Showing posts with label seosu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seosu. Show all posts
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
16 / Hard Day
Title covers it.
Like anyone, my students have good days and bad days. My students also bring out really good things in me, and really bad ones.
The issues for this week:
1. Boy got a new skateboard. Loses all comprehension of English when I ask him to stop riding it in the back of the room while I'm talking. Ended up pointing at him for thirty straight seconds while speaking in my Angry Voice to put it away. He listened. Then another of the boys went straight to the board and started riding it. :c I was so frustrated I literally had to leave the room. I looked at all the kids -- most of the others were running around screaming at this point -- and just said... "Sunsangnim. Korean Sunsangnim." threatening to get a Korean teacher. Then I left the room. When I came back they were sitting nice and quiet. (: Ehehehe.
2. 3/4th graders had a mini-war today. Half the class is pretty advanced in English and studies pretty hard on their own/with private teachers. Half the class is less invested in what we're learning, though they try. They don't study as much away from the school. This has created a natural divide between them: some of the kids in this class pick things up extremely quickly, can learn new games and sentences and vocabulary in ten or fifteen minutes, no problem. The rest need extra help that I personally feel like I need to give them. Cue the advanced kids whining to me that it's not fair we are learning more slowly because of the others. What am I supposed to do about that? I was told my job was to give an opportunity to children who wouldn't have as many. :c I can't just leave people behind. I may not feel like a real teacher half the time, but really. Anyway, the class got very very wound up about this issue and some of the kids started really tearing up a girl who took longer than a couple of minutes to come up with an answer on her turn during a game. It is true that someone cries in my classes pretty much daily, but I was just... appalled? ... at the way my students acted today.
3. No personal space. This will sound bad, but anyone who is in Korea now will understand. If you have a ten minute break between classes, you NEED the ten minute break. Or at least, I do. I have to have a couple of minutes to regroup, think about what I'm going to do for the next class, organise myself, etc. It is ridiculous how frustrating it is to me when kids decide that the time between classes is time to come and touch EVERYTHING I HAVE ON MY DESK, my hair and clothing, my supplies, write all over the board, throw papers on the ground, randomly cut up paper and just leave it lying wherever, stick crayons in the heater that makes our freezing room bearable, etc. :C I mean it makes me happy that they want to see me or talk to me, or that they're curious enough that they can't stop themselves from rifling through absolutely everything of mine that they can see. But Jesus Christ. I know at least that when I was in highschool I was not known for my patience with children. Babies, yes. But children less. I've gotten much better as I get older and find I relate with kids sometimes more than adults :p BUT OMG, PLEASE GIVE ME MY TEN MINUTES. Even just five! FIVE.
4. Kids deciding that they have "drawing" class instead of mine. I have several kids who leave class early to go to learn piano or meet with private teachers, etc. Some of my kids have to miss class a few days a week just because they're so busy. I get it. But the thing is, I've been here for a few weeks now, and I know who those kids are. :p I may not know Korean, but I know you don't have "drawing" class. It's nice to have snitches in the classroom though. Kids try to get on my good side, and they tell me when the others have just decided to go home. Then, me and whoever actually showed up to class do fun things like tongue twisters. So there, missing students. :c Thankfully this is only maybe once a week... But it makes me feel bad, because frankly I am startlingly overpaid for what I do & it feels like taking advantage of the system when my children aren't there and I still get money for it. Besides that, it kind of makes me feel bad? Like am I really that bad a teacher that you can't handle sitting and listening to me or playing games with me for forty minutes? :c Lol. I love my 5/6th graders because they are at a level where they can kind of understand sarcasm; that brightens my day. And they love imitating my voice in English, exaggerating all the tones... Cracks me up.
Maybe tomorrow I'll have nicer things to write about. I'm going to try and bring a camera in to school. :s I hope no one tries to swallow it.
Like anyone, my students have good days and bad days. My students also bring out really good things in me, and really bad ones.
The issues for this week:
1. Boy got a new skateboard. Loses all comprehension of English when I ask him to stop riding it in the back of the room while I'm talking. Ended up pointing at him for thirty straight seconds while speaking in my Angry Voice to put it away. He listened. Then another of the boys went straight to the board and started riding it. :c I was so frustrated I literally had to leave the room. I looked at all the kids -- most of the others were running around screaming at this point -- and just said... "Sunsangnim. Korean Sunsangnim." threatening to get a Korean teacher. Then I left the room. When I came back they were sitting nice and quiet. (: Ehehehe.
2. 3/4th graders had a mini-war today. Half the class is pretty advanced in English and studies pretty hard on their own/with private teachers. Half the class is less invested in what we're learning, though they try. They don't study as much away from the school. This has created a natural divide between them: some of the kids in this class pick things up extremely quickly, can learn new games and sentences and vocabulary in ten or fifteen minutes, no problem. The rest need extra help that I personally feel like I need to give them. Cue the advanced kids whining to me that it's not fair we are learning more slowly because of the others. What am I supposed to do about that? I was told my job was to give an opportunity to children who wouldn't have as many. :c I can't just leave people behind. I may not feel like a real teacher half the time, but really. Anyway, the class got very very wound up about this issue and some of the kids started really tearing up a girl who took longer than a couple of minutes to come up with an answer on her turn during a game. It is true that someone cries in my classes pretty much daily, but I was just... appalled? ... at the way my students acted today.
