My focus in this blog is going to be mainly on the play I'm rehearsing for and my job, which makse sense, since the aforementioned subjects are where I spend the majority of my time these days. So let's just jump right into it then, shall we?
Rehearsals for our play, "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" are going well. I see a lot of improvement in myself and in all of my co-actors each week. For those of you interested (especially if you're in Korea!!!) check out the website for our play: http://gototheatre.weebly.com/ . There are only two more weeks of rehearsal before opening night on June 25, and we still have some work to do, but it is looking pretty good. I am nervous, but excited. I haven't been in a play since Jr. High unless you count the two I made cameo appearances in for my two Kindergarten class graduation show this last Spring. I don't feel nervous about it while I'm at home, or even while I'm at the theater, until I step back stage and am waiting for my turn to come on stage. Even during practice this gets my stomach in knots, though I don't think it helps that I've usually drank 2 coffees not long before this point!
But nerves are good I suppose, that's part of the reason I took it upon myself to try and be a part of this play, to step out of my comfort zone a bit, cause living in another country where I don't exactly know the language isn't uncomfortable enough!! When I auditioned for the play (in February?) I didn't think it was going to be this much work! I also kind of expected a smaller role, but was also excited when they directors told me I got the title role. I am glad I am doing the play, practice can be fun, though frustrating at times. The people in the play with me are all really nice, and I enjoy spending time with them. Though it's really starting to eat up my weekends, and I will be glad when it's over and I can go out of town on the weekends if I want to, or just stay in bed all day, or basically do whatever I want without having a weekend commitment.
Play rehearsal has cut into some of my other previous activities, like the GIC talk (an informative talk on varying subjects by speakers in the international community each Saturday), and my Spanish/Korean Saturday evening class. I also am not currently taking a Saturday morning Korean class because I am too damn tired of waking up early. And my weekends are busy enough as it is without class. My time spent studying Korean these days is rather minimal, and I would like to change that.
My mind is getting enough exercise as it is with the play and trying to handle my younger students, I somewhat recently started working on getting my body into a respectable physical condition. As many of you know I am saving my money to go travelling with my college buddy Gavin, who I basically lived with for 3 of my 4 years at Chico. We are going to meet ~ Nov. 1, probably in Vietnam, though we haven't worked out the specific details yet. We figure we can do around 4 months of travelling around South East Asia relatively cheaply and have enough money left of to WWOOF in Australia and New Zealand for some months after that. But since I got to Korea I have been doing less physical activity than I ever have in my life. Even a while before I left I wasn't doing anything since after I got jumped last August my body wasn't feeling so great. Well my back is still a bit shotty, I think it's from that incident, BUT I figure now is the time to start working out and getting ready for some good hard backpacking. As long as I stretch before doing physical activities, and I avoid putting lots of pressure on that part of my back (squats hurt the next day =\ ), my back doesn't limit me from doing things. So I joined a gym with my buddy Stu from work, and since then I have been going 2 - 3 times a week. It's only week three now, but I think I will be able to keep it up since I enjoy working out (more so the feeling afterward and the next day) and the gym is so close to my apartment.
I have not made it to the girls orphanage in the past month (quite unfortunately, I miss my little friend Da Song). Varying reasons have kept me from being there including some irregular transportation issues as well as my mom and sister coming to visit me and going out of town with them. I went to Seoul with them their first weekend here (the first of May) and Jeju with them their second weekend and last days here. I had a lot of fun, and it was really nice getting out of Gwangju and seeing new places. A bit surprisingly I had not visited Seoul before they came here, and when they were here with me it was the first time I have been living in Korea where I felt like a tourist. But it was a nice change of pace, and it was great getting to see some family, it has been a long time. There is a lot I could say on that visit, but that's not what I came to talk about today, check out the pictures of that ( i don't think i put them up yet, but soon!!)
