Gwangju International Center

Interview with GIC Kids' Science Class Instructor RISHI CHAUHAN

Written and Interviewed by Harsh Kumar Mishra 

Hello, Rishi! How about you give a short introduction about yourself.

Rishi:

Yeah! So, my name is Rishi Chauhan and I’m 23 years old. I’m from Philadelphia, US. I graduated from my college in May, 2016 with Biochemistry major. Right after finishing my college I came to Korea as an English teacher.

Harsh:

When did you come to Korea?

Rishi:

I came in July 2016. It’s exactly been 1 year here.

Harsh:

How did you decide to teach English in Korea?

Rishi:

It was like a program where they have several English teaching programs around the world in more than 100 countries so picked Korea for this program. This program is little bit different than other English teaching programs as It’s an English teaching program supported by the American government. So, when I came to Korea they gave us 6 weeks of Korean language training and had to do the homestay as a requirement of the program.

Harsh:

Many people feel like South Korea is now one of the dangerous country because of the North. What’s your say on it? And when you decided to come to Korea what did your parents say?

Rishi:

I think it’s like an interesting mix because Korea itself is like super safe, in fact one of the safest country inside but there is just threat of the outside maybe. So, for my parents it’s like new threat so they were really scared. They hear on the news like “oh my god! Korea has the nuclear weapon” and all this. They were little bit concerned but they were more concerned about day to day safety and that’s like really safe in Korea. When you say Korea that’s first thing comes to your mind like Seoul is a big city and North Korea is right beside it. Idea of it was definitely back there in their mind but I don’t think they were too concern about it and I wasn’t concern about it at all.

Harsh:

You have been living in Suncheon city for past 1 year. How is life there? How is it different than Gwangju? Would you recommend Suncheon to other foreign friends?

Rishi:

I really like Suncheon. I think it’s because Suncheon is a smaller city and it’s really far away from Seoul so, I had very unique experience in Korea compared to a lot of other people living in big cities. Also, the traffic there was smoother than of Gwangju, less crowded and more nature.  

It seemed like, every week in the school from teachers and the homestay hosts I got new recommendations about popular food there in Gwangyang and Suncheon, which they said I could not find in other regions, to me that part was really cool. I will surely recommend Suncheon, Gwangyang and Yeosu to foreign tourists because you experience the unique culture and lifestyle of Korea as it is.

Harsh: 

How was your experience of teaching English at Korean school? What are the main differences between Korean and American kids?

Rishi:

I taught at a boys’ high school in Gwangyang. I was really scared coming in an all-boys high school but the students there were very nice. School was in really rural area and because of so rural students were super kind and they had strong traditional values. I think that’s the positive side of it but negative is that they were too respectful sometimes. Unlike in America school students are much more independent and they’re not afraid to talk back to the teacher, but I think in Korea sometimes students are afraid to express their thoughts and encouraging them to express here was a bit different than of America.

Harsh:

As you have already mentioned it before tell us about your Homestay experience with the family. Was it good? Would you recommend it to others? What did you find best thing about it?

Rishi:

I think Homestay is completely unique experience and it just gets you so immersed in Korean culture. If you live alone, you ‘re never going to experience the real Korean culture that you can do in homestay. I completely recommend it to everyone. You get to learn about all aspects of Korean lifestyle and culture like how they bath, eat and all that. It really helped me kind of get used to Korean life.

Harsh: 

So, you lived there as a part of the family or tenant? Was the family friendly to you?

Rishi: 

Actually, I think it was a mix. It depends on the person but because my Korean isn’t good, there were some cultural boundaries like you know I can’t talk casually with my host family. They are super nice and they are like willing to try to have discussion but it’s exhausting to talk in English. I regret just that I couldn’t have more talks with them because of the language barrier.

Harsh: 

You have been doing kids science class at GIC for long time. So, could you tell us how did you know about GIC and the program? Also, I heard like you were doing something similar back in the US, like same science class program!

Rishi: 

I heard about the GIC because I was looking for teacher to teach me Korean. I was struggling to find someone in Suncheon, so my friend, who lives in Naju City, recommended the GIC. Then I contacted GIC and started getting Korean classes on the weekend, and then I got to know that GIC runs global culture classes. As I mentioned before, like even back when I was in college, and had free time I used to volunteer with kids in some way. I ran science programs, I did afterschool help for kids in a city poor community. So, I just asked them that can I do this science class at GIC, and GIC was super enthusiastic about it and that’s how I ended up doing science class here.

Harsh: 

Tell us your experience of kids’ science class at GIC? Let us know about both negatives and positives!

Rishi: 

The thing that surprised me in a very good way is, I think the students here were as enthusiastic as my students back in America or even more so. That really made me happy that students are so enthusiastic about learning science. Things I learned from experience back in the U.S.  like what kind of science courses kids like it or don’t like helped me picking courses for them. You know every culture has different way of teaching science so trying to figure out lesson that they didn’t ever did in Korea before was quite fun. I think both of those components made the classes really enjoyable. I think the hardest part of it was just the language barrier. It’s hard enough to translate like normal speech but to translate like complicated science terms into simple Korean to teach them were challenging. But I think keeping it visual and physical really helped the kids understand the basic components of the science even though deep understanding maybe got a little bit lost because of translation problem.

Harsh: 

So, was there any special class that you want to recall?

Rishi:

I think my favorite ones were two with two different sets of kids.  It’s called science crime busters where we do like a fake crime and we have the kids take finger prints, do powder analysis, pen chromatography, so it’s like deep science principles but having kids act up in a fun way. I thought my student would not like it, but when we did they were like super triggered up trying to get the criminal. When I did it in America, the criminal wasn’t in the room but they had this imaginary criminal, but when I did it here it was three teachers for helping so I made it one of us three is a criminal. They were so much into it. It was great fun for them.

Harsh: 

When are you heading back to US? What are your plans for future?

Rishi:

I am going to Japan on this Wednesday (19^th July) and then from there I’ll leave for the US. My next plan is to go to medical school to become a doctor. MD. I want to become a pediatrician.

Harsh: 

Last question, what do you find main differences between Korean and U.S.?

Rishi: 

How you eat meals together, you share from one plate, and I really enjoy that a lot, because it’s so different when you have to share meals I think It’s a much closer and intimate. When I was in America, nobody wants to share with each other, we just want to eat our own food, so I really enjoyed that part.

Harsh: 

How will you sum up your 1 year life in Korea?

Rishi: 

There is like 3 different parts to it. With my host family, I became very close with my little host’s sister who is 9 years old. We played so many games together, so I think we are both going to miss each other a lot. In school, I really bonded with some of my students. I think that close connection my students and my teachers like helped me. I learned so much about different kids and challenges in cultural communication. I think just meeting so many nice Korean people I think because I am not stranger you know there is good and bad. Like you know you get stared at the crazy everywhere that’s a negative part, but the good part is, a lot of people are really curious and that opened me up to new conversation. In America, if you by yourself nobody cares, here like I had a little kid like pointing at me saying 외국인. You can like smile at them and say hi and they are going to like oh he smiled at me, he is talking to me. Those parts were kind of precious moments. It’s like very unique thing, you don’t get that in America  

Harsh: 

Thank you so much Rishi for your valuable time. We at GIC wish you great luck for the future.

Rishi:

Thank you!