2 months!

It is so crazy that I have been here for 2 months already! When I think about it in other terms, I only have one month left to complete all of my assignments and finish my portfolio!!! That is a little scary. I have dubbed this weekend as my homework weekend, though. I ended up accomplishing a lot which makes me feel much better about only having a month left. I typed up and turned in my entire unit plan and reflection and my culturally responsive classroom management plan! Those were two of my bigger assignments over the course of this semester so I am glad that they are out of the way. The only assignments I really have left are my video lesson and reflection (which I am almost done with) and my final portfolio. I CAN DO IT :)

So as you just heard, my weekend was on the not-so-exciting side. I literally stayed in and did homework. I also talked to some friends and family on Skype that I have not heard from in a while. It was great to catch up with them! Besides the homework and Skype, I did my laundry, started a new book (Shangai Girls by Lisa See), and went grocery shopping. Very low key but overall I would say very successful.

My school week was rather busy. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were the last days of my unit plan! I was happy that I finished it and I am so proud of every single 6th grader. Looking back, I really had a big challenge on my plate when it came to their writing. Some students could not form simple sentences in English while others could practically write a book. The wide levels of writing ability sometimes made it difficult to plan lessons. I had to constantly keep in mind the students' background knowledge while teaching. If they had nothing to relate the new knowledge to, the information probably would not stick so easily. Here is an example of the before and after..

Before!

After!!

Monday: Lesson #4 of my unit plan. The students were learning about peer editing. I wanted them to review editing first so I handed out a letter from Mario to Greg Teacher (native teacher at my school). There were many common mistakes and errors that the students needed to find. The students worked by themselves first and then we corrected the letter together up on the touch screen TV. Next, I gave each student a laminated piece of paper with a picture of a person who they were supposed to write a short letter to and 3 other pictures which were the topics. The student groups loved this activity. They could use creativity when writing the letter to their person about the 3 topics. I decided to include the 3 pictures so I could keep them on topic and not produce any inappropriate letters. Trust me, 6th graders are very capable of it! Each group ended up with one friendly letter. Then I told the class that we would be peer editing. I simply switched letters between the tables and the students had to tell me what it meant to peer edit. They figured it out right away. It means to make changes to a friends paper! All I did was one simple gesture and they caught on right away.

Writing their friendly letter

Peer editing a letter

Tuesday/Wednesday: Lesson #5 of my unit plan. This was the lesson that my professor at Korea University was able to come and observe. If I had it my way, I wish she could have observed my lesson on Monday but she could only make it to this one. She also was lucky enough to observe my craziest class :) Oh joy! Hopefully I will hear some feedback from her soon. The lesson consisted of a guessing game for the students. They had to guess what item I had in a box and relate it to what they were going to be doing that day. It worked out really well and it grabbed their attention right away. The items that I had in my box were a pencil, eraser, and postcard. The instructions for the day were to finish writing the friendly letter to the pen pal. Then they had to edit their letter, allow a friend to edit their letter, and show the letter to me. Finally the students could pick out one postcard and write the final draft of the letter to their pen pal. Work time went well and I always encourage talking during work time so the students can bounce ideas off of one another. When the students turned in their final postcard to me, I introduced a short Halloween game. It was called Halloween Mix-up. Scattered around the room were orange pieces of paper. Some had a pumpkin on them and others had a ghost. The students had to find one of each. On the back of the pumpkin card was a scrambled Halloween word. Each student had to figure out the word and then bring both cards to me. They had to show me the pumpkin card and say their word and then hand me the ghost card which was their ticket to get a gift. I made all of the students little Halloween Gifts (as seen in earlier blog posting). They LOVED the gifts! At least my hard work paid off :D

Thursday/Friday: Since I was finished with my unit plan, I was able to participate in a 5th grade classroom. First, I observed an Art class. They were making traditional Korean pottery IN THEIR CLASSROOM! My first thought was "What a mess!" but the students actually handled themselves in a very mature manner. The clay was not being thrown or stuck to random objects and they were sure to clean up any mess they created. I think they are a little more clean when doing projects like this because the work is done at their desk. If they make a huge mess of their desk and the area around it they have to sit in that all day. At first, this art class seemed more like a play time because the students were not making anything that resembled their pictures in the book. There was no real instruction by the teacher except for them to turn to the specific page in the book and to start working. By the time I left all of the pottery magically started to take shape.

