A long way from home
Young Korean students travel nearly halfway around the world to immerse themselves in English only, with Winnipeg families and schools.
By Nick Martin
AS Fred Boily watched Jun-Heok Seok play toy soldiers with his son Mark in the living room of the Boily family's St. Boniface home, he marvelled that Jun-Heok's Korean parents would send an 11-year-old halfway around the world to learn English from a family of strangers. Laurie Wasiuta had the same feeling as she helped 14-year-old Ga-Eul Seok find the right word in English.
She could never send her own kids overseas to people she didn't know, Wasiuta said in her Westwood living room. "No, I couldn't see it at this age. (But) their goal is to learn English, so they send them."
Jun-Heok and Ga-Eul are among
84 Korean children scattered in homes throughout the Winnipeg area.
They are spending two months or more totally immersed in English, speaking Korean only in their once-a-week phone calls and e-mails home, and attending school with a child from
their host family.
The 84 kids are the second of three planeloads of elementary and junior high students coming 9,390 kilometres to Winnipeg this year.
Their parents pay $1,000 a month tuition, $550 monthly room and board, airfare and the fees of Jay Choi, organizer of the English immersion program.
Choi, a Linden Woods businessman, and his partner in Korea have found a motherlode of Korean parents anxious that their kids get an economic leg up by learning English.
"I opened this business November of 2002. I designed this program," which started with schools in Pembina Trails School Division, said Choi, who himself arrived here from Korea three years ago.
"My program is short-term, focusing on younger students," he said. "The most popular group is grades 6 and 7."
The students learn both the English language and Canadian culture, he said.
Choi matches each Korean student with a family that has a child of the same age and gender. He places only one Korean student per classroom to ensure there is no temptation to speak anything other than English.
Most Korean students start to learn English when they go to middle school, Choi explained. "English is global language, so it is very important for children's success."
Choi said almost every host family told him they thought Korean parents are very brave to send their children so far from home for so long.
"(But) Korean parents know very well that Canada is a safe country," he said.
The Korean kids who are here are young, but not so young that they haven't already grasped their parents' message that English will get them a better job and a better life. They study English in school in Korea, and they attend after-school and evening English academies for intensive grammar and conversational lessons.
Ga-Eul is enrolled in Grade 8 at Lincoln Middle School, where she's paired off with Sara Wasiuta, daughter of Laurie and Ken Wasiuta.
Laurie Wasiuta said the program is not a one-way street. Her own children are reaping cultural benefits from having the Korean kids in their houses.
For one thing, they are learning that most Korean children have a strong work ethic.
"At home, she studies to be ahead of her class -- she's up until 1 a.m.," Laurie Wasiuta said of Ga-Eul.
That's after a full day of school, and two hours of extra English tutoring.
In Korea, Ga-Eul said, she goes to a special English academy Monday to Friday after school, two hours a day.
"I want to meet many foreigners," she said. "I want to go to the most famous universities in the world -- Harvard, MIT, Yale."
In Korea, she has 40 students in her class, stays in the same classroom all day, and has no optional courses. At Lincoln Middle School, "every class is changing rooms, many subjects. We can choose subjects in Canada," she said.
Grant Ganczar, the assistant homestay program director for St. James-Assiniboia School Division, said the Korean kids appear to be about two years ahead of their Winnipeg counterparts in math.
But it's not all work and no play for the students. Ga-Eul has already tried skiing and skating. She also went with her host family on a drive to Brandon, and noted that Manitoba's topography is quite different from hilly Korea's.
"No hill and no mountain," she observed, extending her hand in a flat motion.
She's also noticed the dramatic differences in the cuisines of the two countries.
"In Canada, no many spiced food," she said.
She's had tacos and perogies, but those dishes wouldn't even register on the Korean spicy-foods scale. In fact, another student, 11-year-old Geun-Soo Ra, told his host family with a straight face that food is so spicy in Korea, "some people eat, go to hospital, and die."
