Page 28 - ELG1806 June Issue 458

FEATURE .
‘ t’s not a freak
I

show out of

some dystopian

’
novel

Ronny Mintjens tells the EL Gazette about his unique
experiences teaching English to trainee tour guides in North
Korea, and why he is now asking other teachers to join him

hen did you first develop What kind of students did you have –
an interest in travelling to who were they?
North Korea and why? In 2016 I taught two classes of Year 4
W In 2007, I got the opportunity students (25 girls and 3 boys) – they were in
to join a small group tour to North Korea and their penultimate year of college and had just
we visited Pyongyang and Kaesong (including graduated as official and qualified tour guides.
the Demilitarized Zone). They were the children of ordinary civilians,
During these four days we had very little including teachers, soldiers and doctors – not
interaction with the local people and I was left the children of the elite. It’s interesting to
with more questions than answers. note that most of the boys in the college were
So, afterwards, working with an agency in actually ten years older than the girls, because
Beijing, I managed to set up my own tours to the boys do ten years of national service first.
North Korea. I gathered people from Hong
Kong and nearby countries and took the trips, What was it like teaching North
including a hiking and camping trip, during my Koreans?
school holidays. This allowed me to learn much At first they seemed a bit reserved to speak
more about the country and its people. up as this was the first time in their lives that by individual presentations on kimchi (pickled
a Caucasian (and probably a foreigner of any cabbage, North Korea’s national staple food),
How did you end up teaching English kind) spoke to them and with them, and they on the joguri (traditional ladies’ dress) and on
there? didn’t quite know how to handle this. North Korea’s version of the Spice Girls, the
I mentioned to my closest ally in Pyongyang On the first day of classes I spoke a little bit Moranbong band.
that it would be nice to be able to work with about the power of persuasive language and Koreans have a song for every aspect of their
the local youth and do some teaching in one of lives. At the end of a presentation on kimchi
the schools. For two years in a row, I was told The college told me they will sing the kimchi song. They conclude a
this would not be possible as I am not a native that I would be teaching presentation on their pet dog with a song about
speaker of English. pet dogs. And when they finish a presentation
But in around April 2016 I suddenly received chapters one and two of on the exploits of the founding president of the
a message from Pyongyang saying that the a Cambridge textbook. nation, the whole class bursts out in a rendition
Pyongyang College of Tourism wanted to invite of the Song of General Kim Il Sung.
me to come and work with their students for These were ‘advertising’ The more freedom in teaching that I asked
two and a half weeks in the summer. I was going for, the more I got. This was, even for me, the
to be the first and the only foreign teacher and ‘critical thinking’ very first time that I felt I had full access to the
‘professor’ at this college. minds, the hopes, the dreams and the challenges
This is a five – year college of tertiary asked them to tell me why they liked the last of young North Koreans – and I didn’t want
education that prepares the future tour guides of movie they had watched. It turned out that those two weeks to end.
the country. Every tour group (regardless of size, they had all watched the same movie last and I visited for a second stint of teaching there in
from one to thirty) has two Korean tour guides that they all had the same opinion on it – it was summer 2017, during which I taught two year
attached to it. great! I knew then that critical thinking would levels and took excursions to various places of
have to be taught from scratch. tourist interest around Pyongyang.
Did they provide you with any resources? I convinced the college principal and the
The college told me that I would be teaching head of languages very quickly that the students Did you have any fears/worries about
chapters one and two of a Cambridge textbook needed personalised practice. I told them that I going to North Korea?
that had been donated to the college. These wanted to avoid any lecture-style teaching and No. Out of the 115 countries I have (so far)
were ‘advertising’ and ‘critical thinking’ – that instead I wanted to do as much activity- visited in my lifetime, North Korea must be in
neither are areas that are particularly relevant to based work with them as possible. The students’ the top two of the safest countries as far as one’s
North Korea. first group did presentations, gradually followed person and belongings are concerned. The
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