On Saturday afternoons, I teach English to North Korean
refugees. It was something that began with an air of uncertainty. Little
tokens of oranges and coffee on trays were offered around, as if to say, “Thank
you for teaching” or “Thank you for letting me teach.”
It began with no English books, or no English materials at all in fact, save
what I was able to write on the whiteboard in the corner of the classroom. It
began with A, B, Cs and 1, 2, 3s. Now, I have students who have improved
so much they can read in the billions.
I was motivated to tutor refugees when I noticed a glaring
need. Where I live on Jeju Island, South Korea’s “island paradise,” there are no programs for refugees as there
are in some other parts of the country. Defectors in my area lack the kind of
services that would be available if they were to live in Seoul or another large
city. I worried they may be disadvantaged when it comes to keeping up with the
English vocabulary that has seeped into the South Korean language.
But more than that, I was
seeking a positive human connection to North Korea, a place that loomed large
in my imagination as threatening and uncertain. I wanted to put a face to all
the problems I’d read about, as well as confirm what I knew to be true;
that North Koreans are ordinary people with their own insecurities, dreams and
love for their families. I wanted to reach out, albeit indirectly, to a
place that seemed just out of reach.
My students, most in their
late twenties or early thirties, had their own motivations for taking English
classes. One told me that her daughter had just started first grade and so she
wanted to help with her English homework. “I felt shame that I could
not help,” she admitted, “Shame that I could not
read with her.” Others have joined the workforce since arriving in the
South and keenly feel the need to learn English to advance.
The most challenging aspect
for the students I teach is finding the time to invest in themselves. My
students are all working mothers, whose primary responsibility is no longer
education for the sake of learning. They have families. They have yakseok, or promises, to keep.
It was originally arranged that I would teach for two hours each
Saturday, but there have been times when a month has gone by and I have not seen
any of them because of sudden obligations.
The most rewarding moments
have been seeing breakthroughs and witnessing growth. My favorite moment was my
first day teaching Kim (pseudonym). She was the only student that day, and was
clearly nervous. She knew the alphabet and numbers up to ten, but her face
flushed bright red with embarrassment when I pointed out that she had left out
number eight. We had two hours together, and I wanted her to master double
digits in that time.
Kim caught on fast. Seeing patterns
in the numbers, she grew confident and came to be unfazed by numbers under one
hundred. As we moved into the hundreds I saw a flicker in her eyes as she came
to recognize her own aptitude. She smiled when reciting random numbers. At her
request, we moved into the thousands, then millions. “Eight
hundred seventy-two million, four hundred and one thousand, five hundred
twenty-three,” she said cautiously. I told her I have students who
have studied English for almost ten years who can’t read numbers that
large, which caused her to beam with pride. “Hundred, thousand,
million…” she reviewed aloud. Then, turning to the Red Cross
manager, she whispered a question in Korean and waited for a translation. “What’s
next?”
she asked at last.
Tammy (pseudonym), a native
English teacher in South Korea, tutors the children of North Korean refugees.
There are only three students at her center; two elementary and one middle
school. They meet only one hour per week, but it is clear that the children’s
parents have drilled into them that success in school is a prerequisite of
success in South Korea. They need to get into college. They need to know
English. They need to catch up with their peers. Thus, this one hour per week
is precious, and must not be wasted. There is little time for small talk while
the students work hard on mastering the alphabet, phonics and vocabulary.
Tammy’s
students first appeared fidgety and scared, but have grown comfortable over
time. “We’ve been together for a little over a year and a half
now, and they’ve shared a lot with me, from what life in North Korea and
defecting was like to their current family situation. The development of our
relationship has by far been the most special part of my time with the
boys.” They have opened up to earnestly and enthusiastically share their
dreams with her, she says. One wants to be a butterfly conservationist. The
other hopes to work on preserving historical sites.
In many ways, the dreams of
these new arrivals to the South align with my own. As tutors of refugees, we
bear witness to their experiences and their trials. We are asked to preserve,
both within our own memory and in the way we speak about North Korea to others,
the reality of their lives. We are called to preserve and protect their
identities. As teachers, we are determined to help children, bright as
butterflies, succeed. They entered a world that demanded they move differently,
a world that required new knowledge. Our job is to show them the billions, or
rather, that the billions have always been within their power to grasp. Our job
is to foster confidence, curiosity, and pride to help them reach “What’s
next?”
In reflecting on the English education opportunities available to North Korean
refugees, we should ask ourselves the same question. How can we ensure that
refugees have access to the services that they need? What’s
next?
