Day 1 - ITKLI (The Institute for Korean Laguage Instructors) at Yonsei Univ.

January 2nd of 2014, when everyone starts the new year off at work, the orientation of the 48th Training Korean language Insturctors took place at Yonsei University, Seoul. 49 people from various kinds of background gathered to be a Korean instructor in the future. 

(This building, so to speak, Schoenberg at Yonsei University) 

For more information about the university and this institute, Yonsei University is considered as the second highest ranking school, the one out of "SKY" in Korea: top 3 universities- Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. This school was founded in 1885 and started as the first medical university in Korea. Since Christian missionaries opened Yonsei, they needed to learn Korean, which rooted the Korean Language Institute on April 1st, 1959 after all. This institute was the only plae where many foreigners of governors working in Korea could learn Korean. It became so famous for the longest history of Korean language program that people from all over the world know the school and come to study Korean as a second language. In 1994, the institute started out the training program to forster professional Korean language instructors which makes this year the 20th anniversary. The training lasts for 30 days/ 120 hours and happens semi-annually. In a word to describe the program's feature, it is a Korean version of Summer Institute of TESOL at Gonzaga University. If you want to join the program, you ought to submit an essay, diploma of your degree(s) - at least from AA, and transcriptions of all degrees'. You will get a final result in two weeks. About tuition, I paid 1,560,000 won (about 1,600 dollars) and it includes two textbooks that I uploaded down below. I think it's not that expensive but quite resonable regarding the curriculum (I'll upload it ASAP).

                                        Korean Pedagogy [Theories and Practice]

 Teaching Methodology of Korean

49 of us were randomly divided into four groups (called /ga//na//da//la/ each- Korean letter's alphabetical order). I'm assigned into a group 'la' with other 12 people-12 women and a man in total. Yes, there were four guys in the entire group. Each group spent time of introducing themselves, and then we were supposed to select a group leader. Yes,my activeness that had been hidden since I moved back home got activated, so I volunteered to be one, Oops, there was another volunteer who wanted to be a leader. How did we select one? ... ROCK SCISSORS PAPER! LOL Who won??? Puh puh puh PIAH!  

Phew! I was so nervous before I bet my SCISSORS, but it became my hero after all. 
That's how I started my first official day of the program and the new year! I definitely got luck with SCISSORS. 

When four leaders from each group met with Prof. Hwang, a chair of our program, she needed two assistants for her and the prorgram. Hahah, of course my piahness came out again and volunteered. With responsibilities of two positions, I won textbook sets of six levels of Yonsei's Korean learning for foreigners.

After lunch, the first class of the prorgram was Introduction to Korean Language. I was very excited in class by lighting my passion about learning pedagogy of Korean and my new challenge for it. The flame of my passion will keep warm and motivate me - yeah, I will make that happen in the end.

To be continued: on the program's curriulum...

Epilogue

 "Gosh, it takes freaking so long to write this out in English! Maybe my Eng brain has been rotten???!!! OTL (It's a posture when a person feels frustrated - cow pose from yoga) I don't want your eyes to get tired from my messy post. If so, APOLOGY!

This is my first post on the training program. If my new year resolution keeps in a perfect way (hopefully), I will spend time posting two-three posts a week.

Please comment down below about what you think about what I've been trying and any ideas for me to be a better blogger;)."

xoxo, Piah