No, that's not a picture taken in a movie theater (not exactly, anyway) - it's from one of my classes at SoonChunHyang University. I've already discussed how to get to the School of Global Exchange and Education, and shown a layout of the dorm suite. So this week I'm going to discuss how a class here is organized and taught, and how it compares to a similar class at Portland State. Today I had my Understanding Contemporary Korean Cinema class, which is best compared to a film studies course at PSU.

Like such a course, the main focus is films and how they reflect certain specified topics each week. Obviously for this SCH course the topics all relate to different Korean cultural themes, ranging from the Korean War to friends and friendship. So far we've seen films and presentations on the Korean War, the Korean Wave (the increasing popularity of Korean TV dramas and pop music in other countries) and Aesthetics of Korean Art. As in an American film studies course, the first order of business is to watch the week's film, with most running around 2 hours. Above you can see the credits from this week's film, Chihwaeson.

It's after viewing the film that the differences between SCH and PSU courses comes about. While every instructor has their own teaching style, general trends can be discussed. Typically in a PSU film studies course, the film in question would be discussed between the professor and students. Thoughts and reactions to the film and its cultural effects or aspects, as well as aspects of filmmaking would be paramount to the discussion, which could last between 20 minutes and almost an hour. Sometimes students are organized into smaller groups to discuss such things if the class is of sufficiently large size.

In this course at least, the emphasis is on outside group research on the week's cultural topic. Our class' diversity is such that every group has one North American, one Japanese, one Chinese and one Korean student. Over the course of the semester each group is to present three times on a selected topic from the syllabus, each presentation being around 10 minutes. As is the case with my history course here, presentations utilizing PowerPoint and multimedia is required. This emphasis on such presentations is very different than what I'm used to at PSU, but isn't too difficult. It also serves to foster communication and friendship between students of different nationalities and backgrounds as they work on each presentation. The pictures above are of today's presentation on Korean art.

After the student group presentation, Professor Min KyungWun utilizes his own slide show to touch on the topic of the week as well. He also elaborates on they way these topics are shown in the film the class has just seen, explaining things that may be confusing to non-Koreans. For example, several Korean painters were mentioned by name in today's film besdies the main character. The most important ones were given more explanation by Professor Min, including what they're most famous for.

Unlike at PSU, the professor doesn't stand at the front of the classroom during the class. Instead he stays at the back of the viewing room, which is kind of like a little movie theater. The room's computer and projector connection are located in a small booth in the back corner, and English subtitles usually need to be activated from there. Yet even during the discussion portion of class, he remains in the back, somewhat removing himself as a focus. However, if one has any questions for him, they need just ask and he'll be happy to offer assistance. Sometimes he will go up in front of the class, mainly to point out things on the slides he's prepared.

Overall it's not too dissimilar from the culture through film courses I took at Portland Community College, actually. There, as here, films are used to present cultural topics and issues that may be alien to the American audience. In America, though, group discussions are the focal point of the post-film class time. Here, outside research and group presentations take the place of that. Neither one is superior, though; discussion still takes place in the classes here, and presentations or projects are still part of courses back in America. Like many things, it's just a different way of doing things.