Adventures from around the World

My first week of teaching looks something like this:

So, while this looks busy, it really isn’t.  If you add up my class time (160×4+200)/60=14 hours.  So I am only in class for 14 hours this week.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I teach grades 3 and 4, who are adorable, and who unfortunately were taught the same introductory lesson.  I say unfortunately because it meant that I did the same thing 12 times in a row!  Let me tell you how happy I was when it was Thursday.  So the grades three and four lesson went like this:

I told the class that I wanted them to learn my name, but I was not going to tell them… instead there were pictures placed on the board, things like snake, hand, apple, nose, dog, alligator, and that these pictures were representitive of my name.  It took about 10-15 minutes for the kids to figure it out.  Then I had the kids sit in groups of 5 or 6 (there are 35ish per class), these groups then took turns asking me what I liked…for example they would say do you like apples?  If I did like apples they would get one point, if I didn’t they would get zero points.  The team with the most points won some candy.
This game was pretty fun actually and I got asked some pretty crazy things, like do you like staples, or roads, or locks, things that I really had no opinion about.  There was also a lot of stuff about food and animals…there was even this group of girls who asked if I like princes or princesses, they were very sweet. 
I was told later by my co-teacher that a lot of the kids were impressed that I liked scary things, like gorillas, alligators, and other “scary” animals.

On Thursday and Friday I taught grade 5s and they had a different opening exercize which went something like this:

I wrote on the board the phrases: who is ____? what is ____? and is ____ your favourite (sport, hobby, season, food).  I then wrote beside these phrases 27 words, names or numbers that related to me.  These were things like my parents and friends, movies, Canada’s Wonderland, ages, etc.  It was the kid’s job to use the phrases to find out what the words meant.  I would answer their questions with a little anetdote or fact and show a picture. When they asked a question they got a candy. 
The kids were particularly impressed with how young my parents looked, how handsome my brother is (though they think everyone that is white is beautiful), how cool the new roller coaster at Wonderland looks, and how cold it gets in the summer.
They were also simply excited to get some candy.
After we went through all the words on the board, I told them that I wanted to know something about them so I handed out a work sheet that asked them to tell me their name, siblings, favourite (colour, sport, and food), something that makes them special, and to draw a picture of themselves.
It was pretty cute, the kids drawings were quite impressive, for the most part.  They seemed to like to draw themselves doing things, like a sport, or a charicature of themselves, like the fat kid drew himself as a pig. 
There was one girl who blew me away and I remember what she wrote even a week later.  For something that makes me special she wrote: “When I grow up I want to be a diplomatic officer, so I study English very hard.  One day I hope English will make me special.”  This blew me away particularly because the majority of the kids had problems writing their own name.

The extra class that I teach on Thursday is a conversation class. I was asked on the Monday if I would teach it, in exchange for getting the entire holiday off.  Otherwise I would be expected to come to school and do nothing for 8 hours and I would only get my 2 weeks per holiday off.  When this ultimatum was presented I really had no choice but to accept.  The class is really simple…I basically just play games with the kids.  In the first class I had the class of 12 split themselves into two teams.  Each team was to create a restaurant with an English name and menu.  They then served the other team.

So you may be wondering about my holdays.  Well there are two, there is the winter holiday and the summer holiday.  The winter holiday starts on December 29 and lasts until February 12 (I think).  I then have class for 1.5 weeks before getting the rest of February off.  The new school year starts at the beginning of March.  The summer holiday lasts from the middle of July until my departure on the 19th of August.  This is during monsoon season so I am probably going to head out of the country, maybe, Japan, Mongolia, something like that….but we will see.  There are also 16 national holidays, as well as, several days where I will not have classes: standardized test days, sport days, etc.

Speaking of monsoons I should mention that it rained ALL week!!! It was ok the first couple of days, but it starts to get you down by the 5th 6th day in a row of rain…. luckily the rain stopped on Friday night

I should probably also mention that I have two co-teachers: Soo and Mi-rah.  Soo teaches 4 and 6 and Mi-rah 3 and 5.  So this week I was with Mi-rah for the most part.  This was fun, she is kind of a hard-core teacher, and really sticks to what needs to be taught, but this class she let me do my thing.  I was able to teach her a new word though: Rambunctious!  Soo on the other hand is more lax and will alter the excerises when she feels the need.  She also seems to interact more with the students on their level…Soo also has a slightly better grasp of English than Mi-rah.  Both of these teachers are quite young, I think early 30s, both married, Mi-rah has a child and Soo is trying.  Mi-rah is more girly, and doesn’t like physical exertion but loves movies…Soo is more of a tom-boy and loves sports and travelling.  Both are pretty great.

I talk to Mi-rah a lot about movies, well when she learned through the games that I loved movies she brought up the subject.  She asked me about my favourites, films and actors…I told her, and left most things in.  She thinks it is great and she also loves my favourite actors, though she has not seen Moulin or many Audrey films.  She seems to go to the theater a lot, and says that we should go sometime.  The Invasion is coming out on the 21st, so maybe we will see that.

Soo talks to me a lot about travelling and has recommended some places for me to see on my holiday….she highly recommends Cambodia and has shown me pictures that are amazing… I am so excited.

On Friday I was asked by the VP to go to a volleyball tournament the next day.  Our school’s female teacher’s team was competing, so I said that I would go.  But I will tell you about that next time.