Strangely enough, a ten day trip to Japan during my sophomore year of high school is what led to my decision to teach abroad and learn Korean. Before traveling to Japan, I had never been overseas. The trip opened my eyes to the possibility of living and working abroad, something I had never considered prior.
Almost immediately upon returning I started researching English Teaching programs abroad. A Korean woman at my church heard that I was interested in teaching English in another country and suggested that I look into programs in Korea. A few quick google searches later, I was enamored. The first thing that caught my attention was the Korean alphabet, Hangul. Unlike other popular East Asian languages, the characters were representative of phonemes. It took me only an hour to learn to read the sounds. This was my first great accomplishment in the language and I was so proud of myself. At school, I would read sentences in Hangul to my friends, even though I didn’t know the meaning behind the string of sounds at the time.
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I continued with self-study using online programs like Rosetta Stone and Talk to Me in Korean until my freshman year of college. During the first semester, I signed up for a Korean peer tutoring program and I began meeting weekly with a Korean exchange student to hone my skills. My Korean tutor’s name was Eunice and she is still one of my best friends to this day. She really took me under her wing, in true “unnie” (Korean word for “big sister”) form, and introduced me to Korean food, cultural practices, and dialectical words from her hometown in Busan. Through her, I was able to make even more Korean friends and I’ve found that they are some of the kindest, most genuine people I’ve met. Their company and my experiences while studying abroad have helped to solidify my decision to live and teach in