3. No personal space. This will sound bad, but anyone who is in Korea now will understand. If you have a ten minute break between classes, you NEED the ten minute break. Or at least, I do. I have to have a couple of minutes to regroup, think about what I'm going to do for the next class, organise myself, etc. It is ridiculous how frustrating it is to me when kids decide that the time between classes is time to come and touch EVERYTHING I HAVE ON MY DESK, my hair and clothing, my supplies, write all over the board, throw papers on the ground, randomly cut up paper and just leave it lying wherever, stick crayons in the heater that makes our freezing room bearable, etc. :C I mean it makes me happy that they want to see me or talk to me, or that they're curious enough that they can't stop themselves from rifling through absolutely everything of mine that they can see. But Jesus Christ. I know at least that when I was in highschool I was not known for my patience with children. Babies, yes. But children less. I've gotten much better as I get older and find I relate with kids sometimes more than adults :p BUT OMG, PLEASE GIVE ME MY TEN MINUTES. Even just five! FIVE.
4. Kids deciding that they have "drawing" class instead of mine. I have several kids who leave class early to go to learn piano or meet with private teachers, etc. Some of my kids have to miss class a few days a week just because they're so busy. I get it. But the thing is, I've been here for a few weeks now, and I know who those kids are. :p I may not know Korean, but I know you don't have "drawing" class. It's nice to have snitches in the classroom though. Kids try to get on my good side, and they tell me when the others have just decided to go home. Then, me and whoever actually showed up to class do fun things like tongue twisters. So there, missing students. :c Thankfully this is only maybe once a week... But it makes me feel bad, because frankly I am startlingly overpaid for what I do & it feels like taking advantage of the system when my children aren't there and I still get money for it. Besides that, it kind of makes me feel bad? Like am I really that bad a teacher that you can't handle sitting and listening to me or playing games with me for forty minutes? :c Lol. I love my 5/6th graders because they are at a level where they can kind of understand sarcasm; that brightens my day. And they love imitating my voice in English, exaggerating all the tones... Cracks me up.
Maybe tomorrow I'll have nicer things to write about. I'm going to try and bring a camera in to school. :s I hope no one tries to swallow it.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
8 / My First Day
O_O
... O_O
!!!!
I taught for the very first time today!
Fff, I'm so overwhelmed. I actually just walked in, put some rice in the cooker, and now I'm trying to settle down and think about everything that happened. Phew.
I went to the school pretty early in the morning, way before I was supposed to teach. It was nice because I had the chance to talk to the teachers, introduce myself, and explore the school a little bit more. I really like everyone at Seosu... They are all incredibly friendly and nice people, though they are shy to talk to me. When I would be speaking English with my mentor teacher or the Korean university student helping me, sometimes a group would gather around us to hear me speak in English, but they'd be too nervous to join in. So funny.
I also had lunch at the school. By that point, all the kids [28 total] had realised that I was there, and had varied reactions... Some came up to try and say "hello!" to me, but others were too shy as well. All of the kids are soooo cute, but some are definitely more mischievous than others. Even just in the space of one day I got to see so many personalities.
I'd come up with a lesson plan for my first day as a way to see how much the kids knew already. I'd been told that they would have almost no English skills at all, but I was pretty pleasantly surprised. I'll go into each class in some detail --
1st and 2nd Grade -- The hardest class of the day. Not only was it my first -- and I was pretty nervous -- but these kids were pretty wild. They did not want to be in class at all, had no interest in English, and pretty much mocked me for the entire forty minutes. I had my Korean co-teacher there with me, and she was practically the only reason they listened at all. There were only two children in the group of six who made an effort, and I made sure I praised them a lot, but the others were difficult to control. :p One little boy was kind of the instigator... I attempted to teach them things like "hello" and "nice to meet you", and whenever I tried to get them to repeat after me he'd just go "dadadadada". Too cool for school, I guess. I'll have to try something different with them tomorrow, but I really have no idea where to start. One girl clearly knew what I was teaching already, and she'd just stare at me like "really?" whenever I spoke. ;_; Lol. After this class, I was pretty disheartened, but I still tried my best. Hopefully somehow I can earn their respect. This class will also be difficult because they don't know the alphabet or how to read. They copied some letters well enough, but really had no patience for it. I hope I can figure out how to make it fun. I remember I didn't really find learning to read very fun, even though I took to it pretty quickly as a kid.
3rd and 4th Grade Things really picked up here. I was SO relieved. These children told me they didn't like English, but wanted to learn it anyway. It was a slow forty minutes because while they were willing to try, they didn't know very much. Still, it made me feel so much better. They had very good spirits, smiled a lot, etc. We did dialogues together and wrote our names in English. One little boy kept asking me for "more" to learn to write... So we wrote "Hello! What's your name? My name is _____." together. All of these children too would write notes for themselves in Korean about how exactly I was pronouncing things. It made me feel so useful. c: Tomorrow I think we'll read a story together and review what we did today a little bit more. I am nervous that my co-teacher won't be there, but I think that this class will go all right anyway.
