Goodbye Korean Students and Teachers

So this week marks the end of my contract in Korea, which also means it marks the completion of a FULL year in Korea.

There were times where I was fed up with students (who wouldn't have it happen at some point) but this week definitely showed me that my students actually WILL miss me.

Monday/Tuesday: Girl's Middle School (6 classes)
My grade 1 classes all wrote letters to me about how much they would miss me. Since their English isn't that great, it was really sweet of them. Most of the letters where about my pretty hair (which is now purple) and apologies for them talking in class.

My grade 3 classes BOTH surprised me with parties!
3.2 class (I had first). When I walked into the class, they pulled ribbon poppers, and had a cake with lit candles for me. They they had a spread of food for a party, and tons of messages on the board for me.
3.1 class had blown up balloons for my entrance and as I "walked the catwalk" into the class they sang "Over the Rainbow" to me and had a spread of food for another surprise party. Yeah, it was pretty awesome.

Wednesday: Elementary School
Since I teach grades 3-4 together, and grades 5-6 together, the teachers took a picture of me with the classes, and then they printed them off and gave them to me before I left. My Grade 5 students gave me a picture of their class, with a note from each of them written in the border.

Thursday: Elementary School
For grades 3-5 we had a movie/snack party, and the students gave me tons of snacks. My grade 4's (which have slowly made me like Thursdays a little bit) gave me goodbye notes and some gifts. One girl (the quietest in the class) spent the first 20 minutes of class writing a letter to me. She had made a draft in her notebook, and she copied it over VERY NEATLY to stationary to give to me before I left. My grade 6 students (which I'm NOT the fondest of) just watched movies in class, but the one GOOD student remembered that I liked coconut chips, and brought me a bag of them, with a goodbye letter.

Camping Party!

Friday night I had a date...with 8 korean 13 year olds. You're jealous, I know. I would be too if I were you.

The week before my kiddies came to me asking me to come camping with them. Of course I said yes. The teacher was surprised, and asked me multiple times if I wanted to go. I said yes each time.

So Thursday night, the teacher called to remind me about camping and to bring "spare clothes and a toothbrush" as my students would "prepare the house" for me.

So on Friday, I showed up to school, and the 6th graders came to make sure I was prepared for camping. They were excited that i said I was still coming :)

After lunch came and went, my other students asked if I was coming swimming with them (I usually ride the bus back to Jinan with them) and they were all a little upset that I wasn't going to be on the bus. But, I told them I was going camping with grade 6 and they seemed ok with that.

I hung out at the school until the 6th graders came to get me for CAMPING TIME around 3pm. And here's how it went:

Me & Co-teacher (CT)
The Boys: Mark, Jeep, Alex, Boss
The Girls: Crystal, Brownie, Victoria, Star (she recently changed her name from Christmas)

3:00pm - Boss comes to me "Teacher! Camping time! Let's go!"
I head with Boss downstairs, and the kids are hard at work setting up the tents. They show me where mine is to go, and Jeep and Victoria set it up. It's a single tent, so about the size of me and not much bigger.

Jeep making my house!

The boys made their own house - no tent involved!

4:15pm-ish - Now that my "house" is set up, it's time to prepare for the nights SCARE TEST! WOOOO. I trek up the mountain with Star and Victoria, and we place home made flags near the top. At night, we will break into groups and each group will have to come (in the dark) to retreive a flag. 

5:00pm - BBQ Party! Brownie has been hard at work getting dinner set up. She has made rice, ribs, hotdogs, steaks, and pork steaks for the group. I stuff myself silly. The students have a contest to see who gets the last little bit of Chilsung Cider from the bottle. I really wanted to cider, but apparently I had to judge the contest. The contest was "who can say the nicest thing to April Teacher" Ok, I can totally dig that contest!I was told "You're beautiful" "You are strong" "You're eyes are pretty" "You're English is good" - hahaha, I hope my English is good! Brownie wins, I was biased after her banging BBQ skills.

Brownie's cooking at its finest - BBQ party!

6:00pm - I'M STILL NOT DIGESTED but it's time to play a riveting game of Kick the Bottle. We had no can, so we had to modify it. There was hiding, tagging, kicking, and LOTS of running going on. I pretty much waddle everywhere. I shouldn't have eaten so much.