5th grade Traditional Pottery

5th grade Traditional Pottery

Given to me by the 5th
grade teacher

The other two classes that I observed were History and Math.
During the History lesson the students were learning about a war that happened in Korean history. It took place during the Joseon Dynasty. They watched two videos about it and copied down information from their books. Then they spent the rest of the class period getting into groups and making a re-enactment of the war. Some groups definitely grasped the concept better than others. They used whatever props they could find in the room and gave it their best effort. It was really fun to see them doing their re-enactments. I think this was a good idea to have the students act out the war because if a student does not fully grasp the concept maybe they will understand after seeing the plays by students in the front of the class.
The Math class was what I was kind of excited to see. First off, math can be understood in any language because you can see it. I knew exactly what the kids were doing and did not need a translation. The students were learning how to divide a number into a decimal. For example, some of their problems were 2.38 ÷ 4 or 6.39 ÷ 3. I walked out of this class with a headache. The students were literally trying to scream out every answer that they came up with because they were so excited that they figured out the problem. These students have no control over the sound of their voice. They just want to be the loudest. Try having thirty 5th graders screaming at the top of their lungs.. pure crazy. On a different note, I was very excited to see that they are loving math class. Math was always one of my favorite class and seeing this kind of enthusiasm from young learners is great. They ended the class by having selected students solve a problem on the board and then explain how they got to that answer. If the answer was not correct, the class worked out the problem together.

Solving the problems

Another 5th grade class poked their
 heads in to learn some math :D

I was also able to observe an open class that the other native teacher, Greg Teacher, had on Thursday of this week. It was very interesting. Just some background info on him quickly. He has been living in Korea for the past 3 years and this is his first time teaching at a school. He has no degree in education. Greg has only taught at after school academies. The class he was teaching was 4th grade and they were learning about "How much is it?" The co-teacher, Kuki Teacher, was present in the room as well. The people who observed his class were all of the higher up officials from the Education Office in Korea. Greg had been planning for this class for 3 weeks. He was nervous to say the least. My opinion of the class. I thought he did a good job, but it was not co-teaching. It was about 75% Kuki Teacher and 25% Greg Teacher. Half of the class was in Korean because the students did not understand the lengthy English instructions for the game and Kuki Teacher did all of the classroom management. Once they understood the game, everything went fine. The game consisted of 6 different shops selling items. Each item had a price but the buyers did not know the price. Whatever the buyer chose was what they had to buy. In the end, the shop with the most money won. They had to use their key expressions from the unit and were given points for doing so. If Korean was used, points were taken away. It was a good concept, but the Education Office officials told him the lesson was boring. I felt bad for the guy after all of his planning that he did :(

So this was another fun-filled and busy week in my Korean life. I honestly have no clue what next week will bring. I am done with my unit plan at school and will probably just continue to co-teach and observe in many different areas. As far as assignments are concerned, bring on the portfolio! I am ready to graduate so mark your calendars.. this girl is walking across the stage on December 17th!!

Oh, just a side note... The St. Louis Cardinals won the WORLD SERIES!!! :)

~ E

Journey to the North and back!

I think this was probably one of the busiest weeks I have had while in Korea and it was only a 4 day school week for me! It was filled with teaching most of my unit plan, a DMZ tour, celebrating a birthday, and visiting a Korean home for a nice lunch.

