caoli

caoli Tutor Interview

Q.Hi Caoli, can you firstly introduce yourself to Cafetalk community?

A. Hello, my name is Caoli. I am originally from Hokkaido, Japan but currently live in Korea. It has been 10 years since I came to Korea in 2016. I am very interested in different languages. Not only did I study Korean, but I also studied English, Chinese, Russian and Thailand. My hobbies are studying foreign languages, reading, travelling, eating foreign cuisines, and studying current North Korea. I came to Korea for the first time of my life when I was in junior high. My family and I visited Seoul as a family trip. I totally felt that the trip was so much fun and Korean language was very interesting. This was the time when Japan and North Korea had the summit, and there were a lot of news on North Korea. I began to have interest in North Korea since then. I even wrote my message in my junior high yearbook that I want to go to North Korea to study. My parents scolded me for saying that. Anyway, I had to give up going to North Korea for studying when I realized that Japanese are not allowed to go to North Korea. I am also interested in China (especially Manchurian region) and Russia (Far East region). Because I am passionate about my hometown, I will study the history of Hokkaido and it’s regional language after I finish studying North Korea.

Q. Tell us about the city you now live in

A. I live in the center of Seoul where Seoul station is located. Transportation is amazing here. However, I don’t know if I can assure you that it is a good neighborhood because you can see many homeless people around here. Other bad thing about this neighborhood is that there are not many good restaurants. It is the place where you can see many foreign visitors buying souvenirs, so it’s little hard to find a supermarket here.

Q. How’s your life in Korea? Tell us about good and difficult times you had in Korea

A. Right after I graduated from the highschool in Japan, I came to Korea and had to start from the scratch like renting a house, getting a cell phone, paying utility bills, opening a bank account etc. Although I do not have any difficulty living in Korea now, it’s sometimes frustrating when I get overly charged when I go shopping and people don’t exactly follow what it is said in a contract. But I guess these things also happen in Japan.

Q. What do you do when you have free time?

A. I work at home, so I guess everyday is my free time. I like to go to movies on weekdays when there are not many people, and I also like to meet friends and go for a walk. It’s winter time here in Korea now, so I barely go outside. I usually take a nap, read, watch soap opera in NHK.

Q. What made you to teach Korean? What do you consider the most important point during a lesson?

A.I had online lesson to study English conversation. I started to think myself that it would be great to have a job that I can do at home. One time during the English lesson with my favorite Serbian teacher, I asked the tutor a question regarding English. But this tutor’s response was “I don’t know.” This was very shocking to me, because I realized that even teachers don’t have to know everything. This was the moment when I thought I can be a Korean teacher, and I found out an advertisement for recruiting Korean tutors in Cafetalk. In my lesson, I let my students practice pronunciation a lot and let them listen to their sounds. There are two role models whom I want to be like as a teacher. One teacher was a Japanese teacher who taught Korean at my high school. He lived and studied in Korea, and taught us practical Korean which I couldn’t learn through the textbook. He also taught me how native Korean actually pronunciate. I learned a lot from this teacher. The other teacher taught me Russian. The Russian teacher kept students to practice pronunciation. He even used a half of session for practice. It was sometimes boring because I had to practice so many times, but I could remember what I’ve learned clearly due to this repetitive practice. The teacher was from Vladivostok and was little scary, but my effort to practice Russian everyday was definitely paid off.

Q. What kind of study method do you recommend to beginners who want to learn Japanese or Korean?

A. For students who are either absolute beginners or beginners, I recommend to have a lesson with tutors who use the same native language. I experienced that a lot of Japanese students who learned beginner level of Korean with Japanese teachers have more robust basic knowledge than the students who learned Korean from Korean teacher from the beginning. If you want to start learning Japanese, have a lesson with Korean teacher. You can learn more by reading Japanese book and watching Japanese movie or soap opera too. After you finish the beginner’s level, practice is the main key. Make sure you practice Japanese everyday. I read Korean newspaper and books, watch Korean TV and listen to Korean radio everyday. I also learn North Korean by reading newspaper and TV from North Korea. Make sure you read books in your native language. You have to have strong background knowledge for you native language before you learn any foreign languages.

Q. Before we end the interview, do you have any message you want to give to Cafetalk students?

A. I often wrote complaints about Korea in my tutor column despite the fact that I teach Korean so I was little worried about my columns. I was happy to hear this interview request from Cafetalk. As you would probably guess, I don’t know anything about Korean soap opera, celebrities nor K-Pop. Although I cannot talk about Korean or Japanese celebrities, I welcome your lesson request if you wish to study Japanese!

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