5th and 6th Grade My mind was totally blown away by these kids. They completely, completely surpassed my expectations. These kids knew EVERYTHING I was trying to teach, knew how to read, knew more vocabulary, etc. I was amaaaaaazed by them and told them so. (: We read aloud a story together, did dialogues, and played a game using the alphabet. They had so much energy and even though they knew the material already, were okay reviewing with me. Wow, wow, wow. We actually had fun together! Tomorrow I am going to move on to new material, like classroom vocabulary and dialogue. I hope that it's not too boring for them. A lot of these kids go to private school after they finish at Seosu, which is how they know so much English already. Their parents push them very hard to do well, so I also hope my class can be a little more fun for them too, since they already work so much. I honestly can't even believe how much work these little kids do. :O
All in all, I had a pretty good day. Some hard moments, but it was mostly very rewarding and I'm looking forward to seeing the children again tomorrow. Hoping this is the start of something very good. c: Now to eat dinner and... Relaaaaxxx.
... O_O
!!!!
I taught for the very first time today!
Fff, I'm so overwhelmed. I actually just walked in, put some rice in the cooker, and now I'm trying to settle down and think about everything that happened. Phew.
I went to the school pretty early in the morning, way before I was supposed to teach. It was nice because I had the chance to talk to the teachers, introduce myself, and explore the school a little bit more. I really like everyone at Seosu... They are all incredibly friendly and nice people, though they are shy to talk to me. When I would be speaking English with my mentor teacher or the Korean university student helping me, sometimes a group would gather around us to hear me speak in English, but they'd be too nervous to join in. So funny.
I also had lunch at the school. By that point, all the kids [28 total] had realised that I was there, and had varied reactions... Some came up to try and say "hello!" to me, but others were too shy as well. All of the kids are soooo cute, but some are definitely more mischievous than others. Even just in the space of one day I got to see so many personalities.
I'd come up with a lesson plan for my first day as a way to see how much the kids knew already. I'd been told that they would have almost no English skills at all, but I was pretty pleasantly surprised. I'll go into each class in some detail --
1st and 2nd Grade -- The hardest class of the day. Not only was it my first -- and I was pretty nervous -- but these kids were pretty wild. They did not want to be in class at all, had no interest in English, and pretty much mocked me for the entire forty minutes. I had my Korean co-teacher there with me, and she was practically the only reason they listened at all. There were only two children in the group of six who made an effort, and I made sure I praised them a lot, but the others were difficult to control. :p One little boy was kind of the instigator... I attempted to teach them things like "hello" and "nice to meet you", and whenever I tried to get them to repeat after me he'd just go "dadadadada". Too cool for school, I guess. I'll have to try something different with them tomorrow, but I really have no idea where to start. One girl clearly knew what I was teaching already, and she'd just stare at me like "really?" whenever I spoke. ;_; Lol. After this class, I was pretty disheartened, but I still tried my best. Hopefully somehow I can earn their respect. This class will also be difficult because they don't know the alphabet or how to read. They copied some letters well enough, but really had no patience for it. I hope I can figure out how to make it fun. I remember I didn't really find learning to read very fun, even though I took to it pretty quickly as a kid.
3rd and 4th Grade Things really picked up here. I was SO relieved. These children told me they didn't like English, but wanted to learn it anyway. It was a slow forty minutes because while they were willing to try, they didn't know very much. Still, it made me feel so much better. They had very good spirits, smiled a lot, etc. We did dialogues together and wrote our names in English. One little boy kept asking me for "more" to learn to write... So we wrote "Hello! What's your name? My name is _____." together. All of these children too would write notes for themselves in Korean about how exactly I was pronouncing things. It made me feel so useful. c: Tomorrow I think we'll read a story together and review what we did today a little bit more. I am nervous that my co-teacher won't be there, but I think that this class will go all right anyway.
5th and 6th Grade My mind was totally blown away by these kids. They completely, completely surpassed my expectations. These kids knew EVERYTHING I was trying to teach, knew how to read, knew more vocabulary, etc. I was amaaaaaazed by them and told them so. (: We read aloud a story together, did dialogues, and played a game using the alphabet. They had so much energy and even though they knew the material already, were okay reviewing with me. Wow, wow, wow. We actually had fun together! Tomorrow I am going to move on to new material, like classroom vocabulary and dialogue. I hope that it's not too boring for them. A lot of these kids go to private school after they finish at Seosu, which is how they know so much English already. Their parents push them very hard to do well, so I also hope my class can be a little more fun for them too, since they already work so much. I honestly can't even believe how much work these little kids do. :O
All in all, I had a pretty good day. Some hard moments, but it was mostly very rewarding and I'm looking forward to seeing the children again tomorrow. Hoping this is the start of something very good. c: Now to eat dinner and... Relaaaaxxx.
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