“I’m so sorry, but I love you.”
As with any language, there are certain phrases students are taught that really seem to stick out when used in conversation. Korean students have some very specific phrases they have been taught and use frequently, the most common being, upon given the prompt, “How are you?” a robotic, super-speed response of: “IAMFINETHANKYOUANDYOU,” followed by hysterical giggles. The following are some of my personal favorite phrases from students, that when used are especially touching and sweet. I think you’ll begin to see how easy it is to fall for these students.
Just now, a couple of students stood giggling behind my desk for at least two minutes before I turned around and said, “Oh, hello!” They then, giggling and holding each other’s hands for confidence said, “Oh, teacher, oh. Teacher. Teacher, could I, you, paper? Pleasemumblemumblestickynotemumble.” I listen patiently and expectantly before I laugh and respond with, “A sticky note? Of course,” as I rip off a small sticky note and hand it to one student.
“One, or two?” I rip off another and hand it to the other student. Both stand giggling, a pink sticky note now stuck on each of their hands. They look so surprised and happy. “Oh, teacher, one, oh, thank you, thank you for your kindness!” and they quickly, still giggling, still holding hands, walk away.
“Thank you for your kindness.” How sweet. That kind of phrase just melts your heart and makes you smile.
Earlier today, a student didn’t understand the instructions I gave in class, and looked at me with such a confused look that I walked over to her and asked if she understood. She shook her head, and I slowly explained what she should do. When she understood, she looked up at me, very cheerfully, and said, “Oh! Teacher! Thank you for your kindness!” Makes me laugh and melts my heart.
After all, how could you not fall for the students when they respond with a soft, super sweet, “Pardon?” upon not understanding, or greet you when you walk in the room, still, ten months later, with, “Oh! Teacher! Beautiful!” or write notes to me in their notebooks, of, “Amanda- teacher, fighting! Good luck!” or written in very large, special bubble letters at the end of a tough week for me, “Amanda teacher, are you okay? You look so tired! Cheer up! I love you!”
I honestly love these girls. It’s almost as though I have inherited six hundred younger sisters, some of them michevious trouble makers in class, caught wearing short skirts and walking with boys outside of school, others of them sweet and gentle and shy, some loud, class clowns that are fun to tease in class, others artistic, their notebooks full of sketches and drawings they did in class, their journal entries scribbled in around the drawings, completed on their own time outside of my class… and when I ask to see their uncompleted journals as they sit chatting during work time in class, they say, “Oh, teacher, I’m so sorry, but I love you.”
“I’m so sorry but I love you!” Impossible to be angry.
I feel that what is most important for these girls, the reason behind their having to write journals, is that I want them to feel comfortable with English. Language is something foreign and challenging up to the point when you are able to successfully manipulate those confusing symbols into something meaningful, something about yourself and your own, individual thoughts, something only you are thinking that you have painstakingly coded into what others can understand. When they manage to write a sentence that makes sense to me, that I can understand and respond to… that’s something cool. That’s something really unique. That’s something Korean education doesn’t do enough of, in making English something real, something more than bi- weekly intensive vocabulary tests, more than standardized essays the students must crank through, more than fill- in bubble questions that have intense consequences in their day to day life, whether it be in the public announcement of their grades, the constant shifting of classes according to test scores, or the serious and heavy burden of needing exemplary grades for University.
Think. What do you want to say? Write it. Say it. Write it again. Say it again. I will stand here and patiently wait as you try to figure out what you want to say. I don’t understand. Explain this to me. All together, all of you, help her and explain this to me. Write it down. Speak it. Practice speaking it together. Say it again. Again. Write it. You can do it. Speak it. Write it.
You did it, I’m proud of you. Cheer. Lead the whole class in a clap. Smile. Tell jokes. Be myself, a more patient and genuine version of my self than I ever knew before coming to Korea. My dear students, you really cannot know how proud I am of you.
It’s hard. I make them work hard. I have to work hard to grade their journals, harder than most foreign teachers I know, putting in extra hours on top of the extra classes I teach. But it is worth it. When they complain, “Teacher, difficult!” I make a huge heavy sigh and pretend to melt on my desk in front of the classroom… and after a long dramatic moment, I look up and smile at them, “You can do it. I know you can do it! You’re so smart!” and then they laugh and stop complaining and write.
It’s not uncommon for students to be amazed by certain parts of my physical appearance. The high bridge of my nose, my wide eyes, the color of my eyes, the dirty blonde color of my hair, generously called golden, as in, “Golden- hair teacher! Question!”, my ‘small face’, which is endlessly and continually commented on… all the way down to the color of the hair on my arms.
“Teacher! This!” As a student pinches the hair on her own arm and swoops in close to inspect the hair on my arms… “Wooooaaaa… Teacher! White!” Last week, a student was so fascinated with my arm hairs that she asked if she could have one. I, currently being in such an endearing, nostalgic state for my students, willingly obliged and held out my arm. She pinched and pulled, and I laughed and walked away.
One moment later, she gasped, “Oh! Teacher! Lost!” and I walked back to her desk and held out my arm again as she dug in her pencil pouch, pulled out a tweezers and proceeded to pluck out one arm hair and hold it out for all her nearby desk buddies to see.
“Don’t lose that one!” I told her as I continued to walk around and monitor the students’ journal writing. Another student on the opposite side of the classroom waved me over and asked what happened, to which I pinched some of my arm hair, and she nodded in a half- surprised, half- knowledgeable manner.
Curiosity and honesty.
“I’m so sorry, but I love you.”
My heart swells bigger than my chest, bigger than my self, and it takes the whole world in with this nostalgic, beautiful, bittersweet, giddy, innocent love.
