Oh I started off the year with so many good intentions for this blog. But any of you who know me, know I am a terrible procrastinator. In fact, as I write this entry I'm procrastinating planning a lesson for a class I have in two hours. You're Welcome.
(Note to reader: I will continue to blog about my trip to Malaysia, but not today)
I returned safe and sound from Malaysia and was back at work on the 16th of February, teaching an advanced English class. It was a like every ESL teacher's dream. I had about 12 students, all high level english speakers, all very keen. I taught them about formal academic debate, argument structure and making objective, logical statements. (Believe me, we had some interesting discussions about the topic "Couples should live together before they get married" - quite a different perspective from the one that's in North America right now) At the end of the two weeks we held a formal debate where I divided the students into two teams and randomly assigned them to the negative or affirmative side of the topic "Children with Mental Disabilities should be Fully Integrated into the School System". It felt so strange to give them their assignments for research and have them take off with it, no help needed from me! I was very proud at the end of it. It was also a rare pleasure to get to learn all of my students names.
The regular school year got into swing in March, with lots of changes underway. There was the usual circus of losing 1/3 of the teaching staff to mandatory reassignment and gain that many new teachers as well. In Korea, teachers must change school every 4 years to ensure that remote schools are staffed as equally well as schools in larger cities. Sounds great in theory, but it's a logistical nightmare: many families wind up with a mom or dad who lives in one city during the work week and travels home on the weekends. If both parents are teachers, often the children live with their grandparents. So we had lots of good-bye dinners and then lots of "welcome" dinners. My supervisor, Son Hwa-Ja, was reassigned, but thankfully another teacher I already know and who has excellent English was promoted to fill Hwa-Ja's place: Choi Young-Ju. Choi Hyun is still my main co-teacher, but she's a bit absent-minded and her English isn't great, so it's nice to have another person to go when there are questions or problems.
On top of the staff change up, I was ousted from my beautiful "English Zone" classroom which I had enjoyed so much last year. Mr. Jo, our progressive vice-pricipal, signed our school up for a pilot project introducing a western class schedule to Korean High Schools. The goal is to make the education more student-centered (as it is in the west), where students choose their schedule to fit what they want to study or pursue for a career, rather than the current Eastern teacher-based philosophy. Part of the change involves having teachers stay in one room and the students travel to different rooms based on the subject. Ironically, this changed occured for every Korean teacher, but went in reverse for me. The Korean English teachers now have their own homerooms, (including the English Zone, which is now Mr. Lee's Homeroom) and I travel from English classroom to English classroom depending on the class, carrying all my lesson supplies and handouts with me. Until the projectors were installed and working, I also had to recreate my powerpoint presentations on large poster paper and magnet them to the chalk boards!
As an incentive to schools to take on the new system, the government also gave approx. $2 000 000 in funding to schools for renovations and upgrades. Awesome stuff, except that our renovations weren't finished on time, so for the first two weeks of school I had no office or desk to work at. I usually sat in an empty teacher's conference room, freezing my butt off. (BTW, March was unseasonably cold for Korea this year, we had snow on March 10th and temperatures frequently dipped below freezing at night. Now you may think, "Why Lisa, aren't you a tough Canadian girl? A few degrees below zero is nothing!" but you would be an ignorant Canadian who takes your insulated/CLOSED doors and windows and effeciant furnace for granted)The lack of desk also meant I had to carry all of my materials with me everywhere, as I had no where to store them. So I brought a backpack to school everyday full of my resources. Thankfully, soon a desk was provided for me. Unfortunately, my office is a completely different building from all my classes, so I'm still lugging alot of stuff around with me during the day.
Oh well, having adjusted to all the changes now, the semester seems to be going just fine. It's hard to believe I'm already on to the 7th week. April 1st was the beginning of my last 6 months in Korea, time sure is flying. Lots of fun stuff has been going on socially, but in an effort to keep these entries short and more readable, I leave it here. I tell you about my rocking social life, and more about Malaysia, soon. Honest!
Showing posts with label school events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school events. Show all posts
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Thoughts about Spring 2009
Ok, I'm trying to catch up, I really am. Over the next few days/weeks I'll be posting shorter entries about stuff that's happened between March and now. Hope you like...
