Name: Jiae Kim Student ID# 800808842 Class: ENGL 1101 Professor: Debarati Dutta I am from South Korea

which is located between China and Japan. According to the Korean government, the number of population is approximately 50 million in 2012. The main characteristic of Korea is that higher enthusiasm for education. It leads Korea to have elevated rate of entering a university. Therefore, now it becomes to be a common phenomenon for Koreans to graduate from a university and it has fixed as a requirement for getting a job in Korea. Also, I am a four years student at Hongik university and I am studying an English education and economics. The following pictures show the location of Korea concretely.

As a third picture shows, my school is situated in the center of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The region in front of the school is called as a Hong-dae area and it is famous for street of youth. It is a Seouls artistic hub and especially provides street art festivals and performances as well as music concerts. Therefore, many foreigners coming to travel Korea definitely would stop by this area at all cost.

Exactly, at the center of such a youth area, there are the Hongik unversity and especially my department, English Education. Unlike in others universities, students studying at my university have been continuously influenced by the Hong-dae area. I would like to introduce my department with its own special artifacts. My department is an English education and it was established on March 1st in 1978. First of all, there is a something you should remind to understand the system of Korean Education. There is a main distinction between Korean education and the U.S: the point of beginning a semester is different. Actually, in case of all of Korean schools, a first semester starts at the first week of March and ends at the middle point of June. Accordingly, a second semester begins at the first week of September and ends at the middle point of December. Therefore, every year in March, forty-five students are admitted as freshmen students at my department and begin to go to the school in March. The main goal of the department is to train a future teacher and raise an

effective instructor who can contribute an education. To be specific, the curriculum is evenly composed of literature, linguistic, learning and teaching methods during four school years. Furthermore, some of the professors are native-speakers and they help students enhance the instinct of English language. In additions, English education has various activities and festivals during school years. For example, overnight orientations for new students, a field trip to explore historical sites, track meet and a sunlit day festival take place. The first of the artifacts is a name tag for new student at a orientation. The following picture is name identifications for 2013 new students at English education department. Calling a name is a highly important to establish the bond between distant people. In the view, a name card performs fundamental capacity of forging a tie between strangers. They can match individuals face and name without difficulty because of the name tags.

An English education orientation takes place at the beginning of every spring semester. New students can get school information and gain a chance to establish a close friendship with department students. Students have training camp outside school for two days. Actually, I cannot explain the orientation except a students name tag. A name tag is an indispensable tool for students to attend orientation. A student organization prepared each students name

card and even professors name tag. Those name identifications mainly work it for people who are not intimate to be able to memorize each other conveniently. To specifically describe the tag, each students name is printed with a white color in a black box. On the left side of the card, there is a 2013 emblem of the department however the other side is written Hongik university/College of Education/English Education in Korean. In other words, the upper side of the card is the same to all students so it brings about the power of solidarity as an English educations student. In contrast, the bottom shows each persons name and it has played a primary role for everyone to know another persons name despite the larger size of the group. Also, it is very convenient to take it off because of the tags long string. The students have to hang such a tag around neck during all official hours. During orientation, students are divided to several teams and each team participates in games. All of the members tie their legs with others and run to the final line. In the meantime, they would be really eager to win in order to get a fancy prize. In conclusion, those kinds of name tags and games are one of the essential methods to be easily able to memorize another persons name in my department because the students can expose to have bunch of chances to gain a chance to break the ice and get acquainted with each other.

As I mentioned before, in a name tag, there is a 2013 emblem of my department. The

following pictures are a 2012 emblem and a 2013 emblem.

