Tweak It Until It Works

Just to warn you, this post is about how the Korean school is organized and a snip it of how I teach. It's kinda boring if you're not interested in that sort of thing. And it's still slightly boring even if you are interested in it.

Today is the first day of the new school year and new semester.

Korea's school system is a bit different than in California. For example, instead of starting a new school year in September, they start their new school year in March. The end of the school year is approximately in December/first week of January, followed by a two month break. In the two month break, the students come back to periodically clean the school and to graduate.

For the last two months I've pretty much been twiddling my thumbs. So to say that I'm excited about the students being back and teaching again is an understatement. I love how they bombard the school with all their energy, excitement, and happiness. The school is a sad place without them in it.

I taught two classes today. Just laying down the ground work of a point system which scores good behavior, participation, and listening skills. Also, they are picking out their own English names and making name cards for their desks.

I have a pretty big classroom with boards on the back wall that I can post stuff on. I've decided to use it to keep track of the points. The winning classes get a class party every two months.

There are three grades: first, second, and third. Which is approximately seventh, eighth, and ninth grade in California. The classes in each grade compete against each other. In one period, the class can only earn a total of 10 points. If they end the class period with negative points, the entire class has to do 50 jumping jacks.

I am also taking pictures of each class and posting their pictures by their section on the board. This task got the first class off to a rocky start because they didn't want their photo taken. With that in mind, I didn't let the next class into the classroom until we took the picture.

Also, the first class had difficulty coming up with their own English names. This led to not everyone thinking of a name and completing their name cards. Also, I wanted them to write down their student identification number, Korean name in Korean, and English name in English for my own roster, but that couldn't be done either without their English name. For the next class, I gave them a list of boys and girls names they could choose from, or they could make up their own.

Fixing those two problems with the lesson made the second class go way smoother and it was more enjoyable for everyone. The kids were laughing at the jokes I was making and got excited when I got excited... that can only really happen when things go accordingly.

Hopefully this system I am implementing sticks. If it doesn't, I'll do what I do to my lessons when they don't work, tweak it until it does.

Step Into My Office...

The main reason I am here: To Teach English as a Second Language. Songwon Middle School has around 1000 students. The school has five floors and my office and classroom are located on the fifth floor. The students are 13, 14, and 15 years old and are put in classes according to their age and academic level i.e. the high achievers, intermediate, and low level learners. The school is literally five minutes from my apartment. I can actually see my apartment building from my office window :)

If you were to drive up through the front gate, it would look a little something like this:

When it comes to teaching, I create my own lesson plans for my students. I do not follow a curriculum, they just emphasize that my main focus is on English speaking. This week I am going to an orientation, so I might find out a bit more to what I need to be doing.

Every week I teach twenty classes and each class has forty students in it. I pretty much see every student in the school once a week. This rotation allows me to teach one lesson per week. With three hours of prep time a day, I have fifteen hours in a week to come up with one lesson plan, which means I am way ahead of schedule with my lesson plans. It's a nice feeling to be prepared. And if the lesson I put together isn't working for some reason, it gives me time to fix it. Usually with my one lesson a week, I adjust the lesson to be more difficult for the high achievers, and for the lower level learners I dumb it down.

My classroom is great. It has a projector mounted to the ceiling, two white boards, computer, teacher's desk, six windows with picture blinds, seven tables for students to sit at, and central heating. If you would like a tour, visit My Classroom in Suwon, that is, if you have facebook. Still haven't been able to load a video on blogspot yet. And here are some pictures:

The students are full of life and lots of energy. They always say hello to me in the hallways and then a lot of the time follow with, "You are beautiful". It feels awkward for random strangers, my students no less, to tell me I'm beautiful all the time. But it is nice on the days when I am feeling a little self-conscious about how I look :) The third thing they tell me the most is that I have big eyes... and not scary big eyes like the big bad wolf, but they think that having big eyes are a good thing.

The food during lunch is usually delicious, and you really can't beat the $45 a month it costs to have it. There is eating etiquette though... there are places on your plate that you have to put certain food (I don't know if this is a school thing or a cultural thing) and you can't leave the table until everyone at the table you are sitting at is done eating (which sucks sometimes when you have things to do during lunch, but it's a nice gesture). One thing you can't do in front of people is blow your nose, which is frustrating because most all of their food is spicy. I don't know about you, but spicy food can get my nose running, and this can be an inconvenience at times.

Something that I learned the hard way is they don't supply toliet paper at the school. It's BYOTP here at the school, and I've noticed in a lot of public restrooms too. And it's not like they run out all the time, they literally do not have holders in the bathrooms. Rarely do you see paper towels and if you're lucky, there is a hand dryer.

But yet, after lunch, most Koreans brush their teeth. They brush their teeth three times a day. And when they are sick, they wear masks to make sure they don't get others sick. Seems like a contradiction to me, but who am I to say which hygienic routine is more important.

Kinda getting off topic... my co-workers. My co-workers have been so nice and they are always making conversation with me. I was feeling sick to my stomach one day and my co-workers notice I was having a difficult time with my food. They thought I didn't like the food. I told them I did, but that I was feeling nauseous. Mrs. Hwang took me to the school nurse to get some medicine, she offered to take me to the hospital, and she made me rice cereal not once, but twice to help my stomach. Totally above and beyond.

My other co-worker Mrs. Chang, she has been getting all my paperwork together and just been on top of everything concerning me. It's really nice to have co-workers that are looking out for you. Especially in a place where half the time I can't figure things out for myself.

All in all being a teacher is just as I imagined. It's everything I want in a career. It's a job that I can be proud of and that makes me feel important. Most of all, I love doing it and being here, which makes it not feel like a 'job' at all. And that's the kicker :)