Winter Break

Since real school let out for winter break at the end of December, my days have been mostly peaceful and a little boring.

My favorite 1st grade class on our last day. They are my favorite in spite of the girls who simply must hide their faces in all pictures. They are lucky their boy classmates make up for that.

It wasn't always boring and peaceful though. I had two weeks of winter English camp. One week for each grade. I was excited for the 1st graders, as they aren't too cool for school just yet. Those 15 campers were fun, behaved, and all had high levels of English. But for some reason, on the last day the boys decided to surprise me and "act a fool". Nonetheless, I called that week a success.


Lovely well behaved girls on the last day of camp, playing the game correctly.


Demon boys on the last day of camp, drawing grotesque pictures inbetween their wrestling matches, since having miraculously finished the game 30 minutes before the other two groups.

The next week was the 2nd grade winter camp. I was not looking forward to this, since the 2nd graders during normal school are in that "I'm too cool and smart to listen to you, and even though I love pop music, I'm going to look bored out of my mind when you spend a whole class listening to my favorite songs" phase. Eunji even said she felt sorry for me, because she had to do summer camp and the 2nd graders were horrible. Thanks Eunji.

However, the spell I attempted must have worked. There were only 7 that came every day. They were all well behaved, laughed at my dumb jokes, and got my sarcasm. Hell, even a couple of them coul throw something back every now and then! Rachel Teacher was impressed. But nothing compares to their taste in music. While doing "work sheets" and "English" winter crafts, I would ask them what they wanted to listen to.

Muse!
Green Day!

Hell. to. the. yes.

Me: "Do you know 30 Seconds to Mars?"
Paul: "Yes, play their songs!"
Me: "Do you know Jet?"
Students: "No. Will you play their songs still?"
Me: "Hell to the yes!" (On second thought, I probably just said yes.)

While winter camp is over, I still have a parents' class twice a week. Apart from the blind date setter-upper (see my George Bush has Charisma post for more info), the moms are fun to talk to and very smart. We have talked about things like North Korea, where their parents were during the Korean war, Korean versus American schools, food, traveling, and their stories from when they lived overseas. One mom even told me about her mom's living in Hiroshima and evacuating right before the bomb was dropped.

One mom works for a marketing company.
One mom used to work in finance at a multi-national company.
One mom used to be a news anchor!

And they all love to talk. So basically, I sit there for one hour and listen to them talk to each other in English and occasionally ask them questions and answer theirs. Its pretty sweet.

Side story: The Georgey Bushey lady wanted to take us all out for noodles after class on Thursday, so we took two cars to get there. As we pulled up to the restaurant, I noticed there was no available parking spots. There was, however, some orange cones out front to keep cars off the sidewalk in front of the doors.

So what does Miss Georgey Bushey do? Gets out and moves the cones, so the two cars can just pull right up to the door.

Korea, you never cease to surprise me.

Anyway, when I'm not working for those 2 hours a week, I'm deskwarming. This term has many meanings for native teachers. Some meanings are:
-watching movies
-reading
-thinking about lesson planning, then surfing the internet
-chatting on Facebook and Gmail
-irresponsibly shopping online (Mom and Dad- there will be a package delivered soon)
-thinking about lesson planning, then watching TV online
-2 hour lunch breaks, nap included
-And for poor Laurie teacher, it means double duty winter camp this week. :(


It also means cleaning out and organizing one's desk for the first time since arriving in Korea.



I wonder how long this will last once school starts again. And by "this", I also mean the quiet hall ways, small classes of good students, and the silence of the deafening bell.

Answers Part Hana

Question: How on earth did you ever find out about teaching in Korea?
I knew I wanted to teach english overseas. It, for me, was the easiest way to live abroad and still make money. After going to www.nomadicmatt.com and doing some research, South Korea seemed like the best spot...aka, they are on the upper end of the pay scale. I stumbled upon a TESOL course in Thailand that also guaranteed a job in South Korea, and bam...exactly 4 months after deciding to do this, I arrived in SoKo!

However, it wasn't as easy as it sounds. The application process was long, uncertain, and stressful. If it weren't for my mom, I would not be here right now. She ran errands for me to get the correct documents I needed, shipped some for me, and more importantly, helped me keep my sanity. I had to get background checks from every state I've lived in. And get them apostilled (had no clue what that meant, but I sure do now).It was rough doing it in Florida and having to keep it a secret from my boss. I volunteered to work so many Saturdays just so I could actually use the copier and fast internet. I also had 2 phone interviews. One of which, I forgot the time change was also a day before, so it was unexpected. Luckily, I was at home and not sitting in a movie or something.

Then, once I got to Thailand, my recruiter informed me that I no longer had the position in the central province of Korea. So for almost two weeks, I was searching for jobs in Thailand instead. I did NOT want to work in Thailand, but I really had no choice. One day, I received an email for an interview near Bangkok. Luckily, the next day my Korean recruiter informed he found me a job in Seongnam. Whew, close one!

