Thoughts on Home-stay in Korea

A bajillion lotus flowers grow next to the Han River at 두물머리.

Recently, a commenter on another post asked if I really recommend staying with my host family. So today, I'm going to talk a little more about my home-stay experience. To begin with, I found my host family through korea-homestay.com. (There are other home-stay companies in Korea, including the confusingly similar-sounding homestaykorea.com, but I haven't had any personal experience with them. My dealings with the korea-homestay staff, at any rate, have been pleasant and satisfactory; their English is less than perfect, but that usually doesn't cause problems.) I don't know whether I got lucky or my experience is typical for a home-stay guest, but I have been living very comfortably and getting along very well with my hosts. My family consists of a host mom, host dad, and their middle-school aged daughter, besides which a couple of other home-stay guests have also joined us at various times. I get plenty of privacy in my own bedroom, and I interact with the family mostly around mealtimes, but I also have been studying Korean/teaching English with the daughter for an hour or so most nights. Speaking of meals, breakfast is included in the regular home-stay price, but since I also have dinner with the family almost every day, I paid for that in a lump sum at the beginning of my stay (assuming an average of $10 per dinner). 

The two rivers meeting at 두물머리

For me, one of the perks of doing home-stay was that it gave me a place to practice violin. More generally, unless you are the super-social type who makes friends easily wherever you go, having a home-stay family can help plug you into a Korean community from the get-go, and give you connections you wouldn't have otherwise. For example, I've also been hanging out with another family from the same apartment building, who are friends my host family. I've had dinner and lunch at their place, read Harry Potter with their daughter, and even tagged along on a car trip to 두물머리 (the place where the North Han River and South Han River meet).  My hosts are also happy to help me out with my language study and homework whenever I ask (which helps me not to feel the lack of the tutor that Ewha said it would provide and never did).

My host family also happens to be in a very nice neighborhood, which is safe at night, has a library and shopping mall within easy walking distance, a subway station 5 minutes away by foot, and great views of mountains and the Han River (which like the subway station is just a 5 minute walk away from the apartment). The only disadvantage to the location, for me, is that it is a pretty good distance from Ewha - I have to give myself 50 minutes to an hour to get to school (though the actual subway ride is only 20ish minutes). 

So far, home-stay probably sounds like a great deal, and for the most part, it is. For those who are wondering if they should go for it, though, I do have a couple of caveats/things to keep in mind. First, it might be difficult to find a suitable family in the first place - I got lucky in that my host found me first and turned out to be great, but one of my friends had to give up on finding a host and ended up living (very happily) in a hasukjib. So don't forget about other living options. Second, don't underestimate commuting distance. I've gotten used to my commute, but I won't deny that I've often wished I lived closer to school (and the rest of my friends). Third, it's best if you come with at least a basic command of Korean to begin with; that'll make life easier for everyone involved (unless you happen to find a host with an excellent command of English or your native language). 

Home-stay is also more expensive than a typical hasukjib or other student accommodation. The baseline fee for me (with a student discount) was $550/month, not counting the $700 lump sum I paid in addition for 70 days' worth of dinners. If you're okay with the pricing, though, I definitely encourage you to look into doing home-stay. It's totally free to sign-up for korea-homestay.com, and you can then browse through hosts' profiles. You have to communicate with prospective hosts via the korea-homestay staff until you pay a $40 deposit to stay with a particular host; then you'll get their direct contact info. Also, this probably is obvious, but if you do pick a host and you're staying for several months, don't pay the fees all at once; pay monthly in case something goes wrong during your stay and you have to cancel. One of the other guests who was staying with my host, for example, planned to stay for two months but had to leave after just one, because she was suddenly called back to her university in Russia.  

Well, I think that's all I have to say on the subject of home-stay... but if anyone has any more questions, feel free to ask in the comments!

ETA: By the way, if you're not a long-term student and are just a traveler looking to stay for a week or two, then I definitely think home-stay is a great idea. It's way cheaper than a hotel, with better accommodations than a motel or similar lodging place, and you can get a lot more exposure to real, everyday Korean culture and customs. Plus you can ask your hosts for local sightseeing tips. Again, though, being able to speak and understand basic Korean would be a huge plus. 

