Tutor Session 5 with Yongheon, my Korean student by Rita Schwab

After a long spring break Yongheon and I met at the library once again. We shared our spring break activities. Yongheon's spring break was somewhat uneventful as his 2 children did not have spring break at the same time. So he stayed home and relaxed.

My spring break however was quite eventful as I had travelled for business and pleasure down south Florida all the way to the Keys and back, leaving 2319 more miles on my speedometer.
Yongheon was impressed and did not know that Florida was this long. I had brought a map of Florida and we outlined my trip and talked about the various stops. I told him about Sarasota being the number 1 cultural city in Florida with many art galleries, museums and theatres. I told him about crossing the Sunshine Skyway bridge, the highest bridge in the United States with quite some dramatic history. I asked him to google this for the next time we meet. I talked to him about my short stay in Miami, Miami being a very diverse cultural city with any imaginable possibilities; a city to flair, of art, of music, of south-American culture, Cuban cafes,, french quarters, parks, beaches, movie stars and large freight boats and cruise liners. Yongheon was very attentive and interested. Then I told him about my camping trip in the Keys, the islands, the state parks and the furthest south spot in the United States in Key West.

This was no doubt a geography lesson for Yonghoen, as he had no idea of the size of Florida and the islands of the Florida Keys. I think a geography lesson of the United States and particular of Florida should be a part of the curriculum for any foreign student.

I had brought a book called 'Florida State Parks' by Michael Strutin. I told Yongheon that Florida has the largest number of state parks in the US. I explained that the state parks belong to the government and they are a representation of the original natural habitat of its environment. I told him how fond I was of state parks and its preservation of the original land.

We looked through the entire book and picked Bahia Honda State Park as an example, as I had just visited this beautiful paradise. Yongheon read the entire chapter to practise his reading and pronunciation skill. He learned about the various facilities and recreation possibilities of state parks, their size, habitat, nature trails, how to read their maps and their accessibility, rules and regulations. He read the entire chapter aloud to me on Bahia Honda state park which gave a description of the park, its particular location, its layout, its wildlife and its special beauty.

Then I asked him to find the closest state park to Tallahassee and we found Wakulla Springs. I asked him to google this for next time as well.

We had quite a long session for 2 hours as Yongheon told me about his past travels in the US, wanting to find out more about American cities. As his means are limited, he travelled to Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville. He was in particular interested in the downtown areas and their business centers, as he is a student in the master's program of Political Science and Urban Planning. He was disappointed to find that there is hardly any people and not much traffic In the downtown areas of these cities. He expected to find a lot more activities and people on the street like as he is accustomed to in Korea. He told me that the streets of Seoul in South Korea are packed with people and activities. Lots of cars and motorcycles, that run errands for people and taxi drivers and people on foot, unfortunately not enough bicycles as city planning had failed to design bike trails. I told him that American cities are not like Europeans or Koreans, and that many people just drive to work and park the car.

Then we got talking about New York city, which is most different that any other in regards to activities and people. And I found his great interest for wanting to learn more about NYC. Yonghoen is planning to visit the city this summer and wants me to show him on the map how to get there. He will be travelling by car, but I think I want to show him other travel possibilities, as this might be easier for him. We decided to meet for a lesson on NYC next time we meet.

This was a long and productive meeting and it was good to see him again.