Sokcho Weekend

On July 26, 2015January 22, 2017 By Janine PerriIn Culture, Fulbright Korea, OrientationLeave a comment

This weekend, the Fulbright ETAs went to Sokcho, a beach town on the northeast coast, to take a break from the cultural workshops, language classes, and teacher training. My first taste of travel around Korea!

Mrs. Shim, Executive Director of the Korean-American Educational Commission that runs Fulbright Korea, offered a welcome address on Friday afternoon, in which she encouraged us to enjoy ourselves during the weekend and not even THINK about studying Korean or writing lesson plans. As a self-professed workaholic, this was probably the first time I’ve ever taken advice about not working. It was definitely worth the cramming I have to do back at Jungwon.

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A Different Way of Seeing the World…Literally

On July 21, 2015January 22, 2017 By Janine PerriIn Culture, Fulbright Korea, OrientationLeave a comment

I was sitting in the ETA lounge at Jungwon today, doing my Korean homework and trying to remember all the rules for the past tense, when I looked up from my notebook and saw a map of the world hanging on the wall. But something about it was different.

I had flashbacks to elementary school geography, when I learned that maps could look different based on projections and shape. Sometimes Greenland was small and squished; other times it was the size of Africa. Sometimes Antarctica looked like a thin line, while other times it nearly touched South America. But in every map I had seen, North America was in the West and Asia was in the East.

Perhaps you’ve guessed how this map was different.

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Receiving Insa

On July 16, 2015January 22, 2017 By Janine PerriIn Culture, Fulbright Korea, OrientationLeave a comment

I was walking around Jungwon today, taking pictures with two of my friends, when we saw a Korean woman and her three children playing on the steps of the university. As the three of us walked past, we smiled and waved at the young family. The woman smiled back, inclined her head, and called out, “Hello!” She nudged one of her sons and said what sounded like, “Say hello!” The three children smiled and waved back, the son calling an enthusiastic, “Annyeong!” (“Hi!”). When I responded with “Annyeonghaseyo!”, the mother suddenly grabbed the child’s hair and pushed his head down into a full 90 degree bow. His siblings followed suit.

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“A Language Can Live…But It Can Also Die”: Cross-Cultural Communication and National Identity

On July 5, 2015January 22, 2017 By Janine PerriIn Culture, Language, Writing Samples1 Comment

Take thirty seconds and write down as many languages as you can. Ready? Go!

You probably wrote down English (and any other primary languages you speak) first. After that, you most likely listed the foreign languages you studied in high school or college. Then you might have moved to other popular world languages: Mandarin, Russian, Spanish. But did you list Icelandic? Welsh? Haitian Creole?

According to the Linguistic Society of America, studies estimate that there are as many as six or seven thousand distinct languages spoken across the world. Exact numbers vary due to the difficulty of distinguishing languages from dialects and the challenges of learning about languages from remote regions—still, the number is immense! But as economic, political, and cultural borders begin to disappear, so do the languages that have held together different nations, peoples, and social identities. In an interdependent world, we must balance our need for cross-cultural communication with the need to maintain respect for regional languages, especially those that are in danger of extinction.

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Hello, World!

On May 28, 2015April 11, 2020 By Janine PerriIn Culture, Fulbright KoreaLeave a comment

안녕하세요! 제 이름은 재닌입니다.

Hello! My name is Janine Perri, and I am a Long Islander, a Villanova Wildcat, and a 2015-2016 Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in South Korea. This blog will chronicle my adventures, reflections, and insights during the thirteen months I will spend abroad.

I graduated from Villanova University in May 2015 with majors in English and history. While at Villanova, I tutored in the university’s Writing Center, mentored and tutored elementary school students in Philadelphia, and founded a student publication dedicated to engaging with intellectual and cultural life at Villanova. To culminate my senior year, I wrote an Honors thesis on the state of English writing skills in college, using a survey of Villanova faculty and students to answer questions such as: What challenges currently face instructors and students in teaching and learning how to write? How do these challenges differ across academic disciplines, class years, and cultural backgrounds?

Now, I am exploring these issues and questions from a new perspective – that of an international teacher.

Over the next year, I will build upon my experiences in English writing and tutoring by serving as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in Gimhae, South Korea, helping Korean high school students improve their English conversation and writing skills. At the same time, I will immerse myself in a new culture, a new language, and a new pedagogical tradition. As a Fulbright ETA, I will serve as a teacher, a mentor, and a cultural ambassador. And I will learn as much from my students as they will learn from me.

By sharing my own language and culture and learning from my students, I hope to engage, and help others engage, in global conversations. I invite you to follow me on this journey.

The views expressed in this blog are mine alone and are not affiliated with the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State.