The Been Briefing

goodbyes at ERC

last thursday night (28. august) i said goodbye to my wonderful students at ERC. in hindsight, i can hardly believe that it has been three years since i arrived in korea and began my classes with almost nothing... just a few children's books and my own creativity (combined with a few worksheets found online). what a stressful beginning it was! and now - three years later - i have many wonderful memories of all the different classes, all my hilarious children, quality english books, and finally an established step 3 program that can survive without me. it was time to say goodbye and start a new chapter.

last week i covered my advanced step 3 class for soyon, since she was busy planning the last-minute details of the wedding. thursday was my last night. after teaching the class, we had cake and said our goodbyes...

the following students have been an excellent class. we studied little house in the big woods, farmer boy, and we had just started the magician's nephew as i was leaving. we had so much fun, and i believe they've grown a lot in their understanding of english as well as their confidence in speaking, in synthesizing the material, and in writing solid summaries based on their syntheses. i am so proud of them!

here we are munching on cake with chopsticks, and i was reminding them to stay in touch and to check this blog! if you are my student, you'd better leave a comment!! :)


i will dearly miss all my wonderful students at ERC, and i am so thankful for the opportunity i was given to be just a small part of their lives. i pray that God's hand will touch their lives and bring them closer to Him.


these boys provided a lot of dynamic conversation in the class. they are (l-r) chris, kevin and james. i enjoyed their humor as well as their willingness to lead the class in discussion.

this is alex. he was such a quiet student, but i loved his subtle sense of humor! also, he would always include details in his summaries that the other students never thought to include. another thing i loved about him was his willingness to be a trend-setter. he wore crocs to class and endured ridicule for wearing 'shower shoes' out in public. i stood by him and applauded him for being strong. :)

alice was my only girl student in this advanced class. i was so glad for the female kinship! alice was also a quiet student, but she wrote excellent summaries. alice's dream is to be an english teacher. i hope and pray she becomes more confident in her english speaking and achieves her dream.

chris was the leader in the step 3 class. he was my strongest speaker and also the most competent in the class. his writing was also the most natural and flowing, which i never ceased to marvel at, since he had never traveled to an english-speaking country. he is also a strong Christian. throughout the year i was so excited to see a young man who was unafraid of his faith and whose decisions and lifestyle were effected by his beliefs. may God bless and prosper him!

Goodbye to all my wonderful students!