It has always seemed funny to me that Korean students bow to their teachers, but also call them by their first names. Usually students use the word teacher in Korean (선생님 : sangsengneem) to refer to their teachers, but when there is more than one teacher being refereed to the teachers name is used. In Korea, the family name is said before the individuals name, so the students will commonly say the whole thing. At school, I'm just called Meghan. During student teaching in America I was usually "Mrs. Manning" because my students didn't understand the difference between Miss and Mrs. I can't say that I am really used to either Mrs. Manning or only Meghan. I will just stick to answering to teacher for now.
My school life is the one of the best parts of my Korean life. I have recently picked up extra teaching hours and am teaching a class of mothers. The mothers will only call me teacher, which seems very funny to me. I love teaching my mothers class because Korean women are so enthusiastic and they ALWAYS bring food to class. Before every class they make me a cup of green tea and always bring fresh baked goods that they pick up at a bakery on their way to school. They all picked English names to use in class and love sending me text messages signed Cindy and Nancy. Angela makes me laugh because she always forgets her English name and has me pronounce it so she can remember how to say it.
My mothers have about a high school English ability, but most of them are in their thirties and have forgotten a lot of vocabulary. Last week we practiced talking to a friend on the phone and this week we "went shopping" at a stationary store. We pretended to buy more pencil cases than we would ever need, but it was really fun. I am constantly amazed at how much people can communicate despite having such a spoken language barrier.
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