7:00pm - ICE CREAM SURPRISE! The principal comes by with a few other teachers and they have brought us ice-cream. Luckily, it was coffee flavored to give me some energy for the rest of the games!

7:30pm - Back to Kick the Bottle. After a few more rounds, it's time for JUMP ROPE CONTEST! Since I'm not a student, I'm in charge of being one of the rope rope turners. Not that exciting....I REALLY wanted to introduce double dutch, but I didn't think it would go over too well. Or someone would get hurt - probably me.

8:00pm - Jump Rope was stopped by new people arriving to the campsite. Oh, it's my students' parents! With more food! MORE FOOD?!?!? Watermelon, Steaks, etc. I am in trouble with all this food. I introduced myself to the various family members (in Korean), and avoided the fire pit with the food as it also had Soju and Beer....and I still can't drink due to LASIK.

8:30pm - I've now been given multiple slices of Watermelon, and have eaten them all.  I introduce the students to an American tradition - the watermelon seed spitting contest! I rep the Red/White/Blue well and win. I hope spitting isn't offensive. The parents are busy with their alcohol so they probably don't notice either way.

9:00pm - MOVIE TIME! We escape from the parents and head to the library. We have to walk in the dark and they students are already scared. I'm not sure they will bode to well in the SCARE TEST later, but we make it to the library. The students put on Matilda, and LUCKILY it's in English. Boy, am I happy I don't have to watch all my movies through subtitles. I don't know how they put up with subtitles all the time.

11:00pm - Movie is over and I hope it's bedtime. I'm wrong, of course. We say goodbye to the parents and family members and relax by the fire pit for a few minutes to prepare for the SCARE TEST!

11:10pm - SCARE TEST TIME! We break into groups - Victoria is too scared to go (even though she was with us when we set up the flags) so my group is just me and Brownie. The first group is Mark, Alex, and Star. They head off.

Scare Test buddies - me and Brownie!

11:15pm -  Me and Brownie head off with a flashlight. We decide to scare the 1st group as they come back, so we hide in a side street when we see their flashlight. We successfully scare them, YAY! They head back to camp, and Brownie and I continue on to the flags. The hill is steep up to the flags, so I only go halfway up. I make Brownie go the rest of the way, because I'm the teacher and I can do what I want. She comes back down with the flag, and we head back to the campsite. Brownie decides we should pretend there were no flags when we got there. Well, I can't argue with a good idea!

Once we got back, we hid out flag, then told the other groups that the flags were gone. Since the 3rd (and final group) had already left, the 1st group got worried that something had taken the flags! JUST KIDDING! We ran and got our hidden flag, and they thought it was a good joke.

11:40pm-the 3rd group returned, and we all put out flags into the fire and Brownie got to work making late night ramen (they pronounce it Ramyen here) but I was still TOO full from dinner/ice cream to have more food.

12:30am - FINALLY BEDTIME! We all got into our tents and it was lights OUT. I was exhausted, so of course I fell right asleep!

The night day I woke up around 7am (thanks to the sun, and the students waking at that same time) and after a few minutes, I packed up and then got a ride home with Mark's mother.

6th Grade Camping Trip.

Camping with my students....not a bad Friday night. It will DEF be one of those memories I keep, being able to meet my students parents, and bonding with the class outside of school.

Ghamsamnidah,
Apes :)

My Dancers

Over the weekend my 3rd Grade students from Jinan Girls Middle School competed in a dance competition....and they WON FIRST PLACE!!! WOOO HOOO!!!

Today at school, they performed for us.

**Sorry about the missing sound?!?!?

Ghamsamnidah,
Apes

My students are performers!

Check out a mash up of videos I took when my Elementary students were performing for the families.

Ghamsamnidah,
Apes :)

A day in the life...

So today happened to be White Day in Korea (more on that later). That doesn't make a difference in my teaching, but here's a typical day at my Thursday (Elementary) school.

8:00am - Catch the bus to school. Surprisingly, no Korean decided to chat me up today.

8:30am - Arrive at school.

9:00am - Realize I prepared the wrong chapter to teach, and log onto www.waygook.org for a quick lesson plan matching the CORRECT chapter.

9:20am - first class starts (Grade 3): These are little kids (9 years old - but in Korea, they look more like 6 year olds). Review the alphabet and counting. Play a counting game, then watch a youtube clip of a "Going to the Zoo" song (next week we learn about animals).

