Effective Communicator

By Lee Dong-il

While absorbed in a dizzying whirl of hectic school work directly before summer vacation, my English teacher handed me a public document for training English teachers during the vacation at the Language Institute of Busan Education Board.

It was a document requesting English teacher trainees brush up their English knowledge and teaching skills.

It reminded me of an academic journey I went on last year at the institute. That day, my feeling was a mixture of expectation and anxiety after a long absence and neglect as regards my English studies together with my advancing age.

Upon arriving at the institute ― and how uphill the meandering path leading to it was ― I appreciated the thoughtfulness and meticulous care of the Institute's staff. The Middle Auditorium of the Institute, where we trainees were supposed to assemble, was not visible, adding to my stress.

I managed to discover the location after a couple of inquiries of equally heat-saturated staff. Before heading for the venue, I realized that my usual habitual haste and impatience resulted in my being early, which meant I had to idle away more than one hour prior to the start.

Eventually, the long-awaited opening ceremony came and went like a heat-drenched snail. Posterior to the grand opening ceremony we 38 trainees assembled at the Middle Auditorium, where we were soon enough cast into the hot cauldron of a drill, with an English lecture titled ``American Education System and Current Issue".

The lecturer, an American professor, was enthusiastic about elaborating on the labyrinthine educational system of his country, but because of my languor, predominantly due to the sizzling weather, it did not sufficiently draw my strong interest, rather tending to aggravate confusion about it.

Because I was far from the lecturer's podium, I moved to the front to hear him more clearly. After his speech, I struggled to utter some opinions, refuting his ostensibly dogmatic mentality towards the so-called three No's of our nation's education policies (no admission test individually administered by respective university; no breaking of standardization policy for recruiting high-school students; no admission by contribution.)

He was a vehement opponent of the then president and its administration's educational polices, igniting and stroking some nationalistic sentiment in me if not jingoistic emotion.

Now, a year later he would probably be basking in euphoria as the current government is seriously pondering over some drastic amendment, if not whole abrogation, of past government educational legacies.

Then, I met another admiringly taciturn, meditative, shy instructor. Before he started his lecture, regarding his own shyness, he quoted a black comedian's remark about how hideously tormenting a public speech is; I would rather be in a casket than stand at a podium for a public speech.

The instructor's name was Andrew, whose subject and specialty was about making us an efficient and effective speaker at public places. He kindly directed us how to develop and deliver an effective public speech, first using such small but critical openings such as smiling and giving a slight nod to the audience, etc. The subject was very timely and useful because my ever-present sheer degree of shyness was a great impediment to me in my teaching. He urged us to maximize the effect of speech by using suitable anecdotes, quotations, statements and humorous stories and jokes, etc in a speech.

All of his instruction and teaching was done in a calm and gentle way while seated in his chair.

Despite keeping still, his brilliantly persuasive teaching in a soft voice tempted me to nickname him Mr. Meditation, he was like a reincarnation of Socrates, human history's most remarkable teacher.

The common knowledge that good teaching is proportional to a teachers bodily passion and loudness of voice was categorically refuted by this man.

I myself was a staunch proponent of the widely spread prejudice that a loud voice and exaggeratingly enthusiastic body movements were a hard and fast rule in teaching.

I belatedly realized from him that the following proverb is very fit for this occasion: Soft words and hard arguments. His very effective taciturnity with fleeting but keen sprinklings of thought-provoking words would surely be the very same mentality as the great Greek philosopher.

Unlike the famous Greek teacher, our institute's very own Socrates had an enormous advantage in consideration of the relative absence of severely drawn wrinkles on his face, and the eternally frowned facade of the ancient sage.

He, by giving me access to a new horizon about the enhancement of English speech skills, acutely made me aware of how much I needed to improve.

He still seems to say to me, ``Mr. Lee Know thyself."

The writer is an English teacher at Busan Commercial High School in Busan. He can be reached at Dongilone@hanmail.net.