The Three-month Wall

I had intended to write about language learning vs. language
acquisition this week, but something much more important has happened
this week and has caused me to change my plan.

Long before I was ever a teacher, I was a linguist who came to Asia
regularly as part of my job. During my training, I was told about the
three-month wall. During the period after World War II and the Korea
War (the American side of it, anyway), the Peace Corp sent thousands
of doctors and engineers into under-developed parts of the world in
order to help with modernization and health issues. The Corp found
that it lost many volunteers after only three months and began
training member how to get past that point. The training was simply
making volunteers aware of the psychology of the event.

The time before three months is an adjustment period. People are
learning to get along in new surroundings with new responsibilities.
They are too preoccupied with getting settled to be very annoyed at
their new life. They accept differences in culture and tradition as
curiosities or interesting peccadilloes. After the first three months,
though "the honeymoon is over." Suddenly, everything becomes annoying.
The mind realizes that all these curiosities are not going to go away.
The peccadilloes are permanent and seem to be major transgressions.
Depression follows quickly behind this realization. Anger often
accompanies the depression.

I've trained many new teachers about this problem and have been
through it several times myself. The first time it is experienced, it
is particularly difficult to get through. The first time in a
particular culture is also worse than succeeding times, and I've even
managed to delay the time out to six months once or twice for cultures
with which I'm familiar, but every three-month wall causes some level
of depression and distress.

I'm at three months right now, and I'm feeling dissatisfied. This is
not my first wall. This is not even the first time I've experienced it
in Korea. I know that it's natural: It will go away shortly. For the
moment, however, I force myself to come into work bored every day and
fight not to argue with a people who follow their traditions, not
mine. I try to realize that the problem lies with myself and not with
them. Understanding the fear and anger that occurs naturally is the
only reasonable way to deal with it. Two weeks should be enough to get
past this feeling and move into a regular relationship with this
country and my job.

I only wish Gale were here to be by my side during this time. Oh well,
it's not the first time I've gone through it alone: I'm sure it won't
be the last, either.