Come on in and I'll show you around the school that I am teaching at. The name of the school is Samnyedong Elementary School, located just outside of Samnye. There are 62 students total, and I teach Monday-Friday from 1:10 - 4:20, grades Kindergarten through 6th.
To all of my friends back home who are teachers, I give you much respect and credit for what you do. Teaching is not easy, and add to that the concept of trying to get 16 little balls of Korean lightning to do what you want them to do when they don't know WHAT you're asking/telling them. The students keep demanding that I talk to them in Korean, and they are convinced I am just pretending not to know Korean. No kids, I am one of you but not one of you. Mind-blowing.
The challenges of teaching English in Korea thus far?
- Language barrier. I have no co-teacher, no translator, and know practically no Korean, so trying to explain to the kids what to do, how to do it, what not to do, has not been easy. Luckily, fists and angry looks are universal languages.
- Korean kids are full of energy. Turns out they don't just want to sit in desks for 40 minutes. What they do what to do is: run around the room, throw things, break things, hit things, eat things, stand on things.
- The bus routes. This was only a challenge for the first three days, but it cost me $60 and a few missed classes. It turns out my mentor teacher told me the wrong bus stop to get on at. Now I'm a pro at navigating to school and back. Victories!
- Lesson planning. I'm not a trained teacher, so I only know lesson planning from Google and Youtube... I've definitely improved at it, though, and it gets easier everyday.
This is a picture of my 2nd graders. Enough said, I think.
Also, kindergartners are a blast. So attentive, so eager, so sweet. When I sit down at their little tables on their little chairs and color with them while the bob their heads to The Alphabet Song, I can't stop smiling. And when the kindergartners line up to give me hugs at the end of every class, and they say "Goodbye Teacher," I give thanks that I have been given the opportunity to do what I'm doing here, and I savor where I am.
