I've been pretty lazy about updating the blog. I spend most of my time eating good food, listening to music, thinking about my next shopping splurge in Gwangju, and chatting up friends on Skype.
Even though the kids are on Winter holiday, English class is still in session. I get up at the buttcrack of dawn (6:30am) Monday-Friday and meet Nari outside at 7:50am. Truth be told, I really struggle in the mornings and meet her by 7:53am at best. We take the 500 bus together. I usually arrive at school before most of the other faculty, so I bypass the morning greeting and go straight to my classroom. By this time, my hands are freezing as I turn up the class thermostat to 30 degrees Celcius, which only makes the class feel like 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
One day it snowed pretty hard, which was really cool.
My first class starts at 9am, but half of the class runs in 10 minutes late, red in the face from running in the cold. My classes are divided by grades: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6. Initially, I started teaching them simple phrases such as "I am (not) a girl / boy / man / woman / student / teacher / doctor / artist / singer," "You are (not) ...," and "He / She / It is (not) ..." Then the school gave me workbooks to teach out of --where were these books 4 months ago? So now I am teaching: "I like apples / oranges / bananas / kiwis / watermelons / pears / strawberries / peaches / grapes" and "I don't like [insert vegetable here]." The older kids learned "He / She plays [insert sport here]," which gets a little confusing when they want to talk about swimming, hiking, running, or wrestling.
We play the same 3-4 games. The younger kids love this Angry Birds PowerPoint game that I tailor to each lesson; Angry Birds is the new Pokemon, and every kid is obsessed with it. The older kids like to play --what I call-- the Chair Game. One kid stands in the center, while his peers sit in the chairs around him. He says a phrase such as "I am a boy," then everyone who identifies with that phrase gets up and runs to another chair. The person left standing dictates the next phrase. My favorite game isn't a game at all. At least once per week, we make mini books, so that they have practice writing the sentence and drawing a picture to accompany it. I walk around the class and police the kids for misspellings and grammatical errors. I also pretend to be impressed by their drawings, which are actually pretty good sometimes, so I don't always have to pretend.
5th grade girls working on mini books
5th grade boys working on mini books and hiding from my camera
"I am not a singer."
"I am a Korean."
At 11:20am, I am done. After turning off the computer, the lights, and the heater, I head downstairs with Hannee to help prepare for lunch. The cafeteria isn't open, so the faculty cooks over portable gas camping stoves in the teacher's lounge. My responsibilities are limited to setting the table with spoons and chopsticks. Then I huddle near the heater, while Hannee scoops the side dishes. Lunch is the same 4 foods on rotation. We either eat kimchi jjigae (김치 찌개), fish stew, tteokguk (떡국) with mandu (만두), or ramyeon (라면).
Once in a while, we go out for lunch. Those times, the food is really, REALLY good.
Raw fish!
Different parts of the same fish
Huge Mussels
Fish Stew
With the whole afternoon to myself, I mostly Skype, fight the urge to take a nap, and/or go to the gym. Joanne and I joined a local gym, one fully equipped with treadmills, bikes, weights, and other machines. It's on the 4th floor of some random building near Rose Street, a workout in itself just trying to get up there. The gym blasts music that you would find on a Dance Dance Revolution soundtrack: Asian techno.
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.