When I returned to work after my two-month hiatus, I had a hard time getting back into the swing of, you know, working. Plus, my school asked me to start teaching classes on the 3rd day (the nerve!) so I was throwing lesson plans together in record time. I was excited. The first year students I had last year would be returning as second years and I felt I built a comfortable repoire with them. I was a little more nervous about the 1st year students. Whatever impression I made, these are the kids I would stuck with all year, and next year too. I seem to have done ok. All reports I receive from my principal and vice principal are that the students love me. Yeah, I'm pretty rad.
In March, the weather warmed up and brought with it "yellow dust" from China and subsequently I was sick for most of them month with what felt like a stubborn head cold. The drop in the quality of air had the same effect on a lot of the foreigners living here. Apparently it happens every spring. Still, it was an enjoyable month. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day at Elvis bar with our fellow expats (and a number of sleazy sailors, yeesh...). I also took in the Apricot Festival in Hadong with Jennifer. We had a great time walking around, enjoying the blossoms and snacked on Octopus Jeon (potato pancake). Every weekend there were festivals celebrating the arrival of spring and it's many flowers/blossoms.
Near the end of the month, my school held "Student Sports Days" for 3 days, where all of the student classes competed in such physically challenging events as Dodgeball, Tug-o-War, Dance, and Kick Baseball. It was a lot of fun. The weather was hot and sunny for all three days and the students really enjoyed the break from their normal routine. I really enjoyed it too. The students at my school are always enthusiastic about competitions, sunny weather and assemblies, so these sports days sounded like a Big Bang concert non-stop.
My birthday arrived, as it always does, on March 30th. I went out with my friends to dinner at restaurant that specialized in marinated pork and beef dishes. Very delicious, but unfortunately there was a miscommunication about the price of the meal and it was quite a shock to receive the bill afterwards. That weekend, my friend Jodie invited me to her apartment to help her with some baking she promised to do for a friend. So I put on my best sweatpants and headed over to her place with a couple of friends (suspiciously dressed very nicely, but I thought nothing of it). When we walked in, confetti canons exploded and I was shocked to see about 20 friends crammed into the Holmes apartment wearing a "lion" or "lamb" caricature around their neck. They had planned a surprise birthday party for Lindsey (who's Birthday was at the beginning of April) and I, following the old phrase about March: "in like Lion, out like a Lamb." I was a little embarrassed to be so under dressed for the occasion, but very grateful and genuinely surprised. We had a lot of fun!
See pictures of the party and other spring stuff here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2235464&id=122614903&l=386c8b11ba
This semester, I've been learning a lot more about just how hard high school students work in South Korea. In one class assignment I had the girls completing poems where they write about their past, present and future. More than one student likened their new high school life to prison. The students have to go to school for 8am and remain there until 10 or 11 pm (unless they have a private school to go to in the evening). The competition is intensely fierce for spots at the top Korean Universities. Students don't have part-time jobs, don't go to parties, and rarely (if ever) date. Extra-curricular activities are limited because students fill so much pressure to spend their free time studying. The high school at which I work is an Academic High School, so there are girls who have moved to Suncheon and live in the school dormitory's because their parents believe they will be able to get into a better university if they graduate from this school. Also the students sleep about 4 hours a night, especially before exams. There is actually a Korean rule of thumb here that parents tell their children: If you sleep for more than 4 hours a night (and therefore miss out on time to study), you'll fail. Now that it is close to exam time again, I'm letting my students watch movies during my class. They NEED a break.
When I returned to work after my two-month hiatus, I had a hard time getting back into the swing of, you know, working. Plus, my school asked me to start teaching classes on the 3rd day (the nerve!) so I was throwing lesson plans together in record time. I was excited. The first year students I had last year would be returning as second years and I felt I built a comfortable repoire with them. I was a little more nervous about the 1st year students. Whatever impression I made, these are the kids I would stuck with all year, and next year too. I seem to have done ok. All reports I receive from my principal and vice principal are that the students love me. Yeah, I'm pretty rad.