10:00am - Grade 4 class starts. Go to class, no students. See them in the library with the teacher, so head back to the teachers room to play on the internet.

10:20am - Grade 4 teacher comes in, tells me that the class is ready (and apologizes for being late). Once in class, the kid who only knows English words that deal with poop (poop, dung, poo poo, etc) gives me candy for White Day. The smart girl in class (tries to teach me a new Korean word each class) tells me she will find me a "couple" since I am "solo". Yeah, good luck lil girl. She also gave herself the English name Juliet. She must love romantic tragedies.

10:40am - Whew, teaching wears me out. Time for a 30minute break to play on the internet again (said Hi to Poppa Dukes and wished a high school buddy Happy Birthday - he told me he'd be a millionaire one day, still waiting for that announcement, Gerard!)

11:10am - Oh, class again. This time it's Grade 5. Do some book/CD work. The chapter is "My favorite subject is English" At the end of the lesson, only 1 student actually said English was her favorite language (stupid PE class swept ALL the other classes). But, good sucking up, Lora. That's the closest to an English name I have in that class. The rest of the names are: Ghost, Galaxy, Ladybug (yes, this is a boy), Korea, MP3, and my favorite: God. Yup, Mexicans might name their kids Jesus, but Korean kids pick God as their English nickname. I'm always afraid to call on him in class: "What's your favorite animal, God? Where do you live, God?" One day I am going to throw out "What's the meaning of life, God?" and record his answer. Should be pretty epic. I will be the only one that gets the joke.

11:50am - Last (and smallest) class of the day. It's Boss' (yes, he picked that name) birthday, so of course we sing to him. 5 minutes of class...completed. Then it's on to book and CD work. Today we learned "Where do you live?" After practicing, I asked it to each student at the end of class as as a wrap-up. Best answers go to Tolstoy for his answer of "Space" and Lezzi's answer of "April's house". I HOPE I don't go home to find a new roommate (Lezzi). But if I do, maybe my dishes will get washed more frequently.

12:30pm - LUNCHTIME! Today I was feeling adventurous, or maybe I drank too much coffee, so I sat with the 1st graders. The 1st graders do NOT have a native teacher, and I am the ONLY "wagkook" they see in their tiny town. They kids were mesmerized by me. I knew however, that they knew I was an English teacher (no, not because I knew they could see I have white skin), but because I heard them say "young-o songsangnim" which means English teacher. Woo hoo, I can understand a 1st grader! Then the little boy in front of me started saying any English words he knew: banana (while I was eating an apple), yellow, and so on. Then I looked at him, took a bite of my seafood-type dish and said "mashisoyo" (delicious) to him. HE GEEKED OUT!!! His eyes went HUGE, he mouth broke into a HUGE toothless (he only had a few teeth in there) and laughed so hard I thought he was going to choke. Then he started repeating to his buddies what I think translates to "the crazy white woman said that the spicy squid tentacle was delicious!" Yeah, pretty epic. The rest of the kids sitting with me just started at me, and when I would look at them I would say a random Korean word "Hello" "Water" "Teacher" and boy did THEY freak! This was causing such a commotion that the kindergartners decided to come over and see the fuss. So I gave a Korean hello and they scattered back, so excited! On my way out, Juliet (grade 4) grabbed me and pointed to her apple and told me "apple is april's friend". Hmm..I sure am hoping that the Apple isn't the "couple" she is finding for me.


1:00pm - And I'm done with work. Time to play on the internet and get some lesson planning done (hhahaahha).

And that's what a normal day in the life of Apes is like. In case you were wondering.

Ghamsamnidah,
Apes:)

"Teaching Clothes"

So in each country I have been in, the teaching attire is different:

Thailand
Each day of the week you are supposed to wear a certain color.

• Monday = Yellow: wear this color to show respect to the Royal Family
• Tuesday = Pink: wear this color to show repect to the King
• Wednesday = Green
• Thursday = Orange: I'm not sure, but I assume it's to show respect to the Monk's (they wear orange robes in Thailand)
• Friday = Blue: wear this color to show repect to the Queen (my school let us choose to wear yellow OR blue on Fridays, as blue was my school's color)

There are specific "teaching shirts" that are the colors for the days of the week. They look like hawaiian shirts, and all the teachers wear them. You can even see workers of other industries wearing a similar style shirt.