My classes are pretty good. There is one that I really wish I could get rid of, and I dread it every Tuesday Thursday, but at least it's only 80 minutes a week with those kids. There are 6 boys in that class, and 4 of em are brats, 1 in particular. It just doesn't work with that kid, I have tried punishing him, I have tried rewarding him, I have tried witholding rewards from him. Sometimes he's okay, but usually he's a shithead. At times the Korean co-teacher for that class will see him causing trouble and take him out of the class for a while, which usually makes the class MUCH better overall, though the other boys may still occasionally act out, it's much easier to handle. There's only so much I can do, the kids are only 5 western age, there English is obviously limited, though there are a few kids in that class that are quite smart. They don't completely understand me and if they don't want to listen or if they want to yell while I'm talking I can't do much about it. I don't have that problem with my other classes, though I experienced that overwhelming feeling of uncontrollable kids a little bit last semester with my Daisy Duck class. I'm about ready to give up with those boys and just send them out to their Korean teacher every time they act up, which would have Rickey out of the class for most of the class every time. Daniel would probably be gone quite a bit too. I'm just too damn tired of trying to control them and getting nowhere.
I really like my elementary classes. It's like they're real people or something!! I think most of the kindergarten kids I teach are too young for the serious book work classroom learning they are forced to do. I have deadlines on when I am supposed to finish my books with my classes, which is fair enough. And in the plan it seems like there is enough time to do the book work and actually teach them the subjects reasonably well in that timeline (this is for my main class 80 minutes a day). But then we have gym every Wedensday (40 minute class), Leadership every Tuesday (40 min class), Science on Thursdays (usually takes all 80 minutes, and the kids will cry if they don't finish it) and role play on Fridays (we are supposed to do 40 - 80 minutes, with my low level Korean 6 year olds I generally need all 80 to feel like I taught them the subject well). Which leaves me with 80 min on Monday, 40 Tues, 40 Wed, to do three books. One of those three we are supposed to finish each month and send home, so i have to make sure and keep on track.
The teachers at my school have recently been doing a teacher's seminar at the end of every month to help us teach our books / subjects better. We are given a section of a book and asked to make a lesson plan for it, and we do that for an hour or two and talk about things we could do with our classes. That's all well and dandy, but I don't have TIME to play all these games and do cool shit with my classes because we have to be doing book work all the damn time otherwise we will fall behind and won't send our books home in time and the parents will bitch and I will get bitched at! And not just that, but it's really frustrating for me because I often feel like I don't have enough time with my class to really drive the material home, or to review the material. We always have to be going on to the next pages or we will fall behind. It's not condusive to learning, especially at that young of an age level. And it's also not condusive to keeping me sane. It makes me testy when the kids goof off and sometimes I start to snap beause I know we don't have time to goof off or either we won't finish the pages we need to, or they will just scribble on the pages and not learn anything. But I know I need to relax, they are kids and they do need time to just play, but it's not a great system. It seems to be more about selling the books than teaching the kids, and it's not the most effective way of doing things. Don't get me wrong, my school isn't bad. As far as I can tell I'm quite lucky where I was placed as it is my first time teachind and my school is pretty good to it's teachers compared to other hagwons (private schools) in Korea. Well there are more thoughts I would like to share, but it's getting late and I have work in the morning. An nyeong!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
1 / 2 way there
Well, it crept up on me, but apparently I have been in Korea almost 6 months! It certainly doesn't seem like it's been that long, but time flies when you're having fun I suppose.
So, what's new? I stopped going to the rock climbing gym I was relatively consistently going to, my friends Shawn and Cheline stopped going. Duyeong still goes, but I wasn't going enough to justify getting another month membership. This cuts my physical activity from a little to almost none, bah... But it's starting to look like spring, it's getting pretty warm out, so I'll probably start doing more hiking soon, and maybe hit up the basketball courts not too far from my house at night after work. I definitely need a little more physical activity in my life... I'm doing a decent amount of studying, my last two weeks not quite as much as I had been for the last 2 months or so, but my Korean is definitely improving, and I can have short conversations with people. Though trying to talk to random Koreans (on the bus or store clerks, etc) can prove very frustrating. If I say something in Korean I guess they think that I know Korean well and start talking faster than the speed of sound, which makes it very difficult for a begginer to translate and understand. But my girlfriend or Korean friends that I chat with in Korean here and there usually talk at a reasonable pace, and pause after each sentence, to give me time to comprehend one thing before they say the next, which is exactly what I need. I also try and text a few friends in Korean for more practice, and it's easier. I can think about what I want to say, take my time to make sure and use correct grammar, and use my electronic dictionary to translate a word into Korean if I don't already know what it is.