In March, the weather warmed up and brought with it "yellow dust" from China and subsequently I was sick for most of them month with what felt like a stubborn head cold. The drop in the quality of air had the same effect on a lot of the foreigners living here. Apparently it happens every spring. Still, it was an enjoyable month. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day at Elvis bar with our fellow expats (and a number of sleazy sailors, yeesh...). I also took in the Apricot Festival in Hadong with Jennifer. We had a great time walking around, enjoying the blossoms and snacked on Octopus Jeon (potato pancake). Every weekend there were festivals celebrating the arrival of spring and it's many flowers/blossoms.
Near the end of the month, my school held "Student Sports Days" for 3 days, where all of the student classes competed in such physically challenging events as Dodgeball, Tug-o-War, Dance, and Kick Baseball. It was a lot of fun. The weather was hot and sunny for all three days and the students really enjoyed the break from their normal routine. I really enjoyed it too. The students at my school are always enthusiastic about competitions, sunny weather and assemblies, so these sports days sounded like a Big Bang concert non-stop.
My birthday arrived, as it always does, on March 30th. I went out with my friends to dinner at restaurant that specialized in marinated pork and beef dishes. Very delicious, but unfortunately there was a miscommunication about the price of the meal and it was quite a shock to receive the bill afterwards. That weekend, my friend Jodie invited me to her apartment to help her with some baking she promised to do for a friend. So I put on my best sweatpants and headed over to her place with a couple of friends (suspiciously dressed very nicely, but I thought nothing of it). When we walked in, confetti canons exploded and I was shocked to see about 20 friends crammed into the Holmes apartment wearing a "lion" or "lamb" caricature around their neck. They had planned a surprise birthday party for Lindsey (who's Birthday was at the beginning of April) and I, following the old phrase about March: "in like Lion, out like a Lamb." I was a little embarrassed to be so under dressed for the occasion, but very grateful and genuinely surprised. We had a lot of fun!
See pictures of the party and other spring stuff here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2235464&id=122614903&l=386c8b11ba
This semester, I've been learning a lot more about just how hard high school students work in South Korea. In one class assignment I had the girls completing poems where they write about their past, present and future. More than one student likened their new high school life to prison. The students have to go to school for 8am and remain there until 10 or 11 pm (unless they have a private school to go to in the evening). The competition is intensely fierce for spots at the top Korean Universities. Students don't have part-time jobs, don't go to parties, and rarely (if ever) date. Extra-curricular activities are limited because students fill so much pressure to spend their free time studying. The high school at which I work is an Academic High School, so there are girls who have moved to Suncheon and live in the school dormitory's because their parents believe they will be able to get into a better university if they graduate from this school. Also the students sleep about 4 hours a night, especially before exams. There is actually a Korean rule of thumb here that parents tell their children: If you sleep for more than 4 hours a night (and therefore miss out on time to study), you'll fail. Now that it is close to exam time again, I'm letting my students watch movies during my class. They NEED a break.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Out with the old Year, In with the new!
Well, it's been far too long since I updated my blog, I know! No need to shout and throw things!
The rest of December was wonderful. Classes were sporadic at best with final exams, school festivals, school tours and Christmas interrupting things. I taught my students Christmas Carols and played "The Snowman" for them. The student were so exhausted from studying from finals, you almost felt bad for expecting them to keep their eyes open for cartoon in class! "The Snowman" actually went over really really well, only a 20% mortality rate (on avg. 8 of 40 students asleep by the end of it). And I heard the most hilarious rendition of the 12 days of Christmas ever thanks to an enthusiastic student who without pitch or rythym yelled out the words at the top of her lungs and threw everybody else off. I couldn`t keep a staight face no matter how hard I tried.
About two weeks before Christmas I recieved two amazing parcels from home filled with Christmas decorations, goodies and presents. Christmas spirit exploded onto my desk when I opened them. So I couldn`t help but spread it around a little. I held movie nights at my apartment to watch `A Muppet Chistmas Carol`(my favourite!) and also a non-denominational Christmas carol singing night where we also read the Nativity story from the Bible. My students were confused at my excitement. In Korea, Christmas is a Christian holiday or a day to give your BF/GF a gift, much like valentine's day in North America. It's not a big family affair unless you're Christian and even then. It made no sense to them for me to be so excited when I didn't have a boyfriend. December 22nd and 23rd was my schools "Festival" which was two days of dancing and singing by the students, much like Christmas concerts at schools in Canada except for the concert stage lighting, sound system and flame canons. (yeah you read that right!)
