Fourty Three

I have officially started volunteer work at a Hakwon (english teaching school) in Korea. I am helping teach little children English. I met a man who owns a Hakwon and he asked if I wanted to volunteer and help the kids with their pronunciation. Of course I said yes! The children are elementary school age through middle school age. It all seems so easy to me. Pronouncing english words. SO easy. The Korean language has different sounds than English. For example, they don't use the sound "r" so they don't know how to use their mouth and tongue to create the sound. That's part of my volunteer work- showing them how to shape their mouths and where to put their tongue. It's interesting. 'B', 'D' and 'V' all sound the same when they are first learning. In fact, they have a hard time with those letters for a while. They can't say 'o' very easily, either. The word "doll" is hard for them, as well. They pronounce it like the word "dull". What I have learned is that the middle schoolers are hard to teach. They are in the "we have to look cool" phase so they won't listen as well, but the elementary kids are so fun. I make silly faces and give them high fives often. They go right along with it. Since they know the names of body parts, I taught them that song "head, shoulders, knees, and toes". The middle school girls didn't really want to participate but the elementary boys thought it was hilarious! We even got their teacher to join in! It's neat to see them learn and hear them say the words correctly.
When I talk to them in basic sentences, I always try to think of funny things to ask them. Today, I asked each of the boys if they had ever kissed a girl. They all giggled profusely and said "No, no, no, no!!" Haha. Very precious.

Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened. Two days ago, we officially surpassed our 6 month time period. We are less than 6 months away from being home! I can't wait. Korea is too much for me sometimes. It has some really great things to offer us, but other times it just is too far away from being like home. I hate not being able to communicate with most people I come in contact with and I will be glad when I can read all the signs in English. It has been a nice experience but these last 6 months can't come fast enough. I've been here about 3.5 months, so total I will have been here about 9 months once we make it back to the states.... *Whew* I'm ready to go! lol

We are going to try and see a movie tonight. Mom mailed me movie popcorn salt from home so I am excited to go eat some tonight. Yum!
xoxo
Hannah