I have two informal Korean classes on Saturdays, one at 11 am, the other at 5 pm. One hour and two hours long respectively, though the 5pm class is beginner Spanish the first hour, Korean the second hour. The Spanish class is a little lower level than I need, but as it has been a couple years since my last spanish class I'm a little rusty, and it's good to practice. I'm studying Spanish because I want to travel around South America sometime in the next few years, I'm thinking maybe 2013... but it's a long ways off right now. Right now I am thinking a lot about what I will do within the next year. It seems pretty certain that at the end of my contract I am going to meet up with my college buddy Gavin and travel around South East Asia for probably around 4 months. My contract ends at the end of Sept. beginning of Oct. and his work ends mid to late October. I'm considering taking a month long CELTA course which would be full time classes training me to be a more competent ESL teacher specifically for teaching adults. I think I would like to work at a university, all universities prefer a teacher with a masters degree, but I made aqcuaintance with a director of foreign teachers at a university in Seoul and he said that the CELTA certificate was the next best thing. So I am looking at places to take my CELTA class, I was considering Hong Kong, but was told living there is relatively expensive compared to my other options. So now I'm leaning towards Seoul, Thailand, or Vietnam. I would like to line up a job at a university for February or March 2012, that's the time new semesters start, and that would give me enough time to get a lot of travelling in. If I don't get a position lined up in Korea for that time I am thinking I will look for a job in Australia. Possibly teaching ESL, though I am also looking into WWOOFing and other possibilities. So the next year is still a little hazy for what will come, and I am keeping my options open, but I think good things will come.
My school started a new semester of classes recently. My two special 7 year old classes (8 years old by the end of the semester) graduated kindergarten and some went to elementary at different schools. I was very sad to see them go, they were good kids. BUT, I am teaching 3 elementary classes this semester, as opposed to my one elementary class last semester, and two of my favorite students from one of my kinder classes are in one of my classes! I was very excited to see them when I walked in the class for the first time. I taught mostly 7 year olds last semester, with a few 6 year olds and one elementary class in my schedule. 7 year olds (I will repeat myself: Korean age is differently calculated, 7 ~ 5 or 6) are a pretty good middle ground as far as teaching kindergarten goes. They are still really young, but they have all had a year of English class by that point, and they aren't so young that they need babying attention. For example, I have had to zip up the pants of some of my 6 year olds after they use the bathroom... This semester I have more kids on both sides of the 7 year old middle ground. I have more elementary classes, which are nice and I genearlly like, and I have more 6 year old classes. I will also be reading to Korean 4 or 5 year olds soon, I haven't started that class yet, nor have I been told whether I have the 4 year old class or the 5 year old class. If my boss knows me she will give me the 5 year old class, as I am not exactly a baby person. Though I must admit my skills with little kids have definitely grown a lot after 6 months of teaching them. However, I am still not one to coddle a child. Two of my kids in my 1st period class (mostly 1st year English student 6 year olds) cried the entire class for the first three days of the semester. I try to comfort them some, patting them on the back and telling them they will see their mom after school (in both Korean and in English). But I do not baby them, I teach class as though there weren't two kids crying, and I tell them to do their work just like the rest of the kids. It is my belief that babying them will not help them at all in the long run. They need to realize that they are okay on their own and cope with their fear. Apparently my Korean co-teacher doesn't agree, because one of the students has been moved to a different class. The other student had a completely dry day Thursday, with just a few sniffles on Friday, so I'd say my strategy is going quite well!