Ga-Eul had no problem saying goodbye to her parents or enduring a cross-ocean flight, but like the other kids, she has learned the impact of the 15-hour time difference, and now knows the English words "jet lag." It took her five days before she felt normal in Winnipeg.
Ji-Won Choi had a tougher time leaving home.
"In the airport, I cry much," Ji-Won said. "The first week, I missed my father and mother so much, but now it's OK."
She has also had to adjust to the weather.
"It's so cold. When I step in the snow, my socks and boots are wet. In Korea, it's just minus six. I was really surprised, and really cold."
She's in Grade 6 at River West Park School, living with Blair and Cheryl DuGray, and paired up with the DuGrays' daughter, Kristy. Ji-Won has found time to try skiing and snowboarding, and tobogganing is next on the list.
"I like to speak English, but sometimes I don't know what means," said Ji-Won. "I want to learn English and I want to see different country and different city. English is very important language. Many people learn English -- English is my second language."
In Korea, Ji-Won leaves school every Tuesday and Thursday and heads straight to five-hour evenings at an English academy.
"I want to be lawyer and stuff like that," she said.
She would like to take another term here in future, Ji-Won said, but "the money is too much."
Kristy said she's enjoying the experience of having a Korean house guest, but "it takes longer to get into the bathroom every morning."
The Boily family agreed to host a student just as they moved from Crescentwood to St. Boniface. Their kids stayed in Grosvenor School, where Jun-Heok, no relation to Ga-Eul, attends Grade 4. At home, he had just finished Grade 5, but dropped down a grade here to have a better shot at handling the material in English.
"Some class is boring, but I like math," he said.
"I want to learn English some more," said Jun-Heok, who is known to his Canadian classmates as Nick. "Because English, in the world, all use English."
He's convinced knowing English will help him get a good job.
"Some people go to company, no problem, they speak English."
At home, "kids in my class, 42. My whole school, 1,900, but in Korea that's small," he said.
He wasn't upset to leave home, Jun-Heok said, but he pointed to his ears and added, "On plane, I got airplane shock. Tummy too."
Once Jun-Heok got over his jet lag, he adapted well to Canadian life, said Fred Boily, who finds his young Korean guest to be "just another one to get out of the house" in the morning.
Given how Jun-Heok is so into math, Boily said, simply telling him he needs to get ready to go to school doesn't work. But tell him he has precisely two minutes to be out the door, and it's action time.
Jun-Heok tried tacos a few days ago and liked them, but he isn't big on Canadian food.
"He's living on noodles and chocolate milk," said Fred's wife, Robin, who added that Jun-Heok is the first kid she's met who doesn't drink cola. "I had a friend take me to the Korean Mart (on Portage Avenue). We had Korean food here.
"The first couple of times I took him grocery shopping, I said, 'Show me what you like.'"
They've also all gone out to dinner at a Korean restaurant. And they weren't the only ones, recalled Fred Boily. They were greeted by a server who told them "another host family is here."
Occasionally, Jun-Heok and the Boilys just can't figure out what the other is saying.
"But we find ourselves very fortunate," Fred Boily said. "We know one family where the Korean boy didn't know English at all."
Jun-Heok wants his sister to come here to learn English, and he wants to come back himself when he's in junior high.
Choi said one Korean parent accompanied her child here in the fall, but that's disruptive for the host family and for the Korean child's ability to get immersed in English.
Each of the six school divisions -- Pembina Trails, Winnipeg, St. James-Assiniboia, River East-Transcona, Sunrise and Lord Selkirk -- has a home stay co-ordinator to screen potential host families.
Pembina Trails superintendent Paul Moreau said the division has hosted about 80 Korean children in the past two years.
Pembina Trails was a pioneer in bringing international students to Manitoba, but those were high school students who enrolled for a full year.
"The Koreans are very very hungry for their children to learn the English language," said Moreau. "They just feel it's very important to their development."
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca