It's not so much the cold that's wearing me down, it's the medicine. I've been on Tylenol Cold and some other cough medicine since last Thursday. My stomach feels gassy and bloated and I'm in that awake state that is summed up best by these two words: cracked out. My eyes feel dried out, kinda like I've kept them open for way too long. No matter how much water I drink my mouth and throat still feel dry.
Classes are done for the day. I am too.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Life as the Native Teacher
Anytime someone refers to me as the native teacher I think (how very un-P.C. of me) of shouting Indians feathered up ready for war. Incidentally this is how the Korean kids I taught last year imagined the indigenous peoples of America to be. Even in my second year here, I find more than a few things make little to no sense to me. I wonder if it is because it's foreign to me or because some things are truly backward to the western world. That's about as much as I'm willing to complain about in my current home country. I did make the choice to come back here so I'll try to keep the complaints to a minimum, in this first post at least.
This is officially my second week at the school. My first week was spent getting to know my desk. I sat in this spot surfing the net for the entire day breaking for lunch and occasionally trying to prepare for the unknown of teaching the 1st and 3rd year students (7th and 8th grades in the U.S.). As luck would have it, I caught a cold near the end of last week which had me in my apartment for most of the weekend. I'm still not fully recovered yet. I did do enough lesson planning to get through my first day.
It wasn't too bad. The level of the English coming out of the students who participate is lower than expected. I'm working with four Korean teachers at the moment, two for each grade. Out of the three I taught with today, the only one I feel helps at all in the class is the head of the English department. The class I had with her seemed to be the brightest and most engaged. I can only hope the others get it together. I'm not holding my breath.
So far I'm way more comfortable here than I was at the hagwon (private language academy) last year on my first day. That probably has a lot to do with the nearly two weeks I've had to readjust to the time difference here. Last year I taught my first class about 16 hours after I landed in Korea. I'm also not shocked from the fact that these kids aren't listening to me or the Korean teacher. That's where the stick comes into play. I should send pictures of some of the sticks the teachers carry around with them. My stick is a drum stick used to play one of the Korean traditional drums. It looks like this: http://www.ktpaa.org/images/Instrument.Drum.jpg
I kind of looks like the Japanese taiko drum stick. Don't tell any Koreans I said that. Some teachers have regular drum sticks and others old pool cues. I'm thinking about upgrading to a pimp cane sometime this year. In case anyone is wondering they just recently (two or three years ago) made corporal punishment in schools illegal here. Although I haven't personally seen it, I hear it still happens from time to time.
I'm now sitting through my second weekly faculty meeting. If I could understand Korean better or had someone translating for me, I'd probably be paying more attention. Considering everyone else around me isn't paying attention either and one of my co-teachers is taking a nap maybe not.
This is officially my second week at the school. My first week was spent getting to know my desk. I sat in this spot surfing the net for the entire day breaking for lunch and occasionally trying to prepare for the unknown of teaching the 1st and 3rd year students (7th and 8th grades in the U.S.). As luck would have it, I caught a cold near the end of last week which had me in my apartment for most of the weekend. I'm still not fully recovered yet. I did do enough lesson planning to get through my first day.
It wasn't too bad. The level of the English coming out of the students who participate is lower than expected. I'm working with four Korean teachers at the moment, two for each grade. Out of the three I taught with today, the only one I feel helps at all in the class is the head of the English department. The class I had with her seemed to be the brightest and most engaged. I can only hope the others get it together. I'm not holding my breath.
So far I'm way more comfortable here than I was at the hagwon (private language academy) last year on my first day. That probably has a lot to do with the nearly two weeks I've had to readjust to the time difference here. Last year I taught my first class about 16 hours after I landed in Korea. I'm also not shocked from the fact that these kids aren't listening to me or the Korean teacher. That's where the stick comes into play. I should send pictures of some of the sticks the teachers carry around with them. My stick is a drum stick used to play one of the Korean traditional drums. It looks like this: http://www.ktpaa.org/images/Instrument.Drum.jpg
I kind of looks like the Japanese taiko drum stick. Don't tell any Koreans I said that. Some teachers have regular drum sticks and others old pool cues. I'm thinking about upgrading to a pimp cane sometime this year. In case anyone is wondering they just recently (two or three years ago) made corporal punishment in schools illegal here. Although I haven't personally seen it, I hear it still happens from time to time.
I'm now sitting through my second weekly faculty meeting. If I could understand Korean better or had someone translating for me, I'd probably be paying more attention. Considering everyone else around me isn't paying attention either and one of my co-teachers is taking a nap maybe not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)