Charlemagne

Early in my first year at JLS, I had a class of grade six students that included a boy named Charles. He made an immediate impression upon me due to his enthusiasm for the class. Whereas most students' attitudes about studying English range from indifference to loathing, Charles was always happy to participate. Because of this, I took a liking to Charles, and I soon called him Charlemagne. He liked the new version of his name and accepted it whole-heartedly.

Charles is a fanatic about movies. During those early classes together, he would typically give a movie review for a film he had just seen or that was a personal favorite of his. He would usually focus on Steven Spielberg and George Lucas movies. He claimed at the time that his dream was to become a director.

Certainly, Charles was the most dynamic student I've ever seen at JLS. A couple years after I first had the pleasure of teaching him, he was in a middle school TOEFL class of mine. A new teacher was observing my class that evening, so I put Charles on the spot by asking him to give an impromptu speech. Without hesitation, Charles went to the front of the room and gave an effortless presentation. The observing teacher was suitably impressed. The other students in the class were more than likely intimidated, however.

A few months later, JLS held the first of what was promised to be a semi-annual speech contest for the students. Charles won easily at the Bundang school. Six months later, when JLS expanded the speech contest to an inter-school event, Charles represented Bundang. I was one of the judges. While other students gave fairly typical presentations about the importance of English or a description of the solar system (yada-yada-yada), Charles expounded upon the nature of good and evil. The other judges, who didn't know about Charles, quietly asked me if he had received help writing his presentation. To their stunned disbelief, I told them that it was all his work, and I had been witness to his ability for three years. Without further hesitation, Charles got top marks from the judges, and won his second speech contest. There were no more speech contests after the second one. Perhaps Charles had simply outclassed every other student.

Reading about Charles' accomplishments might make one think he is arrogant in some way. Nothing could be further from the truth. He is a genuinely good guy who simply enjoys English. A couple years ago, Charles felt that he needed a change of scenery and withdrew from JLS to attend another English academy. At JLS, his class was no longer getting lessons from native English speakers, and the Korean teacher was doing nothing but test preparation lessons. Charles is not the best testing student; where he excels is using the language for real-world communication. His new academy offered a more suitable environment, as he got to study and even write some plays. He told me he was happy doing this, but he wished he could have kept taking classes with the native teachers at JLS. To this day, he drops by on occasion to say hi to his former teachers, a gesture we all appreciate.

Charlemagne has now completed high school and will be entering university this spring. Last September, I met him for lunch one day. We talked for a good two hours or so. The following video is an interview I did with Charles.


He showed me the fruits of his latest passion, which is sketch art. He attends an art academy for four hours a day, and his work is truly amazing. Watch the following video to see Charles talk about his sketches.


In university, he plans to study graphic art design. Is there any doubt that he can be successful at whatever he wishes to do? Some people seem destined to become special. Charles is one of these people.

Going on seven years now at JLS, there has been only one student that I could think of as a friend. That is Charlemagne. As far as being an ESL teacher in Korea, one could not hope to do better than to have this young man in your room.