In general I like my classes this semester. My younger classes, mainly my first class of the day which I just described in part, I feel as though I am doing as much in teaching them behavior as I am in teaching them English at the moment. They need to learn how students should behave in class before we can get a good learning groove down. I think it's going quite well though, and already their behavior seems better than the class I had last semester that was the same level. I think having the kids from the beginning of the semester makes a big difference, though the kids not being quite as rowdy doesn't hurt. I have two classes continued from last semester, an after school class (6 year olds when I got them, 7 now) and an elementary class. I am quite pleased about this, especially the after school class. When I got them their English seemed a little behind par, but with only 4 kids in my class there was lots of time for individual work with them, and I could easily see each students' strengths and weaknesses and work on those accordingly. Also, the book I was required to use for that class was given to me for 4 months of class, and we could have easily finished it in two, which gave me a lot of free time to supplement the lessons from the book or make focus on other subjects entirely. By the end of the semester the four students' English had improved greatly, two of the students in particular, both of whom are very bright, and I felt like I contributed to their great improvement quite a bit. Anyway, I have that class again this semester and I'm excited to see them continue to grow at that pace.
For the past month, maybe month and a half, I have been volunteering at a girls orphanage downtown for an hour every Saturday. A bunch of waygooks and Korean highschool girls go there every Saturday, we teach a little English, but mostly just hang out with the girls and play games. My buddy Dan and I planned the lesson for last weekends visit, and it was actually a lot more work than we thought it was going to be. There is an age difference in the girls, though most are probably 9-12, and there is a difference in their levels of English skill. So it is difficult to plan a lesson and games / activities to supplement the lesson that are both entertaining for the girls and appropriate for all skill levels. But we put a lot of thought and a decent amount of effort in and the lesson was a success! The girls learned about clothing, a few phrases, and most importantly, had fun.
My Saturday's are usually pretty busy, with my two Korean classes, 1 Spanish, Sung-Bin orphanage visit, and the GIC talk that I almost always go to, after dinner I am usually just tired and go home, though sometimes I will meet up with friends before calling it a night. The GIC talk is a nice, semi-educational talk where every week a speaker presents on a topic of their choosing for around an hour, including a question and answer portion. Some of the topics include introduction to journalism, an Irishman that grew up during the 80's and 90's talked about 'the troubles in Northern Ireland' during that time period, New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina were one of the subjects, etc. I am considering doing a presentation on Evolutionary Psychology in the summer, though I have not yet committed to doing one. The GIC (Gwangju International Center) is a great place to meet people and find things to do. There was an advertisement for auditions to a play last Saturday. I thought it would be fun to be in a play, so I auditioned. I don't know what part I got, though the directors seem certain I will be in the play, which will be in mid-May. I don't remember the name of the play, but it was written by Steve Martin, and seems pretty funny.
I'm making a lot of friends outside of my school, which is good because it gets me out and about downtown on the weekends. I have a friend who has a membership at a Jujiutsu gym, and another one who has a membership at a sword fighting gym, both of which sound like they would be a lot of fun to check out, and I'm not sure which one I will go to, but I will definitely do one once I get my body in a little more respectable shape (more so I don't hurt myself than anything).
Well I guess it's a good time to end this post, though I haven't talked about my trip to Shanghai and Suzhou China at all, I think I'll leave that for my next post. I hope you enjoyed reading this, it seems like a relatively thorough summary of my life recently, busy with work, studying / extracurricular activities, and friends! And reading, I have been doing a decent amount of reading novels (mostly nonfiction) recently. Oh, and the big earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan recently didn't affect me at all, I didn't feel any tremors or anything, just in case that crossed your mind. Until next time!
So, what's new? I stopped going to the rock climbing gym I was relatively consistently going to, my friends Shawn and Cheline stopped going. Duyeong still goes, but I wasn't going enough to justify getting another month membership. This cuts my physical activity from a little to almost none, bah... But it's starting to look like spring, it's getting pretty warm out, so I'll probably start doing more hiking soon, and maybe hit up the basketball courts not too far from my house at night after work. I definitely need a little more physical activity in my life... I'm doing a decent amount of studying, my last two weeks not quite as much as I had been for the last 2 months or so, but my Korean is definitely improving, and I can have short conversations with people. Though trying to talk to random Koreans (on the bus or store clerks, etc) can prove very frustrating. If I say something in Korean I guess they think that I know Korean well and start talking faster than the speed of sound, which makes it very difficult for a begginer to translate and understand. But my girlfriend or Korean friends that I chat with in Korean here and there usually talk at a reasonable pace, and pause after each sentence, to give me time to comprehend one thing before they say the next, which is exactly what I need. I also try and text a few friends in Korean for more practice, and it's easier. I can think about what I want to say, take my time to make sure and use correct grammar, and use my electronic dictionary to translate a word into Korean if I don't already know what it is.
