KDI School’s proud Ermias Haile Gebregziabher (2010 MPP, Ethiopi) and Mona Daoud (2010 MPP, Palestine) teach English at the Dongdaeumun-gu Community Center to the middle school students aimed at improving their speaking ability.

The significance of this program cannot be overemphasized given the fact that private English Education is too costly in Seoul according to Mr. Gebregziabher. He was motivated to apply for this volunteer by his interest to teach and to learn. With a background of teaching experience for two years in a high school and for the last three years in Mekelle University in Ethiopia, teaching has always been the profession he likes most. This program has also helped him learn regarding the teaching-learning process in Korea and how life generally goes on in Korea.

Through discussion with his students, he was able to learn that some common problems exist in the way English is taught in schools both in Korea and Ethiopia. Too many schools still follow the old way of teaching English. They teach their students a lot of individual words, a big vocabulary list that gives students a hard time trying to remember individual single words. Word-by-word teaching has proved to be futile, the trend now being toward teaching phrases (group of words) as opposed to individual words. This is because through phrases, students not only learn new words but also how to use them with more grammatical accuracy.

Before the class, he had to take a few days to identify the student’s existing level of proficiency, interest, and areas of deficiency to tailor and make my teaching a more enjoyable experience. He learned that most of the students had immense interest in learning American stories. He then started to use short and interesting American stories containing idiomatic expressions and new phrases which they were supposed to practice their usage in the classroom. At first, some students were very shy to even introduce themselves but gradually they have managed to overcome their shyness and started to engage in more interactive discussions. Of course, the friendly atmosphere he has created with his students was instrumental in this regard. Unfortunately, the number of students attending the class has been declining for reasons known to him and some coordinators at the Center.

Here is another student, Mona’s voice about this program. “This experience has been great; it gives me the chance to teach, which is something that I need to do every now and then. It gives me a fair deal of information on the details of the Korean students’ lives which helps me understand Korea a lot more. The students are sweet, and I enjoy my time with them, and pray that they get the most benefit out of our classes”.

By Mikyung Byun (2010 MPP/ED, Korea)