Turkey Day

To my great surprise, delight and apprehension, the current lead foreign teacher let me know when I came in yesterday morning that I would be teaching. While I was nervous, I was grateful for the opportunity because I had been sitting through so many observations and was ready to jump into the water (and hope it wasn't a shark tank). So I scrambled around to locate the books, make photocopies and then plan the lesson. My coworkers were helpful and helped me print out class rosters and gave me information about problem students.

The first class that I taught is what they call a 'funeral class.' As the name implies, people are more talkative and energetic at a funeral. Including the dead guy. The class started out well, I was going to play some ice breakers which is a more structured way of getting to know the students, but that pretty much dissolved as a student in the back kept calling out random things and tried to get me to say words in Korean...which I didn't. After that point I just had a conversation with the class to get them talking. Things came to a grinding halt, however as soon as I tried to get them to pair up and work on a worksheet together. First of all, just getting the students to move and sit next to their partners was like pulling teeth. Then, getting them to speak and not just copy answers...To be fair, I went into this class at a disadvantage. I had about half an hour to find an old copy of the leveled book (because the foreign teacher I was covering is extremely disorganized and lost the book he was working on) pick a random lesson that had nothing to do with what they have been working on, and try and make it interesting.

I would say overall, that was a fail.

It is difficult because for speaking classes, one would assume that the majority of the time should be spent speaking, but I work for a business and the clients (parents) want to see that their children are filling in their book. It didn't help that the teacher they usually have has a very different teaching style.

The second class I taught went much better. It was a higher level writing class and the teacher made copies for me and printed out the roster early on so I was able to plan more extensively. Also, the teacher stayed in the room with me, which made me feel better about things. (On a side note, let me say that the simple act of photocopying something is a pandora's box of grief: Everything is in Korean and it's also the most complicated Xerox machine I have ever encountered and I'm close to a pro.) While I still have many criticisms about how the lesson went, at least I wasn't sitting in a completely silent room, naiively waiting for someone to say something...anything.

I then made the mistake of going to the Korean head teacher to ask if she had seen one of the books I was going to use for tomorrow (now today). She asked me why and I said I wanted to prepare the lesson for tomorrow. And like a flash she was over by the foreign head teacher saying I wasn't ready and that I had to observe until they said I could teach. I'm going to be honest, I kind of wanted to scream.

Firstly, I taught for slightly over a half a year, by myself, for full days, in a class of eight year olds. I spent a LOT of time and went into a fair amount of debt to get a degree in EDUCATION. I have been reading books about teaching english, I have been talking to teachers all week about teaching there, I've been taking extensive notes while in the classroom, I've been spending my stupid amounts of free time looking up information about teaching english in Korea. I came here because it was not a barely over minimum wage job at a convenience store. It was a job in the general vicinity of teaching that had the added perks of being in a completely new and exciting place. So yes, I am going to spend more of my free time writing lesson plans and grading papers. I am also going to go out and see new things and explore. Anyway, suffice to say, I was a tad peeved and frustrated. If I had known that this was experience they would take away if they knew I had I wouldn't have said anything in the first place.

Later at Thanksgiving dinner, I asked the foreign head teacher what he thought I should do and he said that he's still going to give me classes, I'm just going to teach half of them. After that I felt a little better.

On to Thanksgiving. Right across the street from the school there's a foreign bar named HQ where we all headed after we got out of work. It was naturally, the loudest place I had been in South Korea. There were no more tables or seats, so our group stood around awkwardly and talked while we waited for the dinner to be served. It was weird after being the minority for almost a week to all of a sudden be in a room full of foreigners. The TV on the wall was playing professional pool, but Ley told me that when there are Eagles games on they watch them instead. Oh, and four new teachers came today. Apparently, they have been in Seoul all week for training. Why I was the only one who didn't go to training, who knows. But I am glad. I was ready to be thrown in. Anyway, we got to know the newbies a little better and then the food came. It was mashed potatoes, and turkey covered in stuffing. It tasted like Rosemary and it was phenomenal for not being home cooked.

Om nom nom.

After we ate we sat around talking until late (one of the perks of working later) and then the other newbies and I took a taxi back to the motel we are now all staying in.

Disney-style.

Also, talking about Thanksgiving with the students was hilarious. One of the teachers asked the students how we celebrate Thanksgiving in America. One response was "You eat a turkey." Yes, the teacher replied, we each eat a whole turkey by ourselves and the kids laughed. In one class we went around and said what we were thankful for. I said I was thankful for my father who works hard to make money to help my siblings and I go to college, for having such a great family, and for the opportunity to come teach in Korea.

Xoxo