teaching in korea... the first few days

so it is now wednesday afternoon and i have finished teaching my third day in korea. so far a lot of it has been introductions and a get to know "the native english teacher". which means that i introduce myself, tell the students where i am from, what the weather is like in oregon and a little blurb about myself. from there the students were able to ask me whatever questions they wanted (as long as they were appropriate). some of the questions were,

"how old are you?"

(when i told them that i was 23, i am fairly certain ever class gasped in amazement. they were in shock that i was only 23. "very very young teacher")

"do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"are you married?" "do you have a boyfriend?"

(the second most popular questions. one student even asked if i had more than one boyfriend.)

"why did you come to korea?"

"is that your real hair color?" "is that your real eye color?"

(i had to explain that i used to be blonde but then it turned dark. they were all very sad for me. some of the students wanted me to prove that it was my real eye color. because apparently having a mix of blue and green eyes is a surprise. all the students think that everyone in the US has blue eyes and nothing else)

"which do you like more, korea or the united states?"

"what is your favorite sport to play?"

(they were all shocked when i said soccer and then said we will play together someday)

so as stated before i am teaching 5th and 6th graders. there are 7 different classes in each grade and they meet with the english teachers 3 times i week. i am in the 6th grade classes twice a week and the 5th grade classes once a week. each class is 40 minutes long. my office hours are from 8:40 - 4:40. classes start at 9:10 everyday. my class schedule looks something like this...

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Period 1	6-1	6-6	6-3	6-7	5-4
Period 2	6-2	6-7	6-4	5-1	5-5
Period 3	6-3	6-1	6-5	5-2	5-6
Period 4	6-4	6-2	6-6	5-3	5-7
LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH
Period 5	6-5	Prep	Prep	Prep	Prep

so basically i have lunch/prep time for the last 4 hours that i am at the school. which is when i write my lessons and prep the games that we do at the end of each lesson. lesson writing for what the students are learning is way different than it is in the states. during student teaching it was so extensive and everything had to be written out and labeled. over here it is very simple. i already have my lessons for 6th grade completely done for the next two weeks.

after the introductions were done we dived right into the lessons. already two of my 6th grade classes are at least a lesson or two behind because of testing. chaos is what it is. my co-teacher wrote the first lesson to show me how to set everything up and how to go through the cd-rom that we use that goes along with the students book. in each lesson there are 6 "periods" so basically each chapter takes two weeks to get through. i am required to write the lessons for 4 of these periods and my co-teacher will do the writing lesson and the review before their tests.

i haven't taught with my 5th graders yet, that starts tomorrow, but i am going to assume that it is going to be very similar to what i am doing with the 6th graders, only i will only be meeting with them once a week instead of twice.

the lessons are very simple... and i do a lot of follow the book and add things in where i think i can explain it better. the most recent lesson i taught was about ordinal and cardinal numbers. which you would think would be very easy to teach and the students would be able to look at the numbers and be able to figure out which ordinal number goes with which cardinal number... not the case. i had to go over each number individually very slowly. we went over 1st through 10th i don't even know how many times before the students finally got it.

one thing i found that is very different from the states to here is the punishment for things. in my 6th grade class if you forget your book, english notebook or your pencil, you are required to stand in the back of the classroom for 20 minutes. just standing there not doing anything. in my 5th grade class she has 3 chances. the first you stand in the back for 5 minutes. the second you stand in the back for 10 and if you get to the third, you are required to write the story of "hansel and gretel" which she has typed out. you have to write the whole thing before being able to go back to their classroom. it is an entire typed page... there is also a lot of yelling. i am told this is more in the first month or so of teaching. it is so the teachers can get control of the classroom to make the rest of the year much better.

i was informed yesterday that i am one hour short of having my 22 hours that is required by GEPIK. so to make up the last hour i will be teaching an after school class for 1st and 2nd graders with one of the classrooms. that is the age i thought i was going to be teaching in the first place, but now that i am with the older children i am a little nervous about working with the younger kids. there is no textbook or guide to what i am supposed to be teaching. i was basically told that i can teach whatever i want, i just need to map out what i am doing for the semester. anyone have any basic ideas for me?

for now i am going to sit here at my computer streaming country music to keep me company and look up ideas for my1st/2nd graders and game ideas for the others.