Gwangju students visit Pittsburgh.

Via the GPLC GNUE Summer Institute Facebook page.

Twenty students from the Gwangju National University of Education are currently in Pittsburgh as part of a training and cultural-immersion program assisted by the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. As the Gwangju Ilbo reported on Tuesday (copied entirely from a university press release):

광주교육대학교(총장 박남기)의 는 초등학교 예비교사 80명이 여름방학을 이용해 미국 캘리포니아와 뉴욕에 소재한 대학교, 그리고 말레이시아와 베트남 교육대학교에서 약 1개월 동안 세계문화와 학교교육, 그리고 영어연수 프로그램에 참여한다.

지난 2009년 겨울방학부터 광주교대와 미국의 대학교가 함께 마련한 미국문화와 학교교육, 영어연수 프로그램은 8월 7일까지 약 1개월 동안 미국 캘리포니아주립대학교와 롱아일랜드대학교, 그리고 피츠버그 언어교육기관에서 진행된다.

To summarize, 80 elementary education students from Gwangju National University of Education are spending their summer breaks participating in month-long training programs in California and New York, and in education universities in Malaysia and Vietnam, to learn about world culture, methodology, and to undergo English-language training. The press release, titled "초등학교 예비교사 글로벌시대 준비한다" (Elementary education teachers preparing for global era") and not directly linkable, continues:

또한 미국 피츠버그 언어교육기관에서는 오전 영어교과 수업을 비롯해 학교 기숙사가 아닌 홈스테이를 통한 미국사회의 다양한 직업세계와 세계 각국의 문화를 직접 체험하게 된다.

If you can read Korean and if you can view Hansoft Word Processor files---two big ifs---you can look through the reports written by previous' years' participants.


Thank you, Geun-ae.

Overseas training programs are a regular part of university education programs in South Korea, and veteran English teachers routinely undergo intensive training programs both in and out of the country. It's just not every day that they come to Pittsburgh. And it's not every year that they can root for the Pirates. I'd like to see the mainstream media pay attention to this and other educational and cultural exchanges that occur in the city, for this is really how relationships across borders are built. But I guess if it doesn't have UPMC, PNC, or Dollar Bank sponsorship in this town, it doesn't exist.