School was great this week. On Monday (10/17), I started my unit plan for 6th graders which consists of 5 lessons on how to write a friendly letter. I have three different classes that I am teaching my unit plan to and the classes vary in size from 22 students down to 11 students. All of the classes are the high level of English learners. There are obviously varying levels of high level English learners though. Some of the students are good at speaking, while others are good at writing, and some are good at simply repeating what they hear. There is a huge difference between these 3 types of English Language Learners, yet they are present in every class that I have taught.

On Monday, each of the classes learned what a friendly letter is all about. I started out each class with a general greeting asking what the students did over the weekend. We went over my two rules for English class. Number 1 is to speak English while in English class. Why? I say because Erin Teacher will not be able to help them if they speak Korean. Plus, it is for their benefit to use their knowledge of English as much as possible to continue learning. Number 2 is for when students need to speak Korean. They must raise their hand and ask "May I please speak in Korean?" Students use this because they do not know all of the English equivalents for expressing themselves. Sometimes they just need a little bit of help and I am OK with that. I do not want to shut their culture and language out completely so I would rather embrace it where necessary. Then I gave them a creative writing prompt. I wanted to get their body geared towards thinking about writing in English. It was 6 pictures of Erin Teacher in different situations (photofunia.com) and the students had to come up with a story about what happened to Erin Teacher. This went over very well. The students were coming up with all sorts of answers like Erin Teacher is a criminal and is wanted all over the world but she fell in love with Edward Cullen or Erin Teacher is dating Edward Cullen and they became terrorists together. Oh the lovely mind of a 6th grader :) Next, I lead them through an interactive PPT about the parts of a friendly letter. The information discussed included where each of the 5 parts are located and what they look like in a friendly letter. After the PPT, the students participated in a game where they were given the 5 parts of a friendly letter on laminated paper and they had to figure out the right order according to their body parts (i.e. - heading would be found on the head and signature on the feet). The students loved this! We ended the class with my lovely video (thanks to Falyn and Betsy for the help!). I felt like a famous actress when I showed this to my students because I received an uproar of applause at the end of each showing. It was great!

Shy 6th grade girls putting friendly
letter parts in order

My writing prompt for 6th grade English

My second lesson was split over two days, Tuesday and Wednesday. I had one class on Tuesday afternoon and two classes Monday morning. This was my unfortunate lesson where one of my 6th grade classes could not show up because they were on a field trip and their teacher forgot to tell us. I had to push on anyways but that meant one class was now behind... :( All of the classes started with a review and some participation in my friendly letter dance/song! The students were a little bit shy but we did it twice and I was embarrassing myself so they were more encouraged to participate. We went through the words first to make sure everyone could sing the song correctly. Next we discussed what it means to have a pen pal. I have one class of 11 students, the odd class out, who had no one to be pen pals with so I enlisted the help of my family and neighbors back home (thanks again!!). So, I have 11 ecstatic 6th graders who will be writing to someone in the United States and receiving a letter back from them! It was so amazing to see the excitement on their face when I told them who they would be writing to. The other classes will be writing to each other. Some students were nervous because their pen pal was someone that they did not know so I had to explain that it is OK if you do not know your pen pal. Through writing, pen pals get to know each other. Maybe this will help form new friendships within the 6th grade classes???!! :) The students here in Korea thrive off of some friendly competition so we had a small competition where they were given the parts of a letter, some right and some wrong. They had to find the correct parts and place them in the correct order the fastest. If they had it their way, they would have played this game for the entire class period. Unfortunately we had to move on to discussing what are some topics that can be put into a friendly letter. I had a PPT

A sample question for the greeting

My Jeopardy game board!

No Pizza Night this past Wednesday because Korea University had mid-term exams. Falyn, Keely, and I had dinner together instead. We ate at a chicken galbi place which was delicious. Lots of veggies, chicken, cheese, and spice!

