Posts Tagged ‘ public school ’

School starts soon

The next semester I’ll be teaching starts next week. Or maybe three weeks from now. The way they figure it is really weird: really, really weird. I think the actual semester starts on March 2, or maybe March 1 or 5. But I have to teach one week of classes next week, and then there’s two more weeks off. “Spring Break,” my co-teacher explained. Spring break, in February, after having one week of classes. I don’t understand, but I’ll do it.

I also got a call yesterday morning at 10:15 AM from my other co-teacher, saying that he was sorry he forgot to remind me but that school was in session so I was supposed to have been there 2 hours ago. “There’s no class, you just have to come in,” he said. “But I heard from EPIK that I’m not even teaching at your school anymore.” I replied. “Yeah, but that starts next semester. March…(whatever day in March).” So apparently it’s still the fall semester, and the elementary school kids have to come in for a week or two more and then in March they move on to the next grade. And I have to go in and do nothing even though I never have to teach there again. We had the last day of class in mid-December, then winter camps, then a month off, so it seems weird that it’s not the next semester yet. Oh well. At least getting up six hours earlier than I normally would inspires me to update my blog.

So yeah. Winter camps. Let me tell you a thing or two about winter camps. Winter camps are something English teachers do for a week or two or six so that students don’t forget their English over vacation. I did one week with the elementary school and two weeks with the middle school. I actually had a total blast at both schools. You get to do fun projects and activities that you don’t get to do during the rest of the year. It was really enjoyable, but the flip side is it was SOOOO MUCH WORK. They’re only half-day camps, but at 4 lessons a day that are planned and executed 100% by me, that’s a lot of planning. I was on this really weird schedule where I would stay up until 4 AM perfecting my plan for the next day, get up at 8 AM to go to school, come home around noon and pass out for six hours, then get up, eat, and start planning. Good thing I only had to sustain it for 3 weeks.

So yeah. Winter camps. At the middle school, for the first week we did science experiments. It was great. If only I were here to be a science teacher! I had them make cornstarch goo:


They could have played with that stuff all day.

I had them make paper bridges.

This group could stack 16 dictionaries on their bridge.

We did an experiment to see who could walk in a straight line while blindfolded, with hilarious results. Everyone thought they could, no one actually could. Thank you, Robert Krulwich.

We did one of my all-time favorite activities from middle school Science Olympiad: The Egg Drop! The students loved this, many of them said it was their favorite activity of the camp.

About half of the groups’ eggs survived, and half broke. I think some groups were helped by a little padding from our unexpected friend, four inches of snow.

We had a really brutal snowball fight after class this day.

The second week, I had them make short films in English. That activity needs a little work to be more successful, but overall it was a lot of fun.

At any rate, I learned a lot from doing these camps, and I will be better prepared to do them again come summer time. I was unaware until the camp that the kids all had English names that they chose during my co-teacher’s English class, so I think that next semester I will have my students tell me what they are. I have a hard time remembering Korean names. But the English names they chose are so easy!

I called on Homer and Bart a lot because it cracked me up.

So like I said, they moved me to working full-time at the all-boys middle school for the upcoming semester. I’ll miss the elementary school, because it was extremely easy, and working at two schools split up the week nicely. The middle school boys can act like complete monsters and the planning is a lot more time-intensive. But the middle school has some benefits too. I have my own classroom, full of books and equipment. My classroom gets warm, unlike any room in the elementary school. The bathroom has hot water and doesn’t smell like a port-a-john. The lunches are better. So it’s not a bad thing overall. I think I have four more months of teaching, then summer camps, then vacation – then I get to come home!

2012
02/07
CATEGORY
Teaching
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6 comments

Teaching at a Korean Elementary School

The other day, I posted some pictures of the middle school that I work at. I also work at an elementary school, two days a week. They are very different jobs, and each have their relative benefits.

At the middle school, I teach Level 1 and Level 2 middle graders, with an after-school program of Level 3 students. They would about 6th – 8th grade in America, but ages are calculated differently here. Newborns are considered 1 year of age at birth (I bet pro-lifers would get a kick out of that), and you add one year to your age on the Lunar New Year, rather than your birthday. You can learn more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning

At the elementary school, I teach 5th and 6th graders (who would be in 4th and 5th grade in the west). On Mondays, I teach with Ms. Yang, and on Tuesdays I teach with Mr. Kim, who also helps me with general life stuff here in Korea – shopping, apartment issues, etc. He is really cool; he has even heard of Frank Zappa! He also plays the guitar:

The other day we played the Avril Lavigne song “Sk8r Boi” so many times I wanted to die. It uses the past tense a lot. I also got to teach the kids the meaning of the word “gloating,” because that is esentially the point of that song.

He is very helpful, and nice about it. He did a study abroad year in Malaysia, where other people helped him in the way he’s helping me now, so he really understands and anticipates things I might need.

Teaching at the elementary school is easier than teaching at the middle school. In the middle school, I have to plan and teach every lesson basically by myself. The co-teacher helps the students when they don’t understand the activity, and helps with discipline. But at the elementary school, they teach right from a textbook, and the students are at a low English ability level, so the class is mostly conducted in Korean. The day before the lesson, Mr. Kim or Ms. Yang go over the material with me and tell me which section they want me to cover. Usually it’s helping with a pronunciation exercise and maybe making a game or activity for practice. The rest of the time I go around the room making sure kids are on task.

When I was introducing myself my first week, the younger kids cut right to the chase and asked, “Teacher, are you man?” instead of asking about my haircut. They would also come up to the door to peek in at me and then run away giggling when I looked at them. It was endearing. Now, sometimes they will come up to me in the hall and ask me something in Korean, and I will have no clue what they are saying to me.  It’s one of my main motivations to learn Korean – not feeling like a moron when a ten-year-old asks me a question.

I think that so far I like teaching at the elementary school a bit more, because the lesson planning is easier and less time-intensive. The middle school is more hands-on and fun, and you get kids that can really talk to you, but it’s much more work. But both are enjoyable so far.

2011
09/22
CATEGORY
Teaching
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2 comments