School days

In talking to my folks, it was pointed out to me that I really don't talk much about the actual teaching part of teaching here.

So, to rectify that a bit, here is an overview of my work-life here (this gets long - the short version is that I teach at two schools and have 2 adult workshops/week):

I am at school from 8:30-4:30, no matter how many classes I happen to have that day, except for Thursday when I go to the elementary school up the street.

There are about 850 kids in my home-base school, and over the course of two weeks, I am scheduled to see them all (this rarely happens, as there is usually a schedule change, a class gets pulled, or something else happens). I usually have three 45 minute classes per day, as well as both a middle school and an elementary school teacher workshop each week. I go to a second middle school every Friday, and I see all ~30 kids there every week.

At my regular school, I can basically do what ever I want. I have three different grade levels, but there is such a wide range of ability within those classes (and I see them so rarely) that I usually plan one basic lesson and differentiate slightly based on the ability level of the students. My classes at this school are between 29-36 students each.

For a while this year, I have struggled with figuring out what my role here really is. What I have settled on for now is that my class is a time for students to hear English spoken by someone who grew up speaking it, realize that using English can be fun, and to practice speaking as much as possible. Those are really the only things I can give to my students that they don't get in their regular classes. So I play a lot of games, review and introduce some vocabulary, and try to be as engaging as possible. Also, this makes management a million times easier for me, since they know that if they are obnoxious it just takes longer to get to the game. Oh, and I use intermittent reinforcement with candy to buy their cooperation (though they will compete against each other even without the bribe most of the time).

At the country school, I have been asked by the teacher I work with to teach from the text. I can add additional activities, but still, the lesson from the book needs to be completed. There are weeks when I can do whatever I want, and with these classes it is a ton of fun. I LOVE coming to this school! The classes are tiny (about 10 kids/class) and the kids are awesome.

The ability level of the teachers in my two workshops are pretty dramatically different. The middle school group is pretty high, and so I use "modeling" of more interactive teaching techniques as a way to review basics, and have had some great conversations with this group. My elementary school group has one person with very strong English skills and two who are either intimidated by the older woman or who have a more difficult time with English - probably a bit of both. This is the group that is teaching me how to curse and how to tell old men to leave me alone.

I have an English Lab to teach out of, but the monitor for the video/computer project part is broken. In Korea, the students stay in their homeroom and the teachers move from classroom to classroom for most subjects.

Teachers have work areas in a couple of different rooms in the school based on if they have a homeroom or not. I am in the main teacher's room, and have been told that it is a lot less fun then being in the grade-level homeroom teacher rooms, as it is a lot less social and the vice principal is in there.

Classes are 45 minutes long, and there is a 10 minute break between each. Students get about an hour for lunch/playtime. Also, the students are responsible for cleaning the school. Imagine how well a 14 year old would clean a bathroom, and you have an idea of the cleanliness of the school.

I probably should update some of this with pictures at some point...

ramblings

I was talking to a friend the other night about what he missed about teaching here. In addition to the basics - missing friends and food and the ease of planning on lesson every couple of weeks, he mentioned missing being removed from the drama and politics of being in a school.

Because of language, I'm immune to all of the nit-picking and bickering, gossip and criticisms that tend to go along with working in schools everywhere. I don't have to worry about grades or being held responsible for student performance on standardized tests, or what the teacher down the hall thinks of my management style, or who so-and-so is dating. I smile, show up, and have fun with my students.

But often I find myself really missing the community that goes along with teaching in a school. I look at some of the teachers, and try to figure out who I would have been friends with if I was able to actually communicate other than the most basic of pleasantries. I think I would have been able to hang out with the Korean teacher who tries to teach me both basic words and interjections, and who gave me some sort of powder to use as a mask/scrub (which is AWESOME, by the way - it might get its own post). I also would have liked to get to know the quite teacher who asks about my knitting every once in a while, or the one who always makes sure I know where to go for anything we do as a group. There is the teacher who is a little scary, but spikes better than almost every other teacher in the school (men included) and the secretary at the country school I go to who makes me rosette pins or hair ornaments. The PE teacher who will have to leave for the army soon and who break dances between plays during volleyball games, the soccer coach who drinks protein shakes and lifts weights, or the teacher who is a mother of twins and who is more competitive and has more fun playing volleyball than anyone else on the court.

Of course, I don't mind at all that I'm fairly insulated from the corporal punishment, or the backstabbing or any of the hugely long list of things that suck about being in a school here. I guess I just wonder what it would be like if I really could communicate. I mean, even if I get to the point where my Korean isn't just at a survival level, having a real, in-depth conversation might be beyond me. And while I feel like I'm starting to have a community of friends both in the general area (Suncheon, Yeosu) and within my immediate living area (Gwangyang), it is different than what I am used to from being in a regular school environment. Even as an outsider in New Orleans and in New Mexico, I was still a part of the school community. Now? I don't really know what I am. The teachers love that I eat in the cafeteria and that I play volleyball, that I'm nice and say hello and try to use some of the little Korean I know, and they notice that the kids like me and that I'm nice to them. I'm kind of like a mascot in many ways - the tall, friendly, smiling foreigner with strange eyes. Like a puppy.