Thursday brought the last day of the work week! It was lesson number 3 and I had all of my classes right away in the morning. The class that was not able to show up for lesson #2 was back today. I had to teach their class a bit different since they still needed to receive their pen pals. I used the students who already knew what was going on as a teacher-helper for those who were not present last time. It worked really well!! I started class with my Jeopardy game as review. I had recorded all of the points and what questions were answered in each class so I knew where everyone left off. This was my review for the students. Next, I discussed what it meant to edit, or make changes, to a friendly letter. I found this great website called Letter Generator that allows you to write your own letter online and gives you hints about each of the 5 parts. I had the students create their own class letter. They had so much fun giving me any information that came to mind to create a funny letter. The students were laughing so much at their letters BUT they knew the information! While I was typing the letter, I made mistakes on purpose because we went back and edited the letter line by line. I wanted them to have some practice as a class first before doing it on their own. After the class letter, each student worked on editing their rough draft of their friendly letter. I walked around and assisted where necessary. Since this was the middle of my unit plan I wanted to gain an understanding of each students' friendly letter knowledge. I gave a 5 question quiz and I explained that it was not for a grade but it was for Erin Teacher to see if some things were still confusing. They all received a piece of candy for turning in the completed quiz.

Sample Letter #1

Sample Letter #2

I was also able to watch an open class on Thursday. An open class in a Korean school consists of a teacher working hard for the 2 weeks prior to come up with the best possible lesson plan. In a sense it is like showing off. I think teachers should come up with the best possible lesson plan everyday. Anyways, any teacher in the school can attend the class and they are allowed to evaluate it. The class is also videotaped. The vice principal shows up to observe, too. Teachers are required to have 2 open classes a year but EVERY SINGLE teacher stresses out so much over it. The open class I went to was 5th grade science. First off, the science teacher is the one that all of the teachers have tried to set me up with so when I walked in the room he blushed. I don't think he expected to see me and the English teachers said I made him nervous.. Ooops! :) The class was learning about densities of water and how it relates to an object floating or sinking. The thing I liked about this science class is that I could understand what was going on without a translation. Science is something that you do so it was visible to me. The teacher has a great repertoire with the students and they all seem to pay close attention to him. He is a new teacher and is very formal, according to the other teachers, because he just got done with his mandatory military service.

Overall, the students that I teach English to on a weekly basis are great. They definitely have their days where they want to participate and do not want to participate. I think a teacher will find that everywhere though because students are human after all and do have emotions. My biggest challenge during the week was my 6th period class on Tuesday. They were very chatty and only half of the class was there. The way I tested their knowledge was in the following class on Thursday. As I said earlier, they played the role of teacher-helper to their classmates that were on a field trip on Tuesday. Apparently above all of that chatty-ness they were paying attention to me after all because they were right on. Another challenge that I noticed this week was the students lack of basic English phrases. Instead of asking to use the bathroom or to repeat a sentence in English they say it in Korean. I realized it is because they do not know how to say these things in English. Joy Teacher and myself are working to put together a list of phrases that the students should know and we are going to start utilizing them in class. For example, some of the phrases include "Slow down, please", "Can you repeat?", "May I use the bathroom/go to the nurses office, please?", or "I do not understand." These are very basic sentences that I believe the students should already know so in the coming weeks our goal is to have the students use these in English classes. An obvious distraction and challenge on Wednesday was the camera that was placed in the classroom for videotaping. The students either really wanted to be on camera or really didn't want to be on camera. I explained before class that this is for Erin Teachers assignment and my teacher back home really wants to see what is going on in my classes that I teach.

Since I am teaching right around Halloween time, I spent my Thursday night crafting. Here are the adorable results...

I had way too much fun making these!

59 goodie bags for my 6th graders!