My Review of the Ewha Language Center

Somehow, it's already become my last full week of classes at Ewha. Next week, we have Monday off because of 광복절 (Liberation Day), then our final exam starts two days later on Wednesday, and then the program ends the following Wednesday (the 24th). The first couple of weeks of the program did feel very slow, but now I very much have the cliched feeling that time flies...

Anyway, it seemed like it's about time I follow up on my initial impressions of Ewha (and Ewha vs. Sogang), now that everything is nearly wrapped up. Having had plenty of time to settle into the groove of the ELC, I still have mostly good things to say about it - with some caveats. (Warning: This post turned out to be pretty long, so if you just want my summary/overall thoughts, skip to the last two paragraphs.)

To start with, I have a few more things to say about the Ewha textbooks as compared to the Sogang textbooks (for my earlier thoughts, see my First Impressions post). One feature I really appreciate about the Ewha textbooks is that every chapter has a page on a category of related vocab terms/expressions, e.g. expressions to do with 마음, 시간, –적, or –스럽다. I also like that writing practice is also integrated into the main textbook as well as the workbook. The dialogues for speaking practice are relevant to real life (some more so than others), and I appreciate how they provide several alternative ways of saying key expressions. They also have a page that just provides cues or an outline of the dialogue, so we can test ourselves on how well we can either remember the dialogue or make up a similar one. 

That being said, what I don’t like about the Ewha textbooks as much as the Sogang books is that there is no companion book focusing on the grammar and vocabulary. This hasn’t proved to be a serious problem for me, but the Sogang companion books (which are in English at least through level 3) do explain the subtleties of certain grammar patterns in a way that the Ewha books really fail to do (our teachers have to fill in the holes, which for the most part is adequate, but it'd be nice to have it in the books...). At the very least, I wish there was a consolidated list of vocabulary at the end of each chapter. It would also be really nice if they had definitions of the vocabulary in Korean (I don’t know if Sogang does that at the higher levels), the way they have the grammar patterns explained in Korean. To do that, they would probably have to make a companion book, otherwise that would take a lot of extra space in the main textbook. 

In addition to the main textbook and workbook, we also get handouts for practicing every new grammar pattern. On these handouts, we write down notes for different scenarios and turn them into dialogues using the new grammar. It’s a pretty useful way to drill the grammar while also practicing speaking.

The workbook is perfectly useful; I especially like how there is section for every chapter focusing on vocab usage. I think it could be useful if a dictation section were added, but you can also test your dictation skills on your own anyway, using the textbook CD and the scripts for the listening dialogues.

I like that we don’t spend time in class working on writing articles/essays; that’s for homework, which I think is appropriate. At Sogang, they have to write every day in class, which must be very useful too, but I feel we still get a reasonable amount of writing practice at Ewha via the homework assignments, and the teachers give plenty of feedback on our writing. As I mentioned above, I also like that for speaking practice, we have to make up our own dialogues using new grammar patterns, while still being able to refer to example dialogues and alternative expressions for help. We spend more than an hour on speaking in class every day, whether we are making short dialogues to drill the new grammar, or practicing the longer “말해 봅시다” dialogues. 

The articles for reading practice are appropriately challenging for our level. We have to answer reading comprehension questions, write summaries of the most important points, and also practice reading the passages aloud. The articles on Korean culture at the end of every chapter tend to be more challenging to read, but we don’t have to answer questions about them; we do discuss them in class if there is time, however.

The listening practice is also pretty effective. Compared to the Sogang CDs (at least for levels 1 and 2), the speakers on the Ewha CDs speak much more quickly, fairly similar to the average real Korean speaker (although of course they enunciate much more carefully than the average person on the street does). Speaking practice is a bit rote, but I think that cannot be escaped when learning any foreign language, and free-topic speaking practice is something that is better reserved for language-partner or tutoring sessions anyway (to make the most of the class time).