Alright, so I answered a little more than "how did you find out", but there ya go. And the visa-getting process? Even more stressful. My "Getting There Is the Battle" post in August paints a pretty accurate picture.

Question: Are you raking in some big bucks for this teaching gig?
Yes. Well, I shouldn't say I am. My two credit cards, my bank, and the US department of education are raking in some big bucks. This accounting grad is doing some lesson learning this year! Granted, the debt was worth it...I went to Europe last summer, and lived by the beach last year. So, while my paycheck is pretty nice considering my apartment is free, more than half of it goes straight into my US account and pays all of my bills. So, not really, no.

Open Class, Close Fall

I had my open class today. Aside from the lesson taking a little longer than 45 minutes, everything was good. One of my favorite students came up to me before the class and said "Teacher, relax, you will be great." and after class he said "Teacher, did we do good?"...if only all students were as sweet as him.

Anyway, the evaluation conversation part lasted about 5 minutes followed by 20 minutes of eating cookies and jeju oranges while the other teachers chatted in Korean. It was nice. I knew I was stressed about this, but wow there's a huge difference in how I feel just from having gotten it over with!

I'm so glad its over. Now I can enjoy my weekend with my friends, and not have to worry about next week's lessons. Why? Because its Thanksgiving lesson week, chello!*




Remember this picture from last week?

That was Fall gathering its keys and phone...


So even though Fall is still at the party,


Winter is running up the sidewalk, about to knock down the front door.


*Chello- Think Jack Black in School of Rock...call Hannah if you need to hear an example.

Is This Just a Learning Curve?

Will I eventually hit the ball out of the park? Or will I always strike out from the curve ball?

Teaching is hard. I never thought it could be this hard. Young kids show their love. Older kids are motivated and more mature. But the in-the-middle kids? They are hard to read! Sometimes they seem so bored in my class, yet afterwards they are so friendly to me. Others participate, but never say hi to me outside of class. I just don't know what to make of this new life. Constantly having to come up with new games and activities, always speaking in front of 40 kids, having the class schedule change last minute- from a high level class to the lowest level. Being told I need to prepare 20 lessons (on top of everything else) to give to the head English teacher for my semester long afternoon class...that starts in 2 weeks. All the while, I never know if I'm doing the right thing or not. Meanwhile, accounting principles (for the most part) stay the same. When accounting standards change, you get the memo, and go with it. Numbers don't lie. They all make sense...most of the time. Mmmm...

On a better note, I am taking an online Korean class, and enjoying it so far! I definitely need some practice with pronunciation, but maybe, if I ever feel energetic enough outside of work, I can work on it more.

I have a 3 day GEPIK teacher orientation this week, and really hope it will put my mind more at ease.

Off to read more of Lone Survivor...I highly recommend it to everybody.
Is there a job that lets me read for a living?

"Hello class, my name is Teacher Rachel"

I finished my first three lessons of teaching practice at a nearby monk school. I liked it, and am glad to get the first time in front of a class room feeling out of the way...although I'm certain I'll have it again in South Korea. :)

There are 16 of us in the course, so we all cram into 2 song-taus (Thai taxis-red trucks that have benches in the back and a cover over them) and ride for about 30 minutes to the monk school. Its a very small school and has one of the most beautiful temples I've seen in Chiang Mai. Its surrounded by woods, and its so peacefully quiet. The school building is all concrete floors, white walls, huge open windows (no screens and no way to ever close them), dogs walking through the building like they own place, and all these cute monks walking around barefoot in their orange outfits. In Thailand you always take your shoes off before you enter a room (hair dresser, internet cafe, school), so we get to teach barefoot.

We are split into three rooms, and teach 30-35 minute lessons back to back. Even after 5 teachers' lessons with different topics, these kids are still so well behaved! I'm sure it will be a rude awakening when I start a government school. But even though they are monks, there are still desk drawings of girls and other normal boy things. In Thailand, almost every boy is a monk at some point in their life. It is their choice usually, and they can be a monk for a week, a month, a year, or the rest of their lives.

The first lesson I taught was a Young Learners Lesson about musical instruments. We learned piano, guitar, and drums. We then learned to say I play the piano, I strum the guitar, and I pound on the drums. I did fairly well and didn't miss any major steps. The second day I taught a Basic Lesson about jobs. This one did not go as well, but the students never knew I messed up the order. Yesterday I taught another Basic Lesson about electronics, and I felt it was much better. Even though I taught late in the day after they had sat through three other teachers with the same lesson model, they were very attentive and stayed with me the whole time. Everybody says I have that teacher look, but I still need to work on smiling more. Hopefully that will come with time when I'm less nervous.