Friday was an amazing day! It was Betsy's birthday and we were able to go to the DMZ! I did not realize how much of a sore spot this still is for the country of Korea. I told my teachers at school that I planned on going and they said they have no interest of going there until unification happens. Regardless, I learned a lot about both North Korea and South Korea. I was actually in the country of North Korea for a whole 30 seconds, but not many people can say that! The tour definitely had some scary moments as well! We had very strict regulations that we had to follow, such as no pointing, waving, speaking, or gesturing to the North Korean side, no bags, bring valuables in your pockets, wear a guest badge, etc. We were ushered into the Joint Security Area in two straight lines by an American Army soldier. He was armed and told us that if anything happened he would have to use his gun to protect us. Once we were facing the North Korean side, we could not turn back towards the South Korean side until we were instructed by the soldier. There were only certain parts of the tour that we could take pictures on and sometimes the soldiers went up to tourists and had them delete any suspicious pictures. There was no messing around! Here are a few of the many interesting pictures that I was able to take:

The 3rd Infiltration Tunnel
(coal on our fingers from the walls!)

Betsy, Falyn, and I

On the North Korean side

Freedom Bridge

Lunch!

Stance of a soldier

Facing the North Korean Side

The Bridge of No Return

A North Korean who was staring at
the tourists with binoculars

On Saturday, the four of us (Falyn, Betsy, Keely, and me) went to Ewha Women's University for some cheap shopping! We spent almost all afternoon there. I ate some delicious street vendor food which was chicken and vegetables on a stick with some type of marinade :) Soo good! We all bought some Christmas presents for our friends and family back in the United States. Then Falyn, Betsy, and I went to Yongsan to look around. Yongsan is where the American Military base is located. Although we walked for a long time we could not find where the military base happened to be.. that or we are blind. It was funny because we saw some other people who looked American and they said "Hey! They're American!" to us. I think that is exactly how I feel when I see someone who looks to be from the United States. Glad to know I'm not the only one! We returned to the dorm, showered, and went out to dinner for Betsy's birthday. She wanted Italian but by the time we made it out to Hongdae, all of the Italian places were closed. We settled for Korean BBQ which is something we all love. Then we decided to go to a few bars to have some celebratory drinks. Apparently foreigners get in free at the bars and clubs. The door men get very excited when they see foreign girls and shout "AHHH FREE!! FOREIGNERS!!!" Needless to say, it was 2am by the time we left. We took a cab ride home and despite the fact that the cab said "FREE INTERPRETATION", the cab driver spoke minimal English. The girls decided I was the best candidate to sit in the front seat and give directions... HAH! It went terrible and I had no clue what I was doing. We now know what to say to cab drivers to make it back to our dorm though... "Anam Station and Gaeunsa." Apparently that gets us up the huge hill to our dormitory. The cab driver was a very nice gentleman and apologized for not knowing where we live though.

Delicious street food

Happy Birthday Betsy!

I had a very different but exciting Sunday. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a families house to enjoy lunch with them! A 3rd grader and her mom at my elementary school were the ones who invited me. I bought a cake from Paris Baguette before I headed to their house and arrived around noon. I did not know what to expect but it was actually a great time. I was able to see how a family lives here in Korea! The mother spoke English very well and she has never taken an English class. She taught herself!!! I was so amazed! We had duck, tea, and a type of wrap for lunch. Next, she served some grapes, apples, and cookies. Finally we enjoyed some of my cake for dessert. All of it was delicious! The family has so graciously invited me back before my time is up here in Korea. I cannot wait to spend more time with them!

Kids bedroom

The cake I brought!

Living room/Dining room

Me and the kids :)

HUGE apartment building
They live on the 18th floor

Kitchen

In the upcoming week, I am looking forward to finishing up my Unit Plan and being able to partake in a 6th grade homeroom! I have some assignments that are close to being due so I am starting to work on them! I would rather not procrastinate and turn them in at the last second.. low stress is key here! Anyways I hope everyone has a great week and an update will be given in the near future :)


~ E

A Perfect Monday.. Is that possible?!

Well if you are wondering, yes, it is possible to have a perfect Monday. I finally figured out the magic solution!  

Step #1: A trio of wins from my favorite teams!