Last year, a president at my department has first made an emblem on the left since the department opened. He wanted to make an emblem to symbolize the department. He tried to express the spirit of the Dep. so he undertook the work for a while and finally made the first emblem. On the other hand, the emblem for 2013 was made by a senior student in the dep., not by a 2013 president. This year president wanted to provide a lot of chances for current students and graduated students to be able to participate in creating new emblem and therefore he made a competition for making a new emblem. The process of making the 2013 emblem was meaningful. It was not only a way to help bring in new members but also a way to get the older members involved in the process of bringing in new individuals. Many students took part in this announcement and one of the senior students won the prize against stiff competition. The first emblem shows a dragon, a sun, and English alphabets. For example, the shape of a dragon indicates the alphabet E as the first letter of English education. In my university, each department generally has one specific famous nickname. My department is sunlit English education and it represents a deepest wish for considerate teaching to future students like sunshine. Moreover, dragon has been considered as a holy and powerful symbol in the Asia so according to the creator, the picture of dragon put on the emblem with a

desire of positive influence by the dragon. The name of the school is written by white cursive characters. On the contrary, the second emblem does more emphasize the symmetric beauty. Twelve triangles and one circle represent a bright sun which makes viewers suggest my department nickname. Inside of the circle, there is the arrow which indicates a token of Hongik university. This symbol is called Forever Smile( in Korean) and it shows the humans persistent effort by the establisher. This symbol is located in the center of campus so anyone who pass the main entrance has to see Forever Smile. The axis is fixed but the other part can move by wind. The following two pictures are Forever Smile.

Also, there is the most important school event people should know: that is a May Festival!

All universities in Korea have the biggest festival every May. Every May, every school holds

a festival differently. Of course, my university takes place a distinct May festival. Always festival is full of laughter of students and music. The Festival is the greatest event to students. This May feast generally continues for three days although there is a period difference between schools but it is all the same that each department in different schools raises money for charity during the festival. Before the festival, each department prepares the concept of the charity and each charity has their own characteristics. In order words, each department tries to differentiate their party and choose a special concept of charity.

Last year my department grasped a concept as a Hawaii and opened Beach Party for charity in three days. Every student in the English education assigned a role and played each role faithfully in order to progress the party favorably. The most part the students were careful was a festival poster. The power of advertisement is really indescribable. It can easily catch eyes or distract eyes. Therefore, it is super important to make a sophisticated poster which is simple but includes only necessary information. Moreover, there was an invisible competition between departments in order to success their own charity party. The following picture is a poster of my department for last year s festival.

The announcement had black background and information was written with white color, especially the main title was colored with orange, green, purple, blue and purple. Also, ALOHA~ ILOWA~ was colored differently so it makes people mainly focus on the colorful characters. Bright colors as well as a palm tree give an impression of summer and it reminds Hawaii, concept of the party even though there is no the word Hawaii. The 2012 emblem indicated on the upper right side but it is little bit different from the real 2012 emblem I explained before.

(The real 2012 emblem on the left and the temporarily revising emblem on the right) Actually, this festival is not only for Hongik university students but also for visitors. Therefore, the festival poster had to be more specific for visitors so my department revised the real 2012 emblem and made a temporal emblem. The revised one shows the full name of my department for helping guests understand.

The lower right part clarifies the party location. This map is so simple that people efficiently find where the party hold. The right part deals with a president and vice presidents name and cell phone number just in case anyone has a question about the party.

If the festival in May is the hugest event in a year, the second largest event is a field trip to explore historical sites. The difference from a trip for an orientation is a purpose. It is to find errors on Kor-Eng translation signs and discuss and correct those grammatical and content errors. The errors on signs for foreign tourists have been raised up in Korean society so my department started to fix those errors and this camp became an annual event.

Furthermore, it develops as one of important academic studies in my department and it has grave atmosphere. Such a circumstance indicates a poster. Unlike the festival poster, a poster

of the field trip is very tidy and exudes a solemn mood. The poster can be divided two parts. Both parts give information but each uses different way to present information. To specific, the upper uses the picture and indicates the landscape photography where students would go whereas the lower uses characters as a method of giving information. In a navy color box, the largest word in the middle is the name of a province they would go. The lowest part of the poster presents the concrete departing location, time, date, the logo of the department. It is the most important message so a remarkable contrast between white and black is used in the poster. After entering the English education department, continuous artifacts encourage students to stick together and realize what they are studying. As one of the members in the department of English education at Hongik university, I will make an huge effort on maintaining the spirit in my department.