An Essay Ⅱ from MANNAM Korean teacher.

This is a story why am I willing to be a volunteer for foreigners.

It was 15 years ago. I had been working in Gunsan Daewoo commercial vehicles. I had some chances to meet foreign buyers that time. Whenever I met them, I had got trouble because of my poor English skills. So I wanted to learn it more, but it was not easy to do both learning and working.

At that time, IMF hit Korea in 1997 and the economy was getting worse. Numerous workers were fired from their companies. However, I quit the job myself and flew to Australia to prepare for a better future.

Since I had been experienced in staying Japan, I felt living in foreign countries seems to be romantic. However, It was different between dream and reality. One of the big problem was, of course, the language!!

I wanted to be a permanent resident in Australia so I needed to improve my English skills. But entering the language school costed very expensive. I had been spending a mount of money to rent my house, get some groceries, and so on. I had to figure out a better way to study English.

I used to go a library nearby my place to read some books. When I had walked through the hall, a tiny invitation posting caught my eye. It was an ad about Free English classes for foreigners like me!

I was excited that I could learn English for free and decided to go there.

The class was made by some Australians and christian missionaries. They volunteered every Saturday. Most of the volunteers were from different countries. They offered English classes, Bible study, and singing to the students. I liked those. The best thing I liked was I could meet many foreign friends there. I could hear a lot of stories about the world from them. It was so much fun.

During break time, all of students and volunteers roamed around the class and had a chat. Thanks to that, I should practice to speak English to communicate with them. I had tried my best to learn from the class and have a conversation with the volunteers and I could feel that my English skills were getting better little by little.

I still have keep in touch with one of them. Her name is Allison. She is Australian. She came there to help the students with English. She told me her fiance was Korean and she had been interested in learning his language. Since her fiance had used to be an international student, she knew the difficulty of foreign students' well. So she had started to volunteered there.

Allison told me about her life and took me to meet her husband. She always tried to help me with daily conversation. Even though she was one of volunteers, she was a real teacher to me. I was really thankful to her. She treated me not only as a student but a friend. From then on, I think I have dreamed to help someone with my language like her.

After 15 years, now, I am a teacher in MANNAM Korean Class. I have my own job, bring up two kids, and I volunteer every Sunday. I am truly happy I can help the foreigners. I feel I am giving back the kindness to Allison who gave it to me.

Some of my students study very hard in order to teach Korean in their countries. They express their gratitude to me every time. How nice!!

Like the slogan of MANNAM, When Light meets Light, there is Victory, I convey a small light to them and they receive and spread the light through the world.

Written by

Hwang, Jae-yeon