Badgers win 59-7 vs Indiana!

Packers win 24-3 vs Rams!

Cardinals are headed to the World Series!

Girls a little shy about their friendly letter parts!

Step #2: Have a fantastic day of teaching 6th graders!

Boys presenting their friendly letter parts!

I taught three 6th grade classes on Monday. The class size ranged from 14 students up to 22 students. We did a fun creative writing prompt. I used the website photofunia.com and put my picture into 6 random backgrounds. I had the students write a funny story about what happened to Erin Teacher. They came up with some funny scenarios like Erin Teacher got put in jail for stealing money so she fled the country but fell in love with Edward Cullen (Twilight) or Erin Teacher and Edward Cullen are terrorists in love so they are wanted for money and their pictures are all over the country in the newspapers. I thought they were pretty funny. Next we learned all about the parts of a friendly letter using a PPT that I made. We played a game (pictured above) where the students put the parts of a friendly letter in order according to their body parts. At the end I showed them a video that Falyn, Betsy and myself made. We had more fun making this video so expect more! Please remember that we are not actresses nor singers.. but its too funny!

Joy Teacher gave me some great feedback. She said that my lessons went well and she can tell that the students feel comfortable around me. I make eye contact with any student who is talking but I am aware of what other students are doing at the same time. Joy said she was impressed with the time that I put into my lesson and it showed. A student came up to me at the end of class and told me that my English was very easy to understand and that she had fun in my class. It is always good to hear student feedback as well because they are the ones participating in the lesson. I was very ecstatic about this! :)

Step #3: Enjoy a school lunch and it's not even good-food-Wednesday!

I think this is the first time that I have actually enjoyed a school lunch on a day other than Wednesday. The food that was served included sesame seed rice, spicy chicken, cucumber salad, kimchi, and a seaweed soup. The only thing that I really did not prefer was the soup but it was not the worst thing we have had. It was nice to eat a school lunch and be pretty satisfied!

An example of school lunch. Not what I ate this Weds,
but I have had this before.

Step #4: Receive 31 letters from 3rd graders!

Yes, I received a gift from the 3rd graders I taught last week. Each student wrote me a letter. I read every single one and loved them all!! It put a huge smile on my face! I think every student managed to say "I love you Erin Teacher" at some point in their letters! Many of the students said that they had a great time learning English with me and it was a fun and interesting week. I am glad that I could make such an impact on students from just one week of teaching and learning!

31 wonderful letters :)

Step #5: Have a relaxing evening catching up on laundry, assignments, and sleep!

My laundry is done. My second lesson for my unit plan is completed. I skyped with my mom because I was not able to talk to her all weekend. Finish it off with a great nights sleep.

Mix all of these fantastic things together and you end up with a person named Erin who is in a great mood :)

~ E

English Speakers, where have you been hiding?!

I had a very busy week! I was in 3rd grade and fell in love from day number one. I was so involved in everything that they were doing that it made my week go so fast. Here is what my week consisted of:

Monday-

• presented introduction PPT
• observed/co-teach math and 2 periods of art (Korean calligraphy), eat lunch with 3rd graders
• read and comment on the girls diaries

Tuesday-

• observed/co-teach PE, music, and social studies, eat lunch with 3rd graders
• taught 6th grade English

Wednesday-

• taught 5th and 6th grade English

Thursday-

• field trip with thirty-one 3rd graders to a library using the subway
• read and comment on the boys diaries

Friday-

• taught Science and English to 3rd grade, observed music, eat lunch with 3rd graders

Having things to be involved in at school truly does help time pass much quicker. It feels like I woke up and suddenly it was Friday and the week was over.

The third grade class that I was fortunate enough to spend time with happens to be a very bright class. All of the kids surprised me at how much English they actually knew. It turns out that many of their parents know English, they have been studying at an English Academy since a young age, or they have been to an English speaking country at some point in their lives already. Their writing skills are superb and I think many of them really enjoy learning English. I was able to read their diaries during the week. Their teacher asked them to write something in English for me to read. They were all excellent. I think everyone but 3 students wrote in English. English or not, I still wrote a comment and gave a sticker to every diary.