On Christmas Eve I invited 3 other Canadian girls living in Shidae to stay over at my apartment. We went carolling to other foreigners in Shidae (and frightened a few of the Koreans who bumped into us)then settled in to our PJ`s, sipped hot cocoa, watched Home Alone and told stories of our favourite Christmas memories. We had bought stocking stuffers for eachother, so in the morning we opened our stockings together before splitting off to talk to our families.
It was really neat to have two Christmas mornings as it was still Christmas Eve when I called home to Dryden at 11 am.
Dean and Mandy (the suncheon Co-ordinator for foreign teachers and his wife) very generously invited us to their apartment for Christmas brunch and served us such a amazing things as eggs benedict, bagels and salmon, crepes with fruit, and huge assortment of cookies, pies and other desserts. And if that wasn`t enough, in the afternoon we went to a Turkey pot-luck dinner at Elvis Bar with 50 other foreigners for a meal of Turkey, Stuffing, gravy, porogies, salad, veggies, potatoes of every variety and buffet of desserts.
At around 4 pm I came home totally stuffed and had a blissful Christmas nap. I called home again at 10pm and was able to open my presents with my family via webcam and watch the Christmas morning excitement in Canada. It snowed here just a little that day. However, I was a bitter girl going back to work on Boxing Day - my body knows after 25 Christmasses in Canada that it is supposed to sleep until noon and laze around in pajamas the day after Christmas, and it could not be fooled despite how much I tried to tell it to be energetic at work.
My last class was on December 31st, and my students had as much enthusiasm for the "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" as bread dough rising. Me too, kids, me too. I spent new years Eve at Jodie and Stephen's with about a dozen awesome ex-pats (I am actually in love with the term "ex-pat", it makes me feel I dunno...European?)eating great food and goofing around. I didn't stay out too late, I think I went home around 1AM, and was greeted by thick, lazily falling snow.
It feels so good to be in a new year with a fresh 12 months ahead of me. When I checked out of 2008, I happily left my baggage behind. The month of January has gone by very quickly, as often happens when the days are lazy and unstructured. My only semblence of productivity is found in the online teaching pilot program I have been participating in Monday - Friday from 9-11AM. The program is testing a new Microsoft program that creates a virtual classroom for students who live in remote areas and islands and don't have access to English education with a Native English speaker. I have a Korean co-teacher and five students, though only 4 have been reliably able to connect to the classroom environment in the last week. It's been a learning experience for me: using a new program, learning how to make power point presentations, teaching 8 years olds with very little english, following a curriculum (I make my own for the HS students), etc etc etc. I might mention I am also being paid very well for being part of the pilot project on top of my monthly salary (yeah I'm bragging alittle bit, sorry...). And now that the school board has announced that they are launching the program in March for all 5 school boards, it means that I can significantly increase my monthly income and pay off my debt even faster!
On January 31st taking my 26 days of official vacation to travel to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam with 4 other ex-pats (hehehe!). I've never travelled abroad before (Korea being my first time on another continent) so it really feels like the trip of a life time. For the first week I am volunteering at an Elephant Sanctuary in northern Thailand near Chiang Mai city. The rest of the trip is mostly unstructured. We are planning to travel south to Bangkok, spend a few days on the beach, make our way to Cambodia and see Angkor Wat/Siem Reap/Phnom Penh and then head to Vietnam for about a week for more beach time and sight seeing around Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) before flying back to Korea on the 26th. I will do my best to update this blog throughout the month as we stop in internet cafe's in Southeast Asia!
The rest of December was wonderful. Classes were sporadic at best with final exams, school festivals, school tours and Christmas interrupting things. I taught my students Christmas Carols and played "The Snowman" for them. The student were so exhausted from studying from finals, you almost felt bad for expecting them to keep their eyes open for cartoon in class! "The Snowman" actually went over really really well, only a 20% mortality rate (on avg. 8 of 40 students asleep by the end of it). And I heard the most hilarious rendition of the 12 days of Christmas ever thanks to an enthusiastic student who without pitch or rythym yelled out the words at the top of her lungs and threw everybody else off. I couldn`t keep a staight face no matter how hard I tried.
