Don't Speak While You Kick Push

This week has been very laid back at least in terms of teaching. Because the students will have mid-terms soon, the second year students have to play catch up. This means that my classes for them have been canceled this week. That effectively cuts 1/3 of my classes for the week, so I haven’t tried to actually use the books to teach from.

For the first year students, I’m doing a light review. I have a tough time explaining it to some of them, but the idea is that they have to make a 4-panel comic strip using the lessons we have already gone over. I give them the book pages to use as references; but basically they have to make a comic showing an introduction between people, two friends greeting each other, one person inviting another to do an activity. I wish I had gotten to use it on class 105 (my angel class) but I had to play catch up with them. The test class was 102; a class where I don’t have English co-teacher. It wasn’t too hard to get them to understand the concepts, but I know it would have gone smoother if I had a co-teacher who could help with questions.

The third year students have a lesson that involves music. I selected two songs; one song because it is slow, the other because it’s tougher and I had a feeling they might like it. The songs are “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt and “Kick, Push” by Lupe Fiasco. I first made a lyric sheet for them for each song then I made a worksheet with words missing in the lyrics. It’s to test their listening skills. The first class didn’t go as well as I would have liked because I wasn’t able to set things up like I should have. The next class went much smoother because I found a copy of the video for “Don’t Speak” on youtube that had the lyrics. It’s gone over fairly in well in the classes. . . but it’s third years so you never know. The girls seemed to like “Don’t Speak” and the boys “Kick Push”. . . overall, “Kick, Push” is the favorite.

As I expected, the students keep up with “Don’t Speak”. In fact, I’ve caught some of the girls mouthing the words to it. They all seem to find “Kick Push” hard to keep up with. Still, some of them were able to catch on to it after listening. I eventually want to do a lesson where classes pick a song to learn and I give them the lyric sheets. I will try hard to find song with easy lyrics to learn. I have talked about it with my co-teacher and the big issue is songs that are overly sexual. Considering that many students requested “Sexyback” by Justin Timberlake, I can see this will be an uphill battle.

Take Notes In Class

This is how I know I'm taking the idea of teaching more seriously.

I have a few kids who regularly visit my desk in the teacher's office. At some point during the day, a group of several girls will come hover around and start asking random questions. A few of them speak limited english, the rest either try or relay questions and comments thru their friends.

So one day, two of the girls that happen to be best friends start to explain their nicknames to me. One goes by Mouse and the other by the name Spongebob(When I see them together, I call them MouseBob). So after their giggle-filled explantion, they go off to class. Later in the day, I get a pair of notes from them:





Now of course, this is a cute gesture because I know both girls have limited english skills. I happy if any child shows any level of desire to try to use the language. It's technically what I'm here for afterall.

Now, being the teacher, what did I do?

I copied the notes on paper, corrected them, then gave the corrected versions back to the girls. They were actually happy once I gave them back.

However, what bothered me most is that despite the fact that there is a big name tag on my desk, they still got my name wrong.

It doesn't matter, I keep both notes stuck on my desk. Something I have noticed that the kids take pride in.

Communication Is Important. . Even If You Have No Clue As To What's Being Said

I'm taking this as a good sign: I seem to be commuicating with my co-teacher better. I actually sat down and had a conversation with her today. In fact, I think I've talked to her more in the last two days than I in a whole month of last semster. She gave my info about classes. I think it's the fact that I'm coming to her about my lesson plans. I learned from last year to communicate more with her and it seems to help. Things can get lost in translation I think and I got to make sure to stay up to date or I will end up missing something.

Let me say that it pays massively to communicate with the teachers here. If you don't, you miss out on a lot. Like the fact that all the teachers are having a dinner tommrow. Which makes things kind of tough for me because I'm supposed to go to a dinner at Epic tommrow at Ariannas. On one hand, I'm all for bonding opportunities at work, but it's Ariannas. Even my co-teacher said it's a better resturant than the one the school teachers are going to!

I also learned that I will have to teach two first year classes with a Korean teacher in the classroom instead of an English one. THAT is going to be difficult. This means I have to take into account that the kids in the class wont' have anyone to translate if things get difficult. Which means I have make very simple lesson plans. LOTS of visual aids, video clips and simple work for the first year students. It's already going to be tough with them because the first year students tend to be the most scared. The current group already doesn't know me, so it's going be a bit of a challenge. I think it won't be too bad because the one thing about first years is that they tend to be easier to keep under control. Nothing I can't handle. Besides, the teacher might end up being good.