I have two informal Korean classes on Saturdays, one at 11 am, the other at 5 pm. One hour and two hours long respectively, though the 5pm class is beginner Spanish the first hour, Korean the second hour. The Spanish class is a little lower level than I need, but as it has been a couple years since my last spanish class I'm a little rusty, and it's good to practice. I'm studying Spanish because I want to travel around South America sometime in the next few years, I'm thinking maybe 2013... but it's a long ways off right now. Right now I am thinking a lot about what I will do within the next year. It seems pretty certain that at the end of my contract I am going to meet up with my college buddy Gavin and travel around South East Asia for probably around 4 months. My contract ends at the end of Sept. beginning of Oct. and his work ends mid to late October. I'm considering taking a month long CELTA course which would be full time classes training me to be a more competent ESL teacher specifically for teaching adults. I think I would like to work at a university, all universities prefer a teacher with a masters degree, but I made aqcuaintance with a director of foreign teachers at a university in Seoul and he said that the CELTA certificate was the next best thing. So I am looking at places to take my CELTA class, I was considering Hong Kong, but was told living there is relatively expensive compared to my other options. So now I'm leaning towards Seoul, Thailand, or Vietnam. I would like to line up a job at a university for February or March 2012, that's the time new semesters start, and that would give me enough time to get a lot of travelling in. If I don't get a position lined up in Korea for that time I am thinking I will look for a job in Australia. Possibly teaching ESL, though I am also looking into WWOOFing and other possibilities. So the next year is still a little hazy for what will come, and I am keeping my options open, but I think good things will come.
My school started a new semester of classes recently. My two special 7 year old classes (8 years old by the end of the semester) graduated kindergarten and some went to elementary at different schools. I was very sad to see them go, they were good kids. BUT, I am teaching 3 elementary classes this semester, as opposed to my one elementary class last semester, and two of my favorite students from one of my kinder classes are in one of my classes! I was very excited to see them when I walked in the class for the first time. I taught mostly 7 year olds last semester, with a few 6 year olds and one elementary class in my schedule. 7 year olds (I will repeat myself: Korean age is differently calculated, 7 ~ 5 or 6) are a pretty good middle ground as far as teaching kindergarten goes. They are still really young, but they have all had a year of English class by that point, and they aren't so young that they need babying attention. For example, I have had to zip up the pants of some of my 6 year olds after they use the bathroom... This semester I have more kids on both sides of the 7 year old middle ground. I have more elementary classes, which are nice and I genearlly like, and I have more 6 year old classes. I will also be reading to Korean 4 or 5 year olds soon, I haven't started that class yet, nor have I been told whether I have the 4 year old class or the 5 year old class. If my boss knows me she will give me the 5 year old class, as I am not exactly a baby person. Though I must admit my skills with little kids have definitely grown a lot after 6 months of teaching them. However, I am still not one to coddle a child. Two of my kids in my 1st period class (mostly 1st year English student 6 year olds) cried the entire class for the first three days of the semester. I try to comfort them some, patting them on the back and telling them they will see their mom after school (in both Korean and in English). But I do not baby them, I teach class as though there weren't two kids crying, and I tell them to do their work just like the rest of the kids. It is my belief that babying them will not help them at all in the long run. They need to realize that they are okay on their own and cope with their fear. Apparently my Korean co-teacher doesn't agree, because one of the students has been moved to a different class. The other student had a completely dry day Thursday, with just a few sniffles on Friday, so I'd say my strategy is going quite well!
