1st Week of School

No I have no idea what all of that stuff says.... But it's my school!

The first week of classes happened in a blur. We came in and we got started. Thrown to the wolves, sink or swim, etc. etc. We received a “Time Table” of our classes and when we would be having them. The Time Table also included the names of the students in each of the classes (for the most part) and which set of textbooks we would be using with them.

We arrived at the school looking spiffy because we would be meeting our kids for the first time, and we went up to our rooms. We had shown up an extra half hour before we were suppose to in order to organize ourselves, our new materials, and to sweep the rooms. As you walk into the room the first thing you want to do is turn on the lights, hit the A/C button, and switch on that fan. Cooling down the room is key to everyone’s happiness.

I was really nervous but so ready to start. I had my plan for the day and knew I was going to be doing a similar introduction with all of my students. Mr. Kim came to both Sean and I a couple minutes before our first class was going to start and told us we would not be having our first class… Well that gave us an extra fifty minutes to anticipate our true first class.

Time flew by and before we knew it the classes had begun and they came at us faster than a gunshot.

My plan for the day was to introduce myself as well as find out a bit about each student. I wrote my name on the board and helped each class with the difficult pronunciation. They all got to guess my age, the older kids seemed impressed that I had graduated from a university already but this was one of many cultural differences I would encounter and will encounter with my students.

I borrowed a world map from my co-worker and had my class guess where I lived before I had come to Korea. U.S.A. ended up being either their first or second guess but it did take them longer to find Florida on the map. Some of the kids who were basketball fans loved that I was from Miami. I thought about fibbing and saying that I was friends with the Heat personally.

After the class found Florida on the map I moved on to learning a bit about them. We went one by one and everyone told me their names, their ages, and, for the younger kids, what their favorite animal was. The older kids had the more exciting question of what super power would you have. This question is normally a big hit with kids but it was lost in translation most of the time. Some of the kids were adamant that they did not have a super power, how could they possibly answer the question. Others insisted they wanted to be Batman, Superman, Spiderman, or the Hulk… Again my explanation only went so far. This was ok because if they answered even marginally relative to my question I was impressed.

My name tag! I learned that "Bob" means rice... They all thought it was hilarious my wolf's name was Bob.

After the class had all introduced themselves we moved on to making nametags. On the nametag the students would write their names, draw a boy or a girl, and draw their favorite animal. I thought this would be an appealing activity but many of the kids were in distress that I was not simply giving them free time… Slackers.

Some of them choose English names and make my life much easier!

I passed out markers that I had bought for them and gave them some time to work on the nametags. These activities usually took the entire class time and it for the most part went smoothly. My largest class (all of 11 students) is my most difficult class to control. I see them every other day and even on the first day I knew they would be the reason I would follow in so many teachers’ footsteps and begin affectionately referring to my naughty students as “Little Shits”.

I have seven class periods in a day, and three of those periods are my “every other day” students. My first class really only consists of one student (who happens to be the boss’s youngest daughter). His middle daughter is in my second-class period and I see her every other day. My last class is only one student as well who again just happens to be my boss’s eldest daughter. “So, you have all three of your boss’s daughters in your classes? Feeling some pressure?” “Yeah, a bit.”

I was taken aback buy some of the disobedience my students exhibited having been told numerous times I would not have disciplinary issues with my students.  I realized that coming in and being the nice English teacher was not the best way to go about introducing myself to my problem class. I am going to need to take a page out of my Sea Base manual and establish dominance before any leniency can be shown.

One of their drawings, I'm a fan

The first couple days went by quickly and my classes’ personalities quickly revealed themselves. I have close to 80 students in total and they all have names like “Da-Hyeon” (dah hee – yuhn) and “Eon So” (on – sew). Although I always pass out my kids’ nametags it rarely helps with me being able to say their names. Alas… I do what I can.

This is a picture of Tofu red soup, it's not so bad!

I have dinner by myself (Sean and Liz have dinner the class period after I do) and I found that in the first week I enjoy a moment of peace away from people in general. I know that my love for alone-ness will shortly be overcome by my desire for intellectual ENGLISH conversation but for now I am content. Dinner is a welcome time to slow down but not a happy time for my stomach.

My first night eating alone I walked up to the lounge and opened the pot to look at the soup. It looked very much like it had the night before. BUT when I went to stir the soup to see what was at the bottom I realized this soup had shrimp in it… Whole Shrimp. Shrimp that were now staring at me by the dozens. I slammed the lid and enjoyed a nice bowl of white rice for dinner.

White rice... Consistently served with every meal so far

The next night I found that the soup was another red soup (potentially filled with staring shrimp) so I chickened out and did not even mix it up. The night after that I opened the pot and to my surprise the soup was not red it was a white brown broth. My stomach was in knots. I had psyched myself out with this  mystery soup and my sense of adventure has never involved what I eat. The brown broth looked an awful lot like chicken soup and I could not resist wanting to just check if the soup was edible. I mixed the soup up and chicken surfaced, along with potatoes and assorted veggies. Still cautious I lifted the ladle to my nose and smelled, “Yum”, it was indeed chicken soup. I will have you know of the ten days we have eaten at the school this soup was the only dish I went back for seconds on.

On Fridays here at the Academy there is movie day! Every teacher’s first class has movie day. But of the classes that follow only a certain teacher’s students get to attend. My classes all had movie day the first week we started =] Hooray movie day! Or at least that’s what I thought until movie day actually began.

Movie day consists of you sitting with your back to a projector screen playing shoddy clips of overplayed movies to a room full of highly distractible students. I thought Movie Day would actually involve playing a movie, even if it was just for fifty minutes but nope, I was wrong. You choose a movie from the computer’s selection and play the movie in 3 to 5 minute clips. At the end of each clip you pull up a page with lines from the script on it. This page can have three lines or fifteen lines on it, you never know. Anyways, you have to read a line of script to the class and then the class repeats what you said…. This is what ruins movie day. The kids won’t always participate or won’t stay awake but there’s an upside to it all, at least you don’t have to teach!!!

 Another blog is on its way! Thanks for having patience and keeping up with my adventure!

P.S. for those of you familiar with the "Secret Llama" I wanted to let you know, yes he is in Korea =]