Oops!

While I’m not proud of my Korean progress, I do like to show the kids the little I know when I have the opportunity. Apparently I’m getting a little too cocky with my students and had an embarrassing moment today in my Birdie class.

When a student is going to be absent for class, the office staff will usually write down the reason on the computer attendance record. Normally, the staff will simply write ‘private’, but sometimes they will state a non-private reason in Korean. The reasons are generally ‘sick,’ or ‘going to another class,’ so this is the chance where I try to showcase my knowledge of Korean pronunciation for the kids.

Today an unfamiliar Korean word popped up as a reason for a student being absent. (Keep in mind that private reasons are usually written as ‘private’ so I naively thought I was safe to read out the words). I confidently asked my students what ‘포경소술’ meant. There was an eruption of laughter in the class once they made sense of my butchered Korean- especially from my 11 year old boys. I managed to get one of the girls to tell me the meaning. Through giggles she whispered, ‘it's a boy operation’ to which I respond with a weak, ‘oh!’
Whoops! How do you carry on a class after that?!

I feel absolutely horrible! I told the entire class that “CheeWon” is absent because he’s getting circumcised! I think I’m a candidate for the worst teacher award! Granted, Koreans seem to be a little less concerned about personal, private information, so maybe it isn’t as big of a deal as my Western mind is making it out to be. I guess language learning will inevitably involve these awkward moments at times, but I feel bad that my students have to be the victims of my slow progress!