Interview with Partners

Ji Hae Park

Ji Hae has taught English grammar and reading comprehension in a Korean high school for 12 years. She thought her English speaking was not good enough, because her teaching was only focused on grammar and reading so that she had few opportunities to practice her oral English. (But I think her English speaking is very fluent. She may just need a little confidence.) She wants to set up her own private kindergarten in the future. I am so glad that one day, I will see she runs her own school, just like my father. And I believe her dream will definitely come true.

Danielle Nicklaus

Danielle's major is liberal arts, but she wants to switch to education. She said, the more she learned about education, the more interests she found. She wants to teach in the elementary school, not only for English, but also all kinds of subjects in the future. She plans to join the educational credential program in CSUSB. She wishes someday she can teach abroad, but she is also a little afraid to adapt another different culture. I know that feeling, but I believe someday when she really teaches abroad, she will find it is worth.

Language Education

Ji Hae told us, in Korea, high school students spend all the time preparing the university entrance exam, which does not include any content about English speaking, either, so most Korean students are poor in their oral English. In China, we have the similar situation, too, so I think it may be a common problem for Asian English teaching. But Danielle said that was very different from the language teaching in America. When she learned Spanish, her best part was Spanish speaking. So I think it may be because of the different characters between Asian and American: Asian people are more introverted, while American people are more extroverted.

Holidays

Ji Hae also shared with us about Korean holidays. She said one of the most important holidays in Korea is Korean Independent Day on August 15th. And Christmas and Thanksgiving Day are also legal holidays in Korea like in America because of lots of Christian population in Korea. That is very interesting. Because in China, only young people celebrate Christmas, because they regard it as a kind of fashion. Many young Chinese are very crazy about western cultures and life styles. And in Christmas, they will go to the club and spend all night with friends or colleagues drinking, dancing and singing karaoke.

Danielle also introduced Christmas, Thanksgiving Day, and Easter, which are all very important holidays in America. She said in Thanksgiving Day, American people will make Christmas tree, get together with families, and have turkey, pumpkin pie, and other traditional American holiday food.

And Ji Hae also introduced Korean New Year, which is very similar with Chinese New Year. During Korean New Year, Korean people will have traditional Korean rice cake soup, dress traditional Korean clothes, and visit their relatives and friends. And the only difference I found between Chinese New Year and Korean New Year is the food that, most Chinese eat dumplings, and the people in South China usually have new year rice cake and sweet dumpling soup.

Breakfast

Danielle said in America, people usually have cereals, beacons and scrambled eggs in the morning. But in Korea and China, both Ji Hae and I found, although people usually have milk and bread (actually in China, we prefer to have soy milk and a kind of long steamed bread), people can eat anything they like as breakfast, even though they usually eat as lunch or supper, such as noodles. And Danielle felt very interesting about that, because in America, there are some food people usually only have in the morning, but in Korea and China, we do not have that so-called breakfast food.

Hobbies

Ji Hae likes travelling, cooking and watching movies. And she went to Japan and Taiwan before. But she hasn't been to China, so I very hope and welcome her to visit my hometown, Dalian. Danielle said she has never went abroad. She very dreams that someday she can have the opportunity to look around the outside world. But she said, sometimes when she imagined she was standing on a land with a totally different culture from hers, she felt a little scared and then a little backed up. But Ji Hae and I told her, new culture is nothing scary, but only exciting!

And I found it was very amazing that Ji Hae can read the Chinese characters I wrote. And she told me that many Koreans have learned traditional Chinese characters. Wow! I cannot find anything cooler than sharing cultures with different people!