In the end, I am satisfied with my Ewha experience for the most part. My biggest disappointment was that they decided not to provide tutors for Level 3 and above. They originally said they were going to give us tutors, and we even signed up for them. But when we didn’t receive introductions for a few weeks, I finally asked my teacher and she said that not enough Ewha students were available, so levels 1 and 2 got priority. If they weren’t going to be able to provide us with tutors, they should at least have told us as soon as they realized that. The lack of a 개인 수업 is definitely a weakness compared to the Sogang program (although one-on-one tutoring is free for the lower levels, unlike the Sogang one-on-one classes). I also do have to admit that the classes at Ewha get kind of boring after a few weeks (I really started to feel this after midterms, and I wasn't the only one). It's okay when we have our peppy Monday-Wednesday-Friday teacher, but even then, we still do basically the exact same things day after day after day, just substituting in the new grammar patterns, reading passages, or whatever. Based on hearsay, I'm under the impression that Sogang tends to be a bit more interactive/engaging, but maybe the grass is always greener on the other side.

I placed into a higher level at Ewha than I’m sure I would have at Sogang, and I have really appreciated the accompanying challenges without ever feeling overwhelmed. I don’t know if my speaking would have improved much more at Sogang, but overall I am not disappointed that I chose Ewha for this summer. That being said, if I come back to study in Korea again (and I hope I do), I’m not confident I’ll choose Ewha again at first. Don't take this the wrong way - I didn't dislike Ewha. It’s just that I want to experience another program, most likely Sogang, at least for one semester.

Out-of-Class Cultural Experiences via the Ewha Language Center

In this post I'd like to catch up on a couple of "cultural experiences" I've participated in through the ELC. The first was the program-wide field trip to Lotte World; the second was an optional trip to the National Museum of Korea.

The Lotte World trip happened just a couple of weeks after classes started. We first spent the morning at the Folk Museum that's next to the amusement park. There, we got to decorate dolls with traditional Korean outfits. It was pretty simple, but still fun, and the dolls looked cute.

The doll I decorated.

After the dolls, we toured the museum exhibitions, which mainly consist of miniature reproductions of various aspects of traditional Korean villages, plus one huge room that contained a pretty comprehensive diorama of an entire village region. I actually found it quite interesting, and the extent of the reproductions was impressive. If you're planning on going to Lotte World, definitely stop by the museum as well if you have any interest in what Korea used to be like.

One of the village dioramas.

In the afternoon, we had a few hours of free time in the amusement park, which is half indoors and half outdoors. I especially liked the "French Revolution" roller coaster (although it can give you a bit of a headache). Lotte World is no Six Flags or Disney World, but it was a nice getaway for the day (even though rain prevented us from enjoying the outdoor portion very much). As long as you don't go expecting someplace really amazing, it's a fun outing if you're into rides and such. (Just don't waste your time on the "haunted house" - most boring thing ever!)

Walking down the bridge to the outside portion of Lotte World.

The trip to the National Museum took place after class on a recent Friday. Once we arrived at the museum, we were divided into small groups to follow tour guides around the exhibitions. Our tour guide spoke only in Korean, of course, and even though he was aware that our language level wasn't terribly high, it was still hard to follow much of what he said (I mean, there's only so far that you can only simplify information about historical artifacts). Fortunately for me, I had visited the museum before with my mom and we'd had an English-speaking guide then, so I already knew a lot of the basic information about the artifacts we were shown. The tour was way too short to cover much of the (huge) museum, though, as we had an appointment afterwards for a make-your-own-Korean-paper-fan at the museum's cultural education center.

The fan I painted.

At the cultural center, we got to learn a bit about the traditional subjects, categories, and techniques of Korean ink paintings, and we watched an example video of someone painting on a paper fan (it looks deceptively easy, but it demands a lot of skill!). We then each got a blank paper fan and had an hour to experiment with the watercolors and paint our fan. Mine turned out okay-ish, but I never quite got the hang of balancing between having not enough water in the paint and having too much...

In the end, both "cultural experiences" were worth attending, and I got nice souvenirs out of them. Unfortunately, the doll I made at Lotte World ended up turning moldy because I forgot to take it out of its container to dry fully... but that's another story. At least I still have my fan ^_^.