Purpose for Teaching, Purpose for Learning English

Day 3 , Conference. Tomorrow is the last day. Today was pretty cool, we went to the Incheon English Training Center which is in the boonies, and literally, near North Korea. Its a center where they train the more brighter students with camps and other activities. There is also teacher training as well. They gave a tour of the facilities (very high tech and clean) and met the staff who run the show. It was entertaining than I thought it would be, simply because the foreign teachers and staff had warm-hearted personalities and were able to address our concerns about teaching.

We finished around 2, came back to the conference room, and we had a lecture by a representative from the Incheon City Hall office about the history of Korea and Incheon, and the new developments for its economic and global future. I knew most of the history already, so that was old to me, but what was fascinating by my standards was the presentation on the developments of Incheon City in the near future. As you know by now, Incheon is one of the major logistical and economic hubs of Northeast Asia. It is a major shipping port (ala Baltimore) as well as home to one of the largest airports in the world. They are currently working on this ambitious economic project in the IFEZ Songdo District (IFEZ is "International Free Economic Zone") near the coast, where they will be building a massive tower for financial and business firms called the Incheon Tower (built by 2009), develop centers for research and development (for Bio-tech firms and major car companies) and developing new urban planning projects such as parks, hospitals, and new international schools. It is a really daring project, which is going to cost millions of dollars, but the benefits and revenue from such an investment will bring in billions. Its that major of a project.

This kind of gave me new purpose in teaching English now: more foreign firms and investors will be desiring to come to Incheon. So when I go back to my school on Friday, I can give my students new reason to study English and learn to speak it: more investors are coming to town! How about a new job that pays alot of money? Learn English. Money is a great incentive if you throw out the greed aspect, ha ha ha. So before, I did not really have a good guideline of why to teach conversational English, but now, I do. If they have purpose and a guide, just like God through Jesus Christ gives to us via Holy Spirit, then they will have the drive to learn English.

I believe Korea has the potential to be an even stronger nation, but I think it now hinges more as more economic cooperation and development will need one global language, just like Latin was during the Roman era.

In another blog later this week, I'm going to write about my experiences talking to English-speakers from all over the world, all in one week.

Peace.