AMAZING! 3rd grader summary of Romeo & Juliet!

The teacher for this class, Jin-young, is a relatively new teacher but I think she is great. She uses the national curriculum but makes it her own. She has taught all of the students how to play the recorder, triangle, tambourine, and melodium. Her room is beautifully decorated with displays of the children's work and it corresponds to the time of year. A student can walk into her class and truly feel engaged by the atmosphere of the room. Jin-young really enjoys what she does and knows her students very well. If I asked any questions about students, she could tell me what they enjoy doing, how to get them engaged, and where they may have any problems. I was pleasantly surprised at her abilities as a teacher.

Hand-made/painted little girl by Jin-young

Hand-made/painted little boy by Jin-young

At the end of the week I was able to teach Science and English to the students. I think Science is where I struggled the most because the students have never had a Science lesson in English before. We were learning about beaks and how they are different and used for different purposes. The material I had was great and I really put a lot of thought and effort into it. I started the lesson by having the students play a game to see that different utensils (i.e. chopsticks, pincetts, spoons aka beaks) are sometimes easy or difficult to use depending on the object that is trying to be picked up (i.e. short straw, magnet, small ball aka bird food). They really loved this game and had great motivation to attempt to pick up more than their friends. We had a small discussion afterwards about how this relates to a birds beak and maybe it cannot always pick up certain items. The class looked at 4 different birds through an Angry Birds PPT that I made. The birds included a Heron, Korean Haw finch, Mallard Duck, and Falcon. Afterwards, the students had a chance to make a Birds and Beaks book that contained a picture of each bird and information about their beak and what they eat. The students love anything dealing with art and coloring so I tried to incorporate some of that into my lesson. I struggled with the language barrier. Jin-young helped me by translating some of the words in Korean and writing the Korean equivalent on the blackboard. It definitely took some time and effort.

English was a fun lesson about weather in seasons. I did not use the national curriculum but instead made my own materials. The students listened to a fun song about what happens in each season. It was a YouTube video called "If you need to know the seasons." It puts an interesting twist on the seasons and is easy enough for the children to catch onto the words. They loved it and were dancing immediately. After listening to the song, we talked about what was in the video (i.e. seasons which are winter, spring, summer, fall) and what happens in each season. This was the introduction of vocabulary and we did a little bit of repetition so they could start to become familiar with the words. Next, we watched a short video clip of the seasons changing from one to the other. The students were very amused by this because I do not think any of them have really watched what happens from season to season. We finished the lesson by making a seasons cylinder. It required the students to write the name of each season and draw a picture of what happens. Then, they wrote one or two short sentences describing the weather. It was a cylinder because the seasons go round and round and evolve. When I told them this it was a big "Ohhhh I get it teacher!" Quite funny. Overall, the lessons were successful but actually ended up taking a bit longer than expected. The end result was great though!

3rd grade Seasons Cylinders

3rd grade Beak Books

The 3rd graders with their books!

The scariest part of my week in third grade was the field trip! Normally in the US, a teacher will book a bus for a field trip. In South Korea, the whole class takes the subway. Yes, the subway! It was scary! All the students were required to bring their T-Money Subway Card from home. I was in charge of 8 little girls and I do not think they could have been more thrilled because I heard many shrills and shrieks when they found out that I was their group leader. Thirty-one third graders, myself, Jin-young, and three parent helpers took off for the subway around 9am on Thursday. Not only did we have to take the subway but we had to transfer to another subway line to get to the library. It was a long ride and the subway was absolutely packed for some odd reason! It was quite the task to get all of the students on or off the subway before the doors closed. It was a close call a few times but everyone made it safely. We all walked from the subway to the library where the students learned how to check out books online. This was done through a few videos and explanations by library staff. Afterwards, the students had a chance to eat any snacks that they brought and to play on the playground that was nearby. By the time we reached Seokgye Elementary at 130pm, every single student was exhausted and tired. They did not even want to eat lunch. They just wanted to go home and rest. Many of them could not do this though because after school they had academy sessions for a couple of hours. Thursday was an exhausting day for these kids! It was very fun and I really liked being able to see the kids interact outside of the classroom setting.

