Hooked on Phonics

The temperature is peaking in the high 40s and climbing to the 50s by next week. Salvation! I can't stress enough how my Cali ass has felt cold since October. I hardly know what the sun feels like on my bare skin, which is now a sheltered, milky tint. Where be my Cali tan?! My arms and legs see the light of day the light in my room twice per day when I change. This has been going on for 6 months.

It's been dreary and raining for the past couple days. They take Spring showers seriously in Korea.

The annual plan for this semester was due today. I didn't do it. I was warned about it being due this week, but I didn't get the template until Tuesday. Forgot to e-mail it to myself until Wednesday. Didn't bother opening the document until Thursday. On Thursday, the English teacher told me that it was due on Friday. She realized, "oh, that is tomorrow..." I went home and discovered that the file was in the Hangul Word Processor (or .hwp) format, which my computer can't read. I downloaded the .hwp viewer, but I still couldn't modify the document or copy the contents into a Word document. I forgot to bring home the phonics books, so I didn't have material to plan anyway. Difficulties. Well it's fixed now. I copied the template into a Word document at school and e-mailed it to myself. No one solicited me for the plan, so I'm sure it's not a big deal.

I've been teaching the kids phonics, which is successful 60% of the time or 3 out of 5 days because that's when I have a translator. The other days, the younger kids are running around the class, pouncing on the desks, poking away at their cell phones, talking, playing hand clapping games, fighting, touching everything all while I am trying to teach. Even with name tags, it takes me 10 minutes to take roll. Some kids refuse to wear their names. Other kids break their name tags. Some kids try to trick me by switching their names. Other kids just won't sit still long enough for me to mark them present.

What drives me crazy is when the sound of talking children comes from all directions. I'll turn to tell one group to be quiet and realize their mouths aren't moving. So I'll turn the other way and tell the other kids to be quiet. As soon as they're quiet for a nano-second, the other group will start talking again...and then I'll know for sure that the talking was coming from that direction. But in reality, the sound is coming from all directions and it never stops.

This week, I decided that I shouldn't have to deal with this. I ended my 1st grade class 10 minutes early and kicked the entire class out. I even confiscated a couple phones during class. My 3-4 class was no better. I took away a couple items and made everyone put their heads down for 5 minutes after class. Kept the boys for 2 minutes longer because they continued to talk. You don't piss off the Chonga and get away with it!