But How is Teaching Going?

Life with the little nuggets is going well. My students always say "hi" when they see me in the halls.

"Hiiiii Kureestin!!!"

"Hallo!!"

"Kureeestine!!"

"Teeeacha! Teeacha!"

"Seungsengnim!"

"Kureeeestin Seungsengnim!"

"Hallo teacha!!"

I'm a celebrity.

They even sometimes bring me candy or stationary, which reminds me that I should reward them with candy and stickers more often.

Kindergarten is my most difficult class because the kids have no attention span. They just want to watch random YouTube videos, stare into space, and/or hold my hand. During the first couple classes, I tried teaching the kids by having them repeat what I said, but then I had kids yelling the answer one minute and staring at the opposite wall the next. One girl sat backwards in his chair. Another boy played with a paperclip. In the middle of my lesson. No bueno. So now I start the class with a Hello Song, the ABC song, and some phonics songs. Thank goodness for YouTube. We stand around the television and sing for 15 minutes. I figure it's more interactive. Some girls think it's an excuse to hold my hand. The rest don't pay attention or seem confused. And after 5-10 minutes, half of the kids look like they've run the marathon and sit down where they were standing. Ay caramba! More recently, I started playing ABC BINGO with them. One day I had them color the the letters for 15 minutes --15 minutes that I didn't have to sing songs or hold hands. The next day, we played BINGO for 15 minutes, and I rewarded the winners with stickers. So easy.

1st grade is great. About 4 of the girls bounce into my class 10 minutes early to say "hi" and hug me and ask what I am doing (in Korean). I'm always doing the same things: Kakao, Facebook, Gmail, trying to figure out which PowerPoint I'm going to present. One of the boys in my class has a perm and a mullet. He is like the Benjamin Button version of this:

JOHN STAMOS

Today is Wednesday. On Wednesdays, school ends 40 minutes earlier, which means that classes start 40 minutes earlier. I often forget this. And so do my students.

Only 7 of my 1st graders showed up today, so we puttered around for most of the class.

2nd grade is good too. I often get them confused with 1st grade. Some of the boys are too cool for school and avoid eye contact when I want them to participate. Other boys repeatedly raise their hands to repeat the vocabulary after they have already had their turn. 

3rd grade is one of my smaller classes. 3 boys and 2 girls at most. 2 of the boys are too cool for school. 1 boy likes to goof off. It sucks for the girls because they actually take my class seriously. This is admittedly the least fun class (for all parties involved).

4th grade is hilarious. Those kids always make me laugh. 4 of the girls practice/perform the dance for miss A's "Goodbye Baby" before class. Meanwhile, the boys run around or try to mess up the girls' routine by stopping the music or getting in the way. The boys would rather listen to "Mr. Simple" by Super Junior. The class as a whole is very loud. Very, very loud. But very cooperative and easy to teach.

4th grade girls practicing ... and then the boys arrive

These videos were actually taken in late September

Not much has changed since then

Madness. Notice how some of the boys are pressed up to the television

That's how much they love "Mr. Simple" by Super Junior

5th grade is perfect. They are bigger versions of my 4th grade class minus the dancing. Last week we played "Heads Up, Seven Up" for the 2nd week in a row --I see them 3x's per week-- and they couldn't get enough of it. When class ended, they begged me to let them play it 2 more times. Someone in the crowd  yelled, "10 more times!" Another hollered, "20 more times!" I jokingly added, "50 more times!" After 2 more rounds, they were begging for another 2. Then one more. In light of the lesson, which taught them phrases such as "Let's go upstairs" and "Let's go across the street," I finally said, "Let's go home!" Then half of the class got on their knees and begged for 1 more round. It was already 10 minutes after class. I had to cut them off. I told them to go home and that we could play again tomorrow. Crazy kids. (I think there are about 17.) Then the next day we stayed 5 minutes after class playing "Heads Up, Seven Up." They begged to play for another 5 minutes, but my translator for the day cut them off and told them to go home. Then she took me downstairs to a teachers' BBQ that I didn't know about. What a pleasant surprise.

6th grade is smaller than 3rd grade. 4 boys. Pretty mellow and easy to manage. Sometimes only one student shows up, so I make the executive decision to show him random YouTube videos. One day I introduced him American pop music videos, but didn't realize that Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Lady Gaga videos needed censorship. My bad.

