Cultural Lessons South Korean Exchange Students Make New Friends While Studying At Nic
Jung Joo was wildly popular during lunch at Bryan Elementary School on Tuesday.
Little girls surrounded the 20-year-old college student from South Korea, asking her to repeat her name.
American children are quite outgoing, Joo observed between bites of her hamburger, as adoring second-graders embraced her from either side. “Korean children are freedom, but American more.”
By the time they left, Joo and her 18 fellow foreign exchange students had made many friends at the elementary school.
The visit was one of several field trips the students from Chung Cheong College have taken during their month-long stay in Coeur d’Alene as part of the new sister college relationship with North Idaho College.
The two schools formally sealed the relationship last summer, which provides the opportunity for student and faculty exchanges.
When they leave North Idaho College to return to South Korea, the students will have visited several schools and the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation, gone skiing, bowling and ice skating, attended regular classes at the community college, learned to line dance and order a latte.
This is the last week of their immersion in the English language and American culture. English is a required course in South Korean grammar school.
The students paid their own transportation to Coeur d’Alene and the $1,995 tuition for the program. Intensive language instruction takes up two or three hours in class each day, and the rest of the day is spent in planned activities until 5 p.m. when they return to their host families.
The students arrived with a range of language abilities - from the semi-fluent to those who have a basic understanding, but are unable to converse, said instructor Celeste Swartling, who spends each day with the group.
Staying with American families has forced many students to learn more than they would otherwise. The host families have been some of their best teachers, Swartling said.
Host mother Vicki Fulton said Joo is much more talkative than when she arrived on Jan. 8. “Now she jokes with us.”
The students said they will remember Coeur d’Alene for its setting and all the people they’ve met.
Chang Kuk Kang, a mechanical design student at Chung Cheong College, said skiing at Silver Mountain was one of his more memorable experiences.
“Very exciting. First time,” he said, grinning.
As they stood in line for hot lunch, a young hostess explained the lunch routine to her Korean guests.
“On Friday we get ice cream,” Rebekah Abrams told Seong Hoon Kim. “But we have to buy it. Do you like Nutty Buddies?”
Kim didn’t know what she meant, but kept smiling.
The students have to be ready to go at 4 a.m. Saturday to catch their plane home. Kim knows he won’t be quite ready to leave.
“I love this place,” he said. “There is beautiful scenery. Especially Lake Coeur d’Alene.”
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