA South Korea Alumni group.
It is
awesome.
You just post something and people will hit you up.
That's how I met some of the best people while living here.
And I'm sure they have it for other countries too.
But other than that, you just have to try to look for,
Okay, that is it for me.
I hope you all learned a lot.
And I was so happy to take you all along with me.
And I wish you have the best of luck.
(speaks in Korean)
(upbeat techno music)