About two weeks before Christmas I recieved two amazing parcels from home filled with Christmas decorations, goodies and presents. Christmas spirit exploded onto my desk when I opened them. So I couldn`t help but spread it around a little. I held movie nights at my apartment to watch `A Muppet Chistmas Carol`(my favourite!) and also a non-denominational Christmas carol singing night where we also read the Nativity story from the Bible. My students were confused at my excitement. In Korea, Christmas is a Christian holiday or a day to give your BF/GF a gift, much like valentine's day in North America. It's not a big family affair unless you're Christian and even then. It made no sense to them for me to be so excited when I didn't have a boyfriend. December 22nd and 23rd was my schools "Festival" which was two days of dancing and singing by the students, much like Christmas concerts at schools in Canada except for the concert stage lighting, sound system and flame canons. (yeah you read that right!)
On Christmas Eve I invited 3 other Canadian girls living in Shidae to stay over at my apartment. We went carolling to other foreigners in Shidae (and frightened a few of the Koreans who bumped into us)then settled in to our PJ`s, sipped hot cocoa, watched Home Alone and told stories of our favourite Christmas memories. We had bought stocking stuffers for eachother, so in the morning we opened our stockings together before splitting off to talk to our families.
It was really neat to have two Christmas mornings as it was still Christmas Eve when I called home to Dryden at 11 am.
Dean and Mandy (the suncheon Co-ordinator for foreign teachers and his wife) very generously invited us to their apartment for Christmas brunch and served us such a amazing things as eggs benedict, bagels and salmon, crepes with fruit, and huge assortment of cookies, pies and other desserts. And if that wasn`t enough, in the afternoon we went to a Turkey pot-luck dinner at Elvis Bar with 50 other foreigners for a meal of Turkey, Stuffing, gravy, porogies, salad, veggies, potatoes of every variety and buffet of desserts.
At around 4 pm I came home totally stuffed and had a blissful Christmas nap. I called home again at 10pm and was able to open my presents with my family via webcam and watch the Christmas morning excitement in Canada. It snowed here just a little that day. However, I was a bitter girl going back to work on Boxing Day - my body knows after 25 Christmasses in Canada that it is supposed to sleep until noon and laze around in pajamas the day after Christmas, and it could not be fooled despite how much I tried to tell it to be energetic at work.
My last class was on December 31st, and my students had as much enthusiasm for the "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" as bread dough rising. Me too, kids, me too. I spent new years Eve at Jodie and Stephen's with about a dozen awesome ex-pats (I am actually in love with the term "ex-pat", it makes me feel I dunno...European?)eating great food and goofing around. I didn't stay out too late, I think I went home around 1AM, and was greeted by thick, lazily falling snow.
It feels so good to be in a new year with a fresh 12 months ahead of me. When I checked out of 2008, I happily left my baggage behind. The month of January has gone by very quickly, as often happens when the days are lazy and unstructured. My only semblence of productivity is found in the online teaching pilot program I have been participating in Monday - Friday from 9-11AM. The program is testing a new Microsoft program that creates a virtual classroom for students who live in remote areas and islands and don't have access to English education with a Native English speaker. I have a Korean co-teacher and five students, though only 4 have been reliably able to connect to the classroom environment in the last week. It's been a learning experience for me: using a new program, learning how to make power point presentations, teaching 8 years olds with very little english, following a curriculum (I make my own for the HS students), etc etc etc. I might mention I am also being paid very well for being part of the pilot project on top of my monthly salary (yeah I'm bragging alittle bit, sorry...). And now that the school board has announced that they are launching the program in March for all 5 school boards, it means that I can significantly increase my monthly income and pay off my debt even faster!
On January 31st taking my 26 days of official vacation to travel to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam with 4 other ex-pats (hehehe!). I've never travelled abroad before (Korea being my first time on another continent) so it really feels like the trip of a life time. For the first week I am volunteering at an Elephant Sanctuary in northern Thailand near Chiang Mai city. The rest of the trip is mostly unstructured. We are planning to travel south to Bangkok, spend a few days on the beach, make our way to Cambodia and see Angkor Wat/Siem Reap/Phnom Penh and then head to Vietnam for about a week for more beach time and sight seeing around Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) before flying back to Korea on the 26th. I will do my best to update this blog throughout the month as we stop in internet cafe's in Southeast Asia!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)