Brand New (School) Day: Remember To Set Your Alarm!!!

I had a lot going on recently: Brian’s in-and-out visit, Andrew coming into town, heading up to Seoul with Kathy, trying to go to Busan at some point.

But the biggest thing is that school started this week.

I tried to mentally prepare myself for going back to school. After two months of little (English camps) to no (sitting in my apartment) work, I had to face up to going in and starting up with attempting to get Korean kids to pay attention in class. No easy task when it has no true standing on their grades. I’ll admit I missed working and having something to do, but I’ve thought about a few things I wanted to do in order to make things easier on me.

However, being nearly two hours late is not the way to start things for the new semester.

That’s right, folks. Yours truly had the most epic of screw ups the first day of school. After thinking that I set the alarm the previous evening, I forgot to actually CLICK the switch on the clock to activate alarm. The ending result: me running into school around 9:45 instead of 8:10 like I had planned.

Thankfully, I had taken a shower the night before so I didn’t have to do that. But I skipped breakfast and rush over to the school. I figured that I would have to deal with odd ass stares when I walk in the office, the regular teachers knowing I was late. While I’ve been here I’ve NEVER been late for school. I didn’t count on that this particular morning the school would have Opening Ceremonies for the new school year. As I walked into the school gates, I could see over 500 students along with all the teachers and staff standing outside the school. EVERYONE could see I was late and I could hear the kids saying my name as I walked by.

At that point, I couldn’t say anything. I just took my bag up to the office, came back down and got in line. Stood there as the principal gave a speech. . . I’m assuming it was aimed mostly at the new students. I have to guess or assume because I had no idea what was said. That’s how these functions and meetings go. I sit there and have no clue as to what’s being said. So I often entertain myself by looking around and observing things. The main thing I noticed this time around is that the opening of the school reminded me of Hogwarts only no cool robes, magic or sorting hat. All the kids were lined up in neat rows and sectioned off by their grade level. The watched as all the old first years and second years became the upperclassmen to a group of scared looking kids in street clothes. All the kids in the middle section were former 6th graders from elementary schools. They didn’t have to wear uniforms at their old schools and now they had to be in an extremely rigid world. This is where they had to get serious about school if they wanted to have a fighting chance in life in this country. Middle school makes or breaks you almost for life here, and the new kids looked appropriately scared. There was a point during the ceremony where the younger kids have to bow to both sets of upperclassmen and in return the upperclassmen nod to them in acceptance. I found the ritual of the whole thing so unique than what’s done back home in the states.

When it was all over, I went to the office. I had to end up hunting down information about my schedule and I finally found out what I needed to start doing for the new school year. Once I met the new English teacher, it really sunk in the Mrs. Jeoung, my old co-teacher, was gone. I had known all along that she wouldn’t be here this semester, but she was such a HUGE part of my life here at my school. I never connected with my other co-teachers like I did her and it’s going to be so evident this time. I have to be way more independent now, and that’s not the biggest thing. I’m going to miss her presence around here. Flat out the woman is a good teacher and students did like her a lot. I don’t need to know Korean to see that. She kept my classes in order and things ran smoothly. I rarely had classes that got bad when she was in them. On a personal note, she was the one person I could talk to on a regular basis and she by far knew the most about me. It may not seem like much, but when you sit in a room full of people everyday and you honestly can’t talk to them because of language issues, you notice when things change. That will be the toughest change to deal with.

Still, I’m looking forward to this. I think the classes will not be as tough to deal with because I have a better idea what to do and how to plan things out. Oh there will be problems. . . . no question. The first thing with the students is that 1/3 of the school population doesn’t know anything about me. The older kids have seen me, they are used to me and at least know who I am. Even if they don’t speak to me that much, they at least aren’t freaked out by my presence. But yesterday when I walked down the 1st year’s hall, the kids all started freaking out as if I had grown horns and started breathing fire. That part will go away, but it’s going to get on my nerves a bit.

But one thing is for sure. I'm going to remember to set my alarm!!!