English classes, gospel karaoke
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Pastor Woo Yeon-shik, the founder of Dream City, sits in his cubicle, updating the shelter’s finances online. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
By Lee Ji-hye
Korea’s obsession with learning English extends everywhere, even to a homeless shelter in Seoul where students dressed in woolly caps and ragged windbreakers, sit listening to an enthusiastic English conversation teacher.
“Can anyone give me an example of a verb?” bellows a white-haired Korean-American called Eddie his energy permeating the small room of students, some with mental or physical disabilities.
Words such as “drinking” or “smoking” make the middle-aged men laugh and they make continual efforts to squeeze them into sentences. At Dream City Church, a privately-run shelter for the homeless, various activities such as English conversation classes are offered for free, to whoever wants to learn.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, at 6:30 p.m., eight men gather in the basement floor, bundled up in layers at desks, facing the scrawny but enthusiastic teacher for class.
The word 'preposition' is written in large letters on a whiteboard.
The classes are conducted for an hour, a period well beyond the attention span for many of the homeless students.
Pastor Woo, left, accompanies a homeless woman singing gospel songs during a Sunday service at Dream City / Korea Times Photo by David Nicoll
The teacher throws two dice, using playful methods, playing games cracking jokes, all to make English grammar understandable. Some jot down notes, and others simply stare blankly into space, peel a tangerine or sip apple juice out of a carton.
“What comes after 'sit'?” the teacher asks, with his brows raised in patient expectation, waiting for the students to break the silence with an answer.
After a brief pause, a man in his early sixties blurts out, “On?”
“Score for team A!” the class cheers and applauds for their fellow student, making Eddie beam delightedly.
The student is handed a small tangerine, a reward for getting the right answer.
“They've been making a lot of progress, it's quite impressive,” said Eddie Lee, the instructor of the classes says, as the basement floor manager Kim Jin-gon calls to him to end the class.
“More tomorrow,” said Kim, “Now, we must finish.”
The provision of English classes is an attempt to help the homeless realize that “they, too, are a valuable part of society,” according to the founding Pastor of the shelter, Woo Yeon-shik.
“I want them to dream a bigger dream,” he says. “To go back out into the world and work for society again.”
On Sundays, a long line of homeless men sit waiting for a worship service to begin, and wait eagerly for a chance to sing in front of everyone. If they make it successfully through a song, the pastor tosses them a cup of instant noodles, leaving them beaming with joy.
Songs such as “Silent Night, Holy Night” and “Joy to the World” are sung off-key, but priceless smiles spread across the singer's faces when they bow and proudly step off the stage.
“It's my turn!” An old woman with silver hair tied in a neat bun pushes across her way roughly through the crowd of men covered in thick, worn-out clothing. “I call dibs on my favorite song!”
She grabbed the microphone, with accompaniment instrumental music on full-blast volume coming from donated speakers.
“Round yon virgin, mother and child!” the lady wails the tune in a raspy voice. “Holy infant so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace!”
She bowed deeply as a cup of spicy flavored noodles is handed to her, clutching her hot meal for the day to her chest.
For over an hour, visitors to the shelter build up the courage to raise their hands and make their way to the stage, shedding their shyness, happy and content with the cup of noodles put into their hands at the end of the song.
After an hour of singing, the pastor flips through PowerPoint slides with short, easy biblical scriptures from Sunday school written for the homeless to read throughout the 10-minute sermon.
“We are the children of God! The Lord loves us dearly!” over 40 homeless men and women repeat after the pastor in unison.
The lady on stage cries out during a sermon, “Where is my son? Why did he leave me?”
After the sermon, the woman is the first to run towards the hot water faucet, ready to eat her noodles with wooden chopsticks.
“She comes often, but we can never figure out her name,” the pastor said. “I've tried to carry on a conversation with her, but it always flows in a weird way, without logic.”
He explains that she is suffering from periodic memory loss, and at times becomes very forceful when she wants sing on stage every Sunday.
The pastor hands out two sticks of instant coffee to everyone who took part in the service.
“One is for you guys to keep, and the other is for,” the pastor starts. Everyone shouts, “Other people on the street!”
“It’s not just about giving these visitors a place to sleep, a roof over your head, or some food to nibble on,” says the pastor.
“It's also about giving back to society, finding a place again by reaching out to those who need help to make a difference to people that need your help, too. That's my message every Sunday.”