In general I like my classes this semester. My younger classes, mainly my first class of the day which I just described in part, I feel as though I am doing as much in teaching them behavior as I am in teaching them English at the moment. They need to learn how students should behave in class before we can get a good learning groove down. I think it's going quite well though, and already their behavior seems better than the class I had last semester that was the same level. I think having the kids from the beginning of the semester makes a big difference, though the kids not being quite as rowdy doesn't hurt. I have two classes continued from last semester, an after school class (6 year olds when I got them, 7 now) and an elementary class. I am quite pleased about this, especially the after school class. When I got them their English seemed a little behind par, but with only 4 kids in my class there was lots of time for individual work with them, and I could easily see each students' strengths and weaknesses and work on those accordingly. Also, the book I was required to use for that class was given to me for 4 months of class, and we could have easily finished it in two, which gave me a lot of free time to supplement the lessons from the book or make focus on other subjects entirely. By the end of the semester the four students' English had improved greatly, two of the students in particular, both of whom are very bright, and I felt like I contributed to their great improvement quite a bit. Anyway, I have that class again this semester and I'm excited to see them continue to grow at that pace.
For the past month, maybe month and a half, I have been volunteering at a girls orphanage downtown for an hour every Saturday. A bunch of waygooks and Korean highschool girls go there every Saturday, we teach a little English, but mostly just hang out with the girls and play games. My buddy Dan and I planned the lesson for last weekends visit, and it was actually a lot more work than we thought it was going to be. There is an age difference in the girls, though most are probably 9-12, and there is a difference in their levels of English skill. So it is difficult to plan a lesson and games / activities to supplement the lesson that are both entertaining for the girls and appropriate for all skill levels. But we put a lot of thought and a decent amount of effort in and the lesson was a success! The girls learned about clothing, a few phrases, and most importantly, had fun.
My Saturday's are usually pretty busy, with my two Korean classes, 1 Spanish, Sung-Bin orphanage visit, and the GIC talk that I almost always go to, after dinner I am usually just tired and go home, though sometimes I will meet up with friends before calling it a night. The GIC talk is a nice, semi-educational talk where every week a speaker presents on a topic of their choosing for around an hour, including a question and answer portion. Some of the topics include introduction to journalism, an Irishman that grew up during the 80's and 90's talked about 'the troubles in Northern Ireland' during that time period, New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina were one of the subjects, etc. I am considering doing a presentation on Evolutionary Psychology in the summer, though I have not yet committed to doing one. The GIC (Gwangju International Center) is a great place to meet people and find things to do. There was an advertisement for auditions to a play last Saturday. I thought it would be fun to be in a play, so I auditioned. I don't know what part I got, though the directors seem certain I will be in the play, which will be in mid-May. I don't remember the name of the play, but it was written by Steve Martin, and seems pretty funny.
I'm making a lot of friends outside of my school, which is good because it gets me out and about downtown on the weekends. I have a friend who has a membership at a Jujiutsu gym, and another one who has a membership at a sword fighting gym, both of which sound like they would be a lot of fun to check out, and I'm not sure which one I will go to, but I will definitely do one once I get my body in a little more respectable shape (more so I don't hurt myself than anything).
Well I guess it's a good time to end this post, though I haven't talked about my trip to Shanghai and Suzhou China at all, I think I'll leave that for my next post. I hope you enjoyed reading this, it seems like a relatively thorough summary of my life recently, busy with work, studying / extracurricular activities, and friends! And reading, I have been doing a decent amount of reading novels (mostly nonfiction) recently. Oh, and the big earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan recently didn't affect me at all, I didn't feel any tremors or anything, just in case that crossed your mind. Until next time!
Friday, January 14, 2011
Long time
So it's been a long time since I posted a blog, I know both of you have been waiting on the edge of your seats! lol... It's Friday evening here, and boy am I glad it's the weekend. Teaching has gotten easier for me, less wearing is probably a better way of putting it. But this was a long week. With a dumb disagreement with a co teacher, to a kid stealing my candy, and a few other petty things and some not petty things wearing on my patience, I am ready for the weekend.
I had to test my older kindergarten kids (Korean 8 year olds now that it's a new year and they all turn 8) to see what level elementary school English class they should be placed into. This was tough on both my kids and me. A lot of them didn't do as well as I expected them too, though some did better than I thought they would. I guess we are all biased... Plus some kids do better on tests or under pressure than others. They had about 50 minutes of written test, and 5 - 10 minutes for each individual student to take an oral test. Their reading comprehension seemed very weak overall. Though Koreans tend to teach children to memorize more so than understand, which would make reading comprehension difficult... One of my brightest students and best behaved students aced most of the oral test until it came time for the reading comprehension. She got the first 3 questions right without much of a problem, but couldn't for the life of her come up with an answer to the last two questions and nearly broke down crying. I felt so bad. The next day I made sure she won a game and gave her a piece of chocolate for winning the game.