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MUSIC VIDEO:  "Goodbye Baby" by miss A

MUSIC VIDEO: "Mr. Simple" by Super Junior

Busan, Seoul, Misc Updates

Busan was fun. I reunited with some friends from orientation and stayed with a friend on Yong-do Island. We spent a lot of time walking around, navigating the city, taking the subway from place to place, window shopping at a couple (massive) department stores, and checking out the beach at night. The weather was overcast & rainy during the day, so we couldn't fully experience the Busan beaches. However, Gwangalli Beach was gorgeous because it is in the shape of a huge half-circle and offers a nice view of the Diamond Bridge --lit up and everything-- and of the rest of the city twinkling around the shore. I want to return in a few weeks to attend the Busan International Fireworks Festival.

Busan at night

Overlooking the city in Seomyeong

Hello Kitty donut at Krispy Kreme yummm

View from Yongdo Island

This past weekend, I took a 4 hour bus up to Seoul to meet up with more friends from orientation. I traveled with one of my Mokpo buddies, Joanne.

Teaching is getting somewhat easier, but no less redundant. I teach my lessons 7 times: once for each grade and slightly harder as I go up from K-6. I have been teaching the alphabet & phonics for the second straight week and playing the same ABC Timebomb game over and over and over. I can hear the difference in the kids' pronunciation, which is reassuring, so hopefully I can move on by the start of next week.

Kindergarden sucks. I think the kids fall into a deep food coma or forget to take their A.D.D. meds before my 12:45pm class. Some of them have no attention span whatsoever. After two minutes, their heads are already on the desk or they're standing by their chairs (instead of sitting) or they're sitting in their chairs facing any and all directions but mine. What in the world is going through their minds????

I tried a different approach today and gave the kids a chance to stand up and interact rather than sit down for 30 minutes. I struggled to get the kids to stand in a circle. My translator didn't even get up to help me. She eventually convinced them to hold hands and that got them into a reasonable arrangement. Then I tried to explain that I wanted each kid to say one letter of the alphabet and go around the circle. My other grades figured it out, but kindergarten was a disaster. Before we were half way through the alphabet, the kids were pulling each others hands and falling on the floor. Then all of the kids started singing every letter of the alphabet in unison, which wasn't the point of the game at all. Meanwhile, my translator was still sitting there. The situation was ridiculous, and she wasn't even laughing. I think she was bored. I struggled to get the kids to start over, but they were lost, so I told them to sit down. I ended up doing the same exact PowerPoint presentation that I did for them yesterday, which was a drill on the letters A-J. For my closing activity, I put magnetic letters A-J on the board (in alphabetical order -- easy right?), split them into two teams, and called on two volunteers to slap the letter than I called out with a paper paddle. I first called the letter A. Neither of the kids could figure it out right away. Then I would have them recite the letter and the sound that it makes. I rotated kids and proceeded through the letter J (still in alphabetical order), and nobody caught onto the pattern. I think we're going to be doing the alphabet forever.....

With that said, kindergarten makes teaching the other kids seem easy. In all of my other classes, the kids get really excited, want to play my games several times, and shoot their hands up for a chance to recite the vocabulary every time I introduce a new word. I have also been drilling them with the alphabet and phonics, but I have been able to pinpoint their weaknesses and fine-tune their pronunciation: "L" vs "R"; "C" vs "G" vs "Z"; turning "epuh" into "F" and "A-chee" into "H." It's so redundant, but I can hear the kids getting better by the end of class.

Playing games with my 5th graders

I improvised a game where they could sit down because they were all over the place.

This also kept the noise level down (not really).

The weather is getting a bit chillier. As they would say on Game of Thrones, "Winter is coming."

I need to buy a multi-plug powerstrip because I can't watch my television without unplugging my refrigerator, something that I can only do for 30-60 minutes at a time. I have dozens of channels. Most are in Korean, and I probably wouldn't watch any of them even if they were in English. I don't find any of the variety shows the least bit entertaining. There are some stations that play American movies at night -- boring. And then there is CNN, which is the only station worth watching or listening to at any time of the day. The sound of an intellectual, fluent conversation in English stimulates all of the unused vocabulary in my brain. I'm growing a bit weary of thinking in and of ways to explain myself in broken, caveman English.

Tonight, I made an egg & kimchi sandwich. I made an omelet with kimchi and chopped garlic stems, then put that in a roll with more fresh kimchi. It was okay, but sounded better in theory that it did in practice. The kimchi omelet could do without the bread (and likewise).