Sorry, it's been so long. I could give you a bunch of excuses as to why I have been so silent on my blog, but let's just say I have been adjusting to life in Korea and leave it at that. So much has happened in these last two months. This post is going to be all about my school, my kids, and teaching English in Korea!
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| My School |
In my last blog, I mentioned that I am working at an elementary school under a mountain. I walk 5 minutes to school every morning and am greeted by my kids on the streets. Most of my students live in the same neighborhood as me, so I see them all the time. They are still very excited to see me... like it is a surprise that I am a person outside of school. My first day of school, I was introduced to the students at a assembly (along with all the other new teachers) and when my name was announced the kids went nuts! Frozen is a huge hit here... like a crack for kids. They love that my name is Elsa, and many of them will sing Let it Go to me or ask me if I want to build a snowman (If this doesn't mean anything to you... watch the movie, it is worth it!) I feel like a celebrity at school. My first couple weeks were unreal. I am the first full time foreign teacher my school has ever had, so for most of my kids I am their first western English teacher. They like to tell me how beautiful I am (which they must have learned somewhere else and they try to use it to get something from me :). They also like to comment on my appearance like, "teacher big" and then they point to my nose or "teacher big like boat" and point to my feet. I have been there for two months now and am less of a celebrity, but they still love to say hi and to greet me outside of school. I even got invited to a birthday party by one of my 3rd graders the other day :)
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| My Schedule |
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| Reward Charts... 5th and 6th grade love them too! |
Each week I see all of the 3rd-6th students at my school and 1 class of kindergarten. That means I teach about 550 kids a week. I never wanted to be this teacher, but I don't know most of my students names... okay I only actually know a couple. I have no class lists and just don't see my kids enough to really get their names down. Also, they never really use names in class and their names are structured like Park So Hyun (last name and given name) which is hard for me to get used to, so anyhow... that is something I want to work on. In teaching all these age groups, I have confirmed something for myself. I absolutely got the right teaching license 5-12. Don't get me wrong, my kindergarteners and 3rd-4the graders are cute and they have their moments, but I am not made to teach young kids. They take a crazy amount of energy and enthusiasm, rigid structure, and discipline. My third graders are the hardest part of my week and I struggle to keep the class under control. On the other hand, I really enjoy my 5th and 6th graders. My 5th graders are fun and pretty easy to manage thanks to an incredible co-teacher. My 6th graders are getting a bit too cool for school... especially English, but I love that about them. It is fun to trick them into learning and I love when they get into an activity and the classroom is buzzing with English. Makes me so happy! Everyday I learn something about myself as a teacher and I learn about my students. It is a difficult job, and some days I leave the classroom wondering if I taught them anything, worrying that I should have been more strict, worrying that I was too strict, and hoping that next week will be better. Other days I leave class to the high fives and voices of my students saying "I love you Elsa Teacher" and "thanks Elsa Teacher." Those days give me the courage and strength to try again. I cannot promise that I am teaching these kids as much English as I should be, but I sure am trying and I really do care. This is the hardest job I have ever done.
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| 3rd Grade |
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| 5th Grade |
Other then my students, school days are filled with lesson planning, socializing with my co-teachers (some of whom speak pretty good English), eating school lunches (mostly in hurried silence because very few teachers speak any English and they all feel uncomfortable around me... like at any moment I am going to run up to them and start speaking English very loudly and quickly), and playing volleyball for the staff team. Let's start with my co-teachers. I am incredibly lucky and I have great co-teachers. They all have a different teaching style, they all want different things from me, and they all have different English speaking abilities. I try to remain flexible and teach what they want me to, without losing my teaching style. I do not always succeed... and it is not an easy thing to do, but I have a good relationship with my teachers so we talk about problems that arise and fix them... usually :) Moving on, school lunches!!! My school food is really good... like really, really good. Unless of course you don't like Korean food. The lunch ladies don't speak English, and I am ashamed to admit that my Korean is pretty crappy and minimal. I greet each one and thank them for the food. They pile my tray with food to show that they like me. I eat as much as I can because the head cook always walks over and check to see if I like it and how much I am eating (she also doesn't speak English). If I don't eat enough she thinks I don't like her food. If I eat a good deal of it, she tries to get me to take more. It is a vicious/delicious cycle, so I learned the word for delicious in Korean and when she comes to check on me I leave some food on my plate, but tell her it was delicious. That way she doesn't get offended and I don't have to eat more :) Finally, staff volleyball!!! The head cook, also plays volleyball with me and she is one tough cookie (do you see what I did there?) I was invited to play on the staff volleyball team. Being tall, I was of course a hot commodity. I agreed, because duh volleyball is awesome, but like everything in Korea I had no clue what I was agreeing to. The coach of the vb team is the PE teacher and he is serious about winning. We were practicing 2 hours everyday for a couple weeks. He had me playing on both the men's and women's team. Because here I am a rock star (the whole being tall thing) I was in charge of most of the court and every third ball was mine... to spike of course. It was lots of fun and I even bonded with my principal, he is a very good player. Unfortunately, vb has been cancelled along with every other school activity that is fun for the next couple months because of the Sewol accident. I am not going to get into that now, but will in a later post.
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| School lunch |
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| Brownie with the school's name |
I think that is it for school life at the moment. This time I really will post again soon.
Sending my love,
Elsa