But it's time to forget about that because it's the weekend, and it's payday!! I'm going out to dinner with a Korean buddy and his wife tonight. Might get a few beers with him after, but not staying out late. I have Korean class in the morning and want to spend a good amount of time studying after class with my buddy from class. Studying before as well would be good, but I rarely get up in time to do that. I have been relatively adament with my studies. At first when I was trying to think of something in Korean I would often get Spanish going through my head, now at the end of studying Korean for a few hours I can hardly remember Spanish at all.
We found out today that our usual 5 days off in the summer (9 days total with the weekend before and weekend after) has been cut to 2 work days off. This sort of blows for me as it's my first year, and I probably won't get the "approximately 10 vacation days" my contract states. But one of my co-workers is contacting the foreigner labor department through the Korean government and asking about it, so maybe it will change. We are also putting a letter together to our boss basically saying that we know we have pretty good working conditions, but that all teachers get a week off somewhere. Some public school teachers get months off, we don't even have a full week off scheduled for the entire year. 3 work days in a row is the most. A little frustrating when you want to travel, not to mention you see all the other teachers taking a month off during Christmas and a week off here and there. But, I figure if I save up some money I can see a lot more if I do my travelling all at once after my contract(s?) are done. As airfare is generally the most expensive part of travelling (depending on where you go and what you spend your money on obviously) a one way ticket and travelling from place to place thereafter would be much cheaper and give more time to explore.
Well, I have dinner plans soons, so I will get going. peace!
I had to test my older kindergarten kids (Korean 8 year olds now that it's a new year and they all turn 8) to see what level elementary school English class they should be placed into. This was tough on both my kids and me. A lot of them didn't do as well as I expected them too, though some did better than I thought they would. I guess we are all biased... Plus some kids do better on tests or under pressure than others. They had about 50 minutes of written test, and 5 - 10 minutes for each individual student to take an oral test. Their reading comprehension seemed very weak overall. Though Koreans tend to teach children to memorize more so than understand, which would make reading comprehension difficult... One of my brightest students and best behaved students aced most of the oral test until it came time for the reading comprehension. She got the first 3 questions right without much of a problem, but couldn't for the life of her come up with an answer to the last two questions and nearly broke down crying. I felt so bad. The next day I made sure she won a game and gave her a piece of chocolate for winning the game.
But it's time to forget about that because it's the weekend, and it's payday!! I'm going out to dinner with a Korean buddy and his wife tonight. Might get a few beers with him after, but not staying out late. I have Korean class in the morning and want to spend a good amount of time studying after class with my buddy from class. Studying before as well would be good, but I rarely get up in time to do that. I have been relatively adament with my studies. At first when I was trying to think of something in Korean I would often get Spanish going through my head, now at the end of studying Korean for a few hours I can hardly remember Spanish at all.
We found out today that our usual 5 days off in the summer (9 days total with the weekend before and weekend after) has been cut to 2 work days off. This sort of blows for me as it's my first year, and I probably won't get the "approximately 10 vacation days" my contract states. But one of my co-workers is contacting the foreigner labor department through the Korean government and asking about it, so maybe it will change. We are also putting a letter together to our boss basically saying that we know we have pretty good working conditions, but that all teachers get a week off somewhere. Some public school teachers get months off, we don't even have a full week off scheduled for the entire year. 3 work days in a row is the most. A little frustrating when you want to travel, not to mention you see all the other teachers taking a month off during Christmas and a week off here and there. But, I figure if I save up some money I can see a lot more if I do my travelling all at once after my contract(s?) are done. As airfare is generally the most expensive part of travelling (depending on where you go and what you spend your money on obviously) a one way ticket and travelling from place to place thereafter would be much cheaper and give more time to explore.
Well, I have dinner plans soons, so I will get going. peace!
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