Along with the shirt, I was required to wear a skirt - NO PANTS for me!!

Left to Right: Our Boss Mel (in the school polo), Angie (you can see the blue under her blazer), Me in my "Teaching shirt" and Meghan (she's a rebel!)

Myanmar
In Myanmar, I was there for an English camp, so the dress code was not specific. Even still, business attire was expected. Dresses, skirts, dress pants were the daily wear.

South Korea

In South Korea, there is no uniform and being in a rural area, the dress code is even more lax. Most of my schools are ok with me wearing jeans and a sweatshirt (not even a dressy top!). The "different" thing about the attire here is the shoes. It doesn't matter WHAT shoes you wear, as soon as you get into the school building, you change into a pair of slippers. Didn't bring any? Don't worry, each school has a supply of basic ones with their school name on them for visitors.

School "slippers" for guests (or me, when I don't bring my own)

It's interesting to see the different uniforms in each country!

Ghamsamnidah,
Apes :)

...and the first week has finished!

Whew. After a LONG break from students, I survived my first week back...and it wasn't so bad. I was reminded that I actually LIKE most of my students, and they like me back (DUH!).

My first comment about this: I AM SO HAPPY TO BE STARTING AT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW SEMESTER AND NOT HALFWAY THROUGH THE YEAR!! And now that that's out of the way....here's my recap:

Monday/Tuesday:
I teach at an all girl's middle school. They range from Grade 1 (14 years old) to Grade 3 (16 years old). To me, they all seem 12 years old. I guess that's Korean aging for ya! My goal with these students is to actually LEARN their names this year. Makes it MUCH easier when you want to call on someone, or make someone be quiet. So, I made a seating chart and called on them by name to introduce themselves to the class. So far, so good. Well, good-ish. There was tons of laughter of my pronunciation (no surprise there), but I'm getting it! I am making sure to bring my seating charts to each class.

Grade 1: ALL NEW STUDENTS! Well, I have 2 that come from my elementary schools. But other than that - ALL new! This should be fun. Plus, I have a new co-teacher for these classes. He is Korean and his English name is Steven. He does not hesitate to put the girls in their place when they are being loud (YAY!!!) AND he told me my class was "fun" and that he was excited to be part of my classes. So far, so good.

Grade 2: My grade 1's from last year. Surprisingly, not as bad (behavior wise) as they were last year. BUT, it was only day one. This year I have my Grade 1 co-teacher for this class, and I mostly feel like she is one of the students. She sits in the back and reads, unless she's goofing off with the students when I am trying to teach. I will be working on her "co-teaching" this term.

Grade 3: I loved these girls last year, and nothing has changed there. They are AWESOME! To start the class, I handed out cards from American students that had written to them (part of a postcard exchange last term) and they LOVED them! They didn't believe that they were really from America at first, but I put them at ease. They really enjoyed the cards (Big thanks to Mama Dukes for participating in the exchange!).

Wednesday:
This is the day I have trouble with the bus. Luckily, there was NO PROBLEM this morning!!!! As it was the first day I was worried about being late. At this school, I teach 2 grades at once, for 2 periods (40 min each). I have 2 new co-teachers (3/4th grade) and they are young (just out of their required military service) and have GREAT English! The teachers gave the students nametags for my class, so now I can actually call them by name! Woo Hoo! Except for my 5/6th graders - they got English nicknames.

Grade 3/4: My grade 4's I had last year for Grade 3 (they are 10 years old). My grade 3's were new, and when I mean new - I mean NEW! They are VERY VERY VERY low level, which is going to be hard to plan for since my grade 4's are MUCH MUCH higher. Think like this: Grade 3 - can't write their name. Grade 4 - can write full sentences. So this is going to be tough to plan for.

Grade 5/6: These are ALL returning students for me - except for the "new-to-the-school-students" But those kids are GREAT! They are really excited for an English teacher, and ARE NOT shy about practicing their English. They pretty much followed me out of the classroom to keep talking to me. Last year this class was 7 students, and now it is 14 - which will be easier to plan for, but I do miss my small class. They gave themselves nicknames (English) and wrote them on their nametags. They are excited to be called random English words.

