Adventures from around the World

Ok, so I left off after my first week of teaching.  So lets see if I can catch us up to date as quickly as possible. 

That weekend (Sept 8-9) was kinda exciting.  I started my day like any other Saturday, well like the Saturday before anyway, by watching some tv and cleaning the house.  Around 2pm my vice principal stopped by to pick me up for the volleyball tournament.  The whole thing was kinda boring really.  I sat in the stands surrounded by koreans who don’t speak english, eating the food they kept throwing at me, and watching some amature volleyball. The exciting part came  when I got to sit on the sidelines and watch our school’s team play.  They won both their games, which meant that they were to play again on Sunday.  So on sunday I was picked up again around 2 and taken to the tournament.  The game was already in progress when we got there, but I was able to see most of the humiliating defeat…so I was able to go home after about 1 hour.  

I decided that I had not seen quite enough of Mokpo, so I rode my bike on Sunday night to the old part of the city and then looped back to my house in the new part.  The whole thing took about 2.5 hours but it was a lot fo fun and I got to see most of the city.

The next week of teaching was very similar to the 1st in that I taught 6 grade 3 classes, 6 grade 4 classes, and the extra class….but instead of teaching 8 grade 5 classes I taught 2 grade 5s and 6 grade 6 classes.  The class structure was pretty standard for a Korean English class….I put in the CD and taught using the gigantic television that is hooked to the computer in the class. Basically the class starts like this:  

Greeting: Good morning, how are you? how is the weather? What is the date?
Warm-up/review: usually some sort of game or guessing thing, whatever the online lesson plan says
Pre-Listening: Listening to 3 short series of dialogue (I ask questions)
Listening: Listening to the full dialogue (I ask questions)
Listen and repeat
Song/Game

The whole thing is laid out for me online and it follows the text book and CD-rom exactly.  The listening stuff also has some hilarious videos which amuse me greatly, though it can still get pretty redundant.  So it sounds pretty easy eh?  Well it is and it isn’t.  The first 20mins are usually filled with all of the listening, which leaves the other half of the class for the game.  The game is laid out in the lesson plan, problem is these games are rediculously lame!  It is hard to believe that these things have been tested.  Anyway, it is my job to come-up with a fun filled activity that the students will enjoy, and which will force them to utilise the skills that the lesson is trying to teach.  The other tricky part is the preparation, finding flashcards, making handouts, etc….it eats up my time, and since my only source to the internet is at school (for now), I really can only do it there. The problem come when they kick me out at 5:00, so if I haven’t finished I have to come in early the next day which is super fun!  

I worked with the CD for the 3s, 4s, and 5s.  But the 6es were a little different.  I had to create an entire lesson on my own.

The first time I taught grade 6 was Sept 13/14.  I had to teach them past tense.  This was a fairly simple lesson.  The first 10-15 mins were filled with me introducing myself the same way as with the grade 5s, only with less words.  The rest of the class was spent talking about the rules for past tense, proper pronouciation (t, d, or id), and finally a little matching game.  The whole thing was really successful and the kids seemed to have a good time. Soo said that the kids were incredibly well behaved though, and that usually they are completely rambunctious….I guess I’m new for now and they are less likely to misbehave with someone they hardly know….give it a few weeks I suppose.

On the 14th I went to dinner with Soo.  We decided to go to Pizza Hut, which was cool.  It was very similar to Pizza Hut back home, with a few differences.  1st, they serve complementary pickles as an appetizer with the meal, they have the cheezy bites pizza all the time not a promotion like at home, they have this weird pizza called the golden ring (I will explain a little more later), and they are really in to putting shrimp on Pizza.
We started off the meal by making these origami shrimp, their thing to promote the shrimp pizza, this was fun, but also surprisingly challenging.  But if you managed to make the shrimp successfully you got a coupon for 15% off your next meal….and yes I finally managed to do it!  The waitress came around with pickles and took our order.  We ordered a half BBQ chicken (bul-go-gi) half pinapple golden ring pizza.  The golden ring loos like this:

 
So working our way from the outside in we start with a regular crust, then a layer of cheeze and herbs, a ring of sweet potato, then the regular toppings.
Overall it was pretty good, but there was a strange texture when you ate the potato that I am not sure if I really enjoyed….but generally pretty good.

While we were eating Soo told me that she is going to take some time off because she thinks she might be pregnant, and if not she really wants to be pregnant.  So her doctor suggested that she remove the stress in her life, ie. no work.  So she is going to take a month or two.  So what does this mean for me.  Well it mean that when I teach her classes (grades 4 and 6) I will be alone, unless the homeroom teacher stays with me.  This may make things difficult in terms of discipline, as the students may not care as much about what I say, plus they might be able to get away with more in Korean.  It could prove challenging because of the language barrier as well.  If there is a translation issue I won’t be able to help. but we will see, hopefully it won’t be that bad.

On the 15th I was supposed to get the internet in my house.  So I waited for the guy to show up, but he never came.  This really pissed me off.  So on Monday I told Mi-rah and in the middle of class she is on the phone with KT, the internet company, yelling something in Korean.  She then asks me if it is alright if they come then to the apartment as there is a key with the superintendant.  I said it would be fine.  About an hour later Mi-rah gets a call from KT…they can’t find the apartment.  So we have to check the address again, give it to them and help the step-by-step get to the apartment.  Mind you classes are running while this is going on.  After this 2nd call I never heard from them again…and when I got home…INTERNET!  it was fantastic, I started downloading movies and calling people on Skype.  There is so much freedom when you have your own internet.

Monday the 17th was also my 1 month ‘versary of me leaving Canada…time has certainly flown by, its hard to believe that there are only 11 months to go, 3 of which are holidays.

The week went by pretty smoothly.  We have a holiday on the 24th-26th so for the grade 3s and 4s I had to condense two lessons into one.  This was a lot easier than I would have thought.  It was kinda cool, because we got to sing songs…like “I like Chicken” and “Who is She.”  There were also some fun games that made the class just fly by.  The grade 4 classes were the first without Soo.  Things were good for the most part.  Half of the classes had there homeroom teacher present, the other half did not.  The ones that had the teacher present were incredibly quiet.  This sounds like it would be a good thing, but it is not.  It didn’t feel like they cared about the lesson.  I find that if they are louder they are more engaged.  I actually prefered teaching the classes alone.  The kids were still well behaved, but they were participating more and they seemed to have a better time.  
The reason why they are so well behaved and quiet with the homeroom teacher is because they are afraid of them.  Corpral punishment is common in schools in Korea, so the teacher can hit the kids, and it is very common for parents to hit their kids as well.  Now I have never actually seen this, but trust me it happens.  The english teachers however, are not allowed to use that kind of punishment, hense the behaviour difference.

On Tuesday (18) we only had to teach until 10:30 because there was an inspection taking place.  Members of the school board were in the school watching the Korean classes.  Our school is a center for innovation in teaching Korean.  So essentially they are guinnea pigs and they try out different teaching techniques on the kids.  Whatever.  Basically all it meant for me was that I had from 10:30 until 5:00 to do whatever I want. 

The end of the week signified the beginning of the Cheusok holiday (or mid-autumn festival to the Chinese).  The holiday is similar to our Thanksgiving, but it lasts 3 days and falls in accordance with the full moon.  For me it meant a 5 day weekend and a present from the VP.  He gave me a cooking oil giftset.  Giftsets are a pretty standard gift for Cheusok, and they fill all the stores with them…The most popular are the spam giftsets.  mmm several tins of spam…the cooking oil is looking pretty good right now.