Latin America it isn't
Written by Kyle on Monday, April 06, 2009 in Korea, Republic of
Feelin' confused
You know when this is outside of your apartment, you're not home anymore:Feelin' confused
Anyway, our flight from Chicago to Seoul was pretty uneventful, as far as flights go. No missed connections or baggage problems, or anything out of the ordinary, really. In order to try to get our bodies on the South Korean clock, we tried to sleep on the plane as soon as we got on and then open the shades around 9am Korean time. When we did finally open the window shade, we were greeted with the sight of Northwestern Russia:
We made a brief connection at Narita Airport near Tokyo, then landed in Seoul around 8pm on Sunday. Waiting for us at the airport was our friendly recruiter, Stephen, who drove us to our apartment and gave us an update on the North Korea missle launch via the TV in his car. That's right: mounted on the front dash is a little flat TV screen, receiving wireless information over the cell phone waves, that had all the current news on it. It was nice to know the news, but I'm glad that Stephen payed little attention to it and only translated some bits for us. I can only hope the taxi drivers will do the same.
We arrived at our school, IB World School, around 9:30pm where we were given a brief tour of the school (10 minutes max), then shuttled to our apartment. Our apartment, by the way, seems very nice and clean with running hot water and a washing machine. There is also plenty of room for both of us; in fact, we have a room that we don't know what to do with, yet. In any case, our recruiter and director were nice enough to help out our tired bodies and they made the bed for us. I think this may be the first (and last) time that my boss has made my bed for me! As soon as they left, we crashed on the bed and slept really well for most of the night.
The next day, being our first day in Korea, we thought that we would have a fairly easy day where we would gradually be introduced to our new life. Apparently, that's not how things work. At 9:50 sharp, Bessie, was put in front of 6 little kindergarten kids and told to teach. I was moved from several classes every half an hour and told to do the same. Apparently, I was supposed to teach some sort of lesson, but without knowing what that lesson was, I was pretty content with making sure the kids didn't stab eachother or do any permanent damage. I did get one class to do a bit of phonics after I started giving them stars on the board for good behaviour. I don't know what the stars mean, but they really seem to like getting them!
The rest of the day was pretty much the same: being told which class to go to about 5 minutes ahead of time and being told to teach. Since the afternoon classes are older students (1st, 2nd, 3rd graders), they all had text books and it was a little easier to figure out what to do. Thank goodness the kids were nice and would tell me what page they were on and telling me to check their homework from last week. I wanted to give them all chocolate for being so nice to me, but I settled for having them learn, instead :)
Needless to say, at the end of the first day, I was not feeling good about the experience. Being confused about what to do and where you are is hard enough. Being that way with a bunch of kids staring at you is a different experience. All I could do, was suck it up and hope for a better tomorrow.
Comments on "Latin America it isn't"
Ok, they weren't staring so much as yelling "Teacher, teacher, teacher!" and karate chopping me. Staring definitely would have been better!
Reading your first two posts about teaching is taking me back to my first week or so in Japan. Soon you will start developing a whole drawer of activities to grab when someone says 'Your lesson starts in 5 minutes!'. And yes, they love the stickers! I had my mom go to teacher supply stores here in the states and send me American stickers which were like the high quality crack for my students.
Another thing my students loved were learning really really simply English kids songs. I don't know what your classroom set up is like but I had a whole set of pre-school DVDs, would put the closed caption on, and teach them dance moves.
Let me know what you guys need!
Can you send us some ideas of the activities that you did? I definitely have some time to eat up as sometimes I have to stretch one page of a text book into 45 minutes! Thanks in advance!
Speaking of chocolate - you'll probably get to go to Lotto-World complete with an indoor roller coaster. It's a nice warm place in the winter!!
You'll settle in soon. All the best. Liza in LA.
Sounds awesome! Can't wait to go there!
So much for "in-service" training, Danish and coffee with your collegues, lesson planning, sharing of your experiences during your summer vacations, and the happy new beginnings that we teachers had every September. You know, make a name tag, draw a picture of your family and pet, raise your hand, ask for the washroom pass, learn to say my name, don't throw erasers. Looks like you are in the "real" world of achedemia now! Enjoy!
Draw a picture of your family...that's a good idea that'll help me learn about the students. It'll also give me some time to breathe :)
This is a totally strange situation! Very hard to comprehend. I hope you can make it work ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Every "first day of school" seems a bit hard for everyone. Don't worry, after the first week you will be a pro and more relaxed! I'm sure Linda can email you lots of material that will be very useful and enriching to the students. Enjoy!!
Ya, I think we're both getting better; it's just a lot to take in for one week. Soon, it will all be routine.
How exciting. You two are such incredible adventurers. Nothing like getting thrown into the lion's den and coming out unscathed. There isn't anything either of you can face and not succeed. What a great skill you have developed. I wish I had more time to have visited with you when you were in Chicago.
Tony Wiszowaty
So you wanted to give them chocolate? LOL That is so sweet! :) I can Definitely understand why you felt that way! And, Kyle, trust me when I say that having a bunch of kids STARING at you is NOT the worst thing that can happen on a First Day! I was Startled to know that you & Bessie walked right into classrooms without any real prep. But, hey! you said the two of you slept pretty darn well that 1st night. Hmmmmm. Perhaps THAT was your Best prep! SLEEP matters for Teachers. X-)
by mumsie at April 07, 2009 11:02 PM