The focus of the school is teaching English through math, science, etc, although many of them take those classes on the side in Korean to learn more. I like it, but man, worst luck, my last day of class on Friday, I had to break up a fight. I'll start from the beginning.
I love the Little Ones.
So, yeah, my kindergarten class is 6 adorable little kids, all about 5-6 years old. They all have English names like Ray and Emily. They know the alphabet, numbers to 20, and love when the answers to questions are colors. My most advanced student can speak in full sentences with little accent, but the others sometimes struggle with getting one word out.
Already in the first week, I can see the kids improving here and there pronouncing things better and getting excited when they remember a new word. I read them Curious George 4 times this week, taught them how to do the Itsy, Bitsy Spider, and we finished the week off with a trip to a local farm to plant seeds.
Easter Goody Bags I bribed my kids with for being good on a field trip.
Eeek! Phonics!
I anticipate a theme of our blogs about our students: how hard Korean kids are pushed to learn & work hard. I'll start this off with one of my students starting to cry during Phonics. He's probably 5, and doesn't have a strong English background. So, as I'm explaining instructions and other students around him start filling in the workbook (words like snow & boat make the same "o" sound), his head goes low and he start sniffling.
First, I'm thinking someone took his eraser or something, but I eventually piece it together that he's totally freaked out, and I just try to get him through class. Talking with another kindergarten teacher, I find our her kids also freak out during Phonics, one even puked everyday in her class for a while. Their parents expect so much out of them though that they get really worried when they don't do well. Poor things...
cute kids in a park in Seoul
The Big Ones, not so much.
Mid-afternoon our sweet kindergarteners go home, and elementary aged kids, 2nd-5th graders come in for their 2nd shift of school, and go nutso on the place. So I'm exaggerating, many of them are super sweet, studious little things, but one kid can always ruin it for the bunch, right?
These kids vary in English ability, some of them you could mistake for shy, native speakers, some of them are on par with my kindergarteners. Trouble is, they're tough to keep engaged at 4:30 when they've already been in school all day, and they'll probably have another 3 hours of class that day, then do homework.
Anyway, so the fight. We're going around the room, with each student reading a sentance from a story. After one kid finished reading, the one next to him told him he was a bad reader and then called him "Crazy, Crazy," that was the translation I got anyway, and it's apparently pretty offensive. The kids start slapping, punching, then hitting each other in the faces. Awesome. I get between them, and they both had these looks like they're going to kill each other. I manage to get them downstairs very red-faced and worked up, and hand them over to my supervisor, who lays the smack down in Korean. They come back to class eventually, calmed-down, where I separate them, and will for a while. Again, not being good at something is a pretty big deal here.
Yeah, Adults!
The other teachers in my school have been a lifeline this week. They answer great questions like, where's the library, what's the deal with teaching in slippers, and where's the beer? We went out with them 3 of 5 days for dinner, and again over the weekend. We even went to a pretty tastey Mexican restaurant 3 blocks from us, that we'll definitely be frequenting. The teachers are a mix of Koreans, Americans, Canadians, a Brit & an Aussie.
Here I come week 2!
We're silly and adventurous, computer geeks and yoga peeps.
April 13, 2009
Melissa
Love U
April 15, 2009
Bessie
I would say the kids come from pretty well-to-do families to be able to afford a private school like ours, but I've also heard of parents working really hard, getting 2nd jobs, and things to support their kids' expensive educations. Our older kids attend public or private school during in the day in Korean and then in the afternoon and evening they attend another school or two.
It's nuts how much they go to school & how much they'll work when they're adults!
April 13, 2009
shawna davidson
April 15, 2009
Bessie
April 13, 2009
Rose P.
April 15, 2009
Bessie
April 13, 2009
Felix
April 13, 2009
Susan
Susan
April 15, 2009
Bessie
Parents do pay for them to attend school. I've heard a few different prices, so I don't want to say yet, but I know it's not cheap! It's a private school, and here that means it's a business before anything else.
We do have an address, but we're not totally sure what it is yet, we can check! We can get cute things like stickers - thank goodness! We'll keep you posted - thanks for thinking of us!!
April 14, 2009
the other kyle's wife
April 15, 2009
Bessie
April 15, 2009
Julian
Teachers need many skills including people and parenting. I am not surprised you have both skills. I look forward to future posts. And hearing about Kyle's baseball exploits.
April 17, 2009
Bessie
April 15, 2009
Linda
April 17, 2009
Bessie
April 16, 2009
Wendy
April 17, 2009
Bessie
April 16, 2009
DADDIO
April 17, 2009
Bessie
April 16, 2009
mumsie
April 19, 2009
Nathaniel Stubblefield
Here in the windy city we get a Korean channel (we did away with our cable in December of 07) and occasionally watch it. What strikes me as the most interesting is the way their culture promotes conformity and competition. I also knew that their kids had to work hard but it's very hard to picture it in kids only a few years older than my girls. What's really funny though is how little the kids in my school are motivated to excel. A few certainly, but it is definitely not the priority for most (or for their parents).
I'll be on a road trip to DC with our 8th graders for the next four days so I'm off to cram a week's worth of work into the next 25 hours or so.
Ciao from Chicago, Nathaniel
April 21, 2009
Kyle
I think the kids work a little too hard sometimes and that the emphasis is not on learning but on how hard they work. But that's a whole other post...
November 07, 2010
Gabriella
I'm in my junior year of high school and planning on majoring in Journalism at my state's university. But I'd love to teach English in another country, especially South Korea. So what do you have to major in to do something like this?
Oh, and I'm sorry if there's a FAQ somewhere around your website. I'm just extremely . . . excited, I suppose. If I could do what the two of you do, I couldn't be happier!
Anyway, I digress. I can't wait to read more about your travels!
November 08, 2010
Kyle
While we were certainly grateful for our time in Korea (and the money we made!), we are definitely glad not to be teaching there anymore. For us, the kids are amazing, and the rest of the schooling system is intensely frustrating. All this AND we had a "good" school. You have to remember that if you are teaching in an academy (hogwon in Korean), their goal is profit. So, if that means trying to cheat you out of some money or shorting the kids some school supplies, they will happily do it.
November 08, 2010
Bessie
And main points about teaching in Korea at the bottom here: http://www.onourownpath.com/start_here
Best of luck!