How many Korean students can
we fit on a merry-go-round?!

Taking a crowded subway!

Most of the 3rd grade class.. eating ice cream!

My usual 5th and 6th grade classes went well this week. I think I enjoyed the 5th grade classes more than the 6th grade classes. The 5th graders are much more willing to get involved and answer questions. Overall, they tend to be more active. In 6th grade, the students were doing a review over "Will you help me?" Joy Teacher wanted to do the review so my only part in the lesson was the short greeting and a description of the game. I assisted with the games by helping any groups that had questions or were confused. In 5th grade, the students started a new unit called "This is a bedroom." It talks about houses, the rooms inside, and any object located in the rooms. I played a guessing game with the students where I put a household item in a box (i.e. fork or toothpaste), shook it, and I gave them one clue until they guessed correctly. Next we discussed four rooms in a house, a bedroom, kitchen, living room, and bathroom. We made a mind map together discussing items that you can find inside of these rooms. The class really liked this part because they could come up with vocabulary words that they know. Literally every student raised their hand to give an answer. The remainder of the class was filled with a short video and a memory game about items found in a house. It was the introduction lesson so there was a lot of new vocabulary to be presented.

**These are the 6th graders dream lists from the previous week. They finished them up during lessons on Monday and Tuesday. I love them! They are great!**

My weekend was filled with the 19th annual Korea Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, or KOTESOL for short. It took place on Saturday Oct. 15, 2011 and Sunday Oct. 16, 2011. It was very interesting and was my first big conference that I have been able to attend. I would say it was also overwhelming for me. There were so many presentations that I wanted to see but there was not enough time. I ended up attending presentations on the following topics: classroom management, digital literacy, pecha kuchas, changing classroom atmosphere without changing students culture, KISS (keep it simple and stimulating), grammar instruction, active listening and many others. It was a great conference to attend and I really learned a lot. Saturday was definitely a long day. I do not think my body was ready for a conference to take place from 830am until 730pm though! I received some great free resources as well in the form of books and useful classroom websites. I plan to pass along some of this great information to my teachers at Seokgye Elementary. The real question that I want to know is where have these English speaking teachers been hiding out?! It was great to be able to communicate with those around me this weekend!

Week High Points: being in 3rd grade, having every student go "No, Erin Teacher, don't leave!!!" on Friday, receiving a home-made Korean dinner from a student, attending a Professional Development conference, getting adorable letters and pictures in the mail from my brother, sister, and cousin, realizing a month and a half has already passed, eating Subway and Honey Nut Cheerios (or Nut and Honey O's as Jeong-a Teacher calls them!), fall weather, booking a DMZ trip for 10/21/2011!

Week Low Points: leaving 3rd grade, realizing there is only a month and a half left, waking up at 630am on a Saturday and Sunday, getting caught in the rain, not being able to work out, Iheartradio (online radio I listen to during office hours at school) cannot be played in S. Korea anymore, not going to an apple orchard or pumpkin farm this fall!

Sneak Peek into next week: Erin Teacher starts her unit plan on writing letters to a pen pal!! :)

Korean cell phone trend??

Korean Calligraphy

3rd grade note to me :)

Lunch with 3rd grade!

Korean home-made dinner
Dumplings, Chicken Nuggets, Boiled
Eggs wrapped in Bacon

So adorable!

Letters from my brother and sister :)

From my cousin Audrey :)

@ Sookmyung University
 for KOTESOL

~ E