Thursday:
I no longer have my driver to take me to school...so it's another bus day for me. It comes at 8am, which is the time I USED to get up to meet my driver. So, that part isn't too fun. All the co-teachers at this school were around last year, but now have swapped grades. But, they are accustomed to my teaching style, so that's nice.

Grade 3: WOW. Last term I had 8 students in this class for 10 year olds. Now I have 14...WITH BASIC ENGLISH SKILLS. I am pretty sure next week we will be going over the alphabet. But, they are all excited to have me as their first native speaker teacher, so they are full of energy (not ALWAYS a good thing!).

Grade 4: My grade 3's from last year, plus a few new faces. They have quieted down a little since last term...but still love drawing poop pictures all over the place. Looks like another "shitty term" with them.

Grade 5: Most of my grade 4's from last term - with a few missing faces. Last year there was about 18 in class, now only 15. Not too bad of a class size, so that's good. They also got English nicknames. Going over "What did you do over vacation" I drew a picture of me snowboarding and wrote "Muju" (the name of the resort) in Hanguel, and they were all "WOOOOOOW!!" "OOHHHH TEACHER!!!" "VERRRY GOOD TEACHER!!!" and clapped at my writing in Korean. It is a SUPER easy word to write (무 주) but, it made me feel good that I impressed my little 12 year olds.

Grade 6: My EXACT class from Grade 5 last year - no new faces, no faces that dropped out. I am excited about having them again because there are only 8 of them, and they are AWESOME! They love to participate and ALWAYS try to converse with me. Plus, they bring me candy (and today, tea).

Friday:
I never have problems with my bus this day - and today I have hope for the other days! As I waited for my 8am bus, my Thursday bus driver came up to me and pointed at his bus, I told him (in Korean) - No. Donghyeong (the name of my Fri school). He replied with an "Ahhh" and moved away. And then my Wed driver came over - pointed to his bus and said my Wed school name. I replied with a "No. Donghyeong" again. Then he moved away. Looks like my bus drivers are looking out for me!!!

Grade 3: A teacher from my Wed school is now my Friday Grade 3 teacher. All new students, and very low level. Hopefully starting the book with them won't be too hard.

The rest of my Friday classes were cancelled - but my students saw me at lunch and were so excited to see me again. My student from last year, Chris, had me eat lunch with him, and told me how tall I was now. After lunch, I get to leave....I love starting my weekends around noon on Fridays instead of 430pm!

Whelp.....time to recover this weekend, and get used to having day work weeks again.

Ghamsamnidah,
Apes :)

....and we're back.

That's right. School is back in session.

Last night I was sitting at home, comfortable on my couch with episodes of CSI playing on multiple channels (Asians seem to LOVE that show) and then it hit me. THE STUDENTS ARE BACK TOMORROW!!! AHHH, after 2 months without students (they were full of SE Asia, snowboarding, and half days of deskwarming), am I ready for a 5 month stint with Korean rugrats and middle schoolers?!??!?

Whelp, I manned up and showed up at school on Monday, not sure what to expect with the new middle schoolers (even though a couple of them had been my elementary students). Once at school I was told "only 2 classes for you today", after a welcome ceremony. The ceremony was just introducing the teachers (new and returning). It was nice to see my returning students though, and I was feeling less "OH MY GOD" about teaching again.

Then it was time to teach my class, and being true to its nature - it was cancelled. They were having "homeroom lecture" at that time, so I now only had 1 class today. But I was told lunch was not in the cafeteria, and I should have brought my own. The cafeteria is closed for 2 weeks for some reason. So, I went with the rest of the teachers and had my FAVORITE soup (kimchi jiggae) and am stoked that I found out that the restaurant is close to my apartment. WOO-HOO.

And then back at school, it was time for my first class back to teaching.

I got into class (grade 1) and WOAH - they were already all seated waiting for me. Ok, so far so good. So I jumped right into my "introduction to me" lesson and had the students tell me about themselves. At the end of class my new co-teacher (english name - Steven) told me "Your class is very fun." Well, now I feel ready for the new semester! I also made a point to have my students write down their names on a seating chart so I can call them BY NAME. Big improvement from last term. Plus, they are cuter than my grade 1's from last term, so I wanna remember them :)

Day 1, done. Now, I just have to get through 4 more days before my first weekend....and then 5 months of that before my next holiday....wish me luck.

Ghamsamnida,
Apes :)