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

'Twas A Musical Week!

Ah, my week at Seokgye was filled with excitement in the Music Department. The week started on a Tuesday because Monday was the holiday National Founders Day here in Korea. Tuesday consisted of me observing the music classes in Korean. They start each class by stretching and warming up their voices using the piano. Then, the teacher introduced the song Dongchang-ee, which means east window in Korean. It was a very difficult tune to understand because the singers voice vibrates very differently. Na-eun, the music teacher, even said that this is a difficult song for the children to learn because it is not very upbeat and fun. Everyone struggled through it anyways. I could not really tell if the students enjoyed the class but I do know that it was a lot of sitting and listening to the teacher. I did find out that Na-eun is a very young teacher. She is only 23 in Korean age and has been teaching for about 6 months.

On Thursday and Friday I was the music teacher to 4th and 5th graders, which was a bit scary considering I have no musical talent whatsoever. Since students were learning about Korean Folk music, I thought it would be fun to learn an easy American Folk tune. Home on the Range was about the only thing that popped into my head and I know how to sing it, which is a plus. I started off the class with a series of stretches to the song Twist and Shout! The kids loved it and actually danced a bit while we were stretching which was perfectly OK. I just wanted to get them moving before class. Then I was able to test my piano skills and warm up their voices. It was actually just me pressing a few keys that were close together and the students would sing the notes back to me. I guess it worked well because no one told me differently. Then I simply asked the students to listen to the song before we dug into the words and pronunciation and meanings of the song. After listening I handed out the lyrics and we went over the words together as a class. I showed the students what a banjo is and what an antelope looks like because these were very unfamiliar things to the students. We sang the song a few times and everyone caught on pretty quickly. Next, I compared Home on the Range to a Korean Folk Song called Arirang. The students all know the song so they sang with it. We filled out a Venn-Diagram that talked about similarities and differences between American and Korean Folk Music and had a discussion about it at the end of class. Overall, it was very different for me to teach music. It was fun and I think the kids had fun as well. They all wanted me to play more American Folk songs in the English classes that I teach! It was also a challenge because there were high and low level English learners. I had to teach to the lowest learner because I did not want to leave anyone behind. Sometimes my sentences were one or two words with more gestures than anything. The lesson started to get better and better as I taught each class, but the teacher told me that I did a very good job. My work in the music department is done for now..  :)

The rest of the school week was filled with my normal English classes on Tuesday and Wednesday. We talked about dreams in the 6th grade classes and the phrase "What are you doing?" in the 5th grade classes. The 6th graders had the task of coming up with a dream list after being introduced to John Goddard who wrote a book about his dream list. They could work as a group or work alone and everyone wanted to work in small groups. The students liked this small project a lot because it involved them using their artistic skills and having time to talk with their friends while they work. In the 5th grade classes, our focus was on games to improve their understanding of the unit "What are you doing?" We played Bingo, did role-playing, and finally played Snowball. Snowball consists of acting and speaking while remembering everything that was previously said in the group. It is a very fun game for the kids to play.

On Wednesday I was able to visit a private school and watch two Seokgye students compete in an English Speech Competition. They both took 1st place and I was so proud!! The younger group had to talk about a story and what they learned from it. The older group had to talk about a global issue and what they could do to help solve it. There were 16 participants overall and I found the whole thing to be very interesting. Here are the students from Seokgye..

My life outside of school was a little mellow this week. On Monday, Falyn and I went down to Ewha Womens University to walk around and browse the shops. It was her birthday (22!) so we just wanted to get out and celebrate a bit. We bought a few accessories and found these delicious candied grapes for sale. Oh, and Auntie Anne's pretzels was also in the vicinity so we had to stop and indulge! After shopping a bit, we went to dinner and ate some Korean BBQ. Wednesday was a day for gifts! My Grandma Bonnie mailed me a package of goodies and it made my day :) On Thursday I started feeling a bit sick. I think I caught a little bit of a cold. After school on Thursday I made a pit stop at Home Plus and bought the most amazing blanket ever! It sure does help to keep me warm at night. I took some medicine and was asleep by 8pm on Thursday. I am still not feeling 100% but definitely much better. Saturday was the International Fireworks Festival down at the Han River. Falyn and I went around 2p because it said that it was a festival.. but we did not see any festivities going on. We ended up finding a spot on the grass and laying down in the sun for a couple hours. No, we were not the only people laying down in the grass. Apparently we were supposed to bring a blanket for a picnic because that is what everyone does while waiting for the fireworks to start. Instead we slept and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon. The fireworks started around 730p and they were quite impressive. They lasted for over an hour! I think the scariest part was trying to get to the subway afterwards. There were masses of people crowding all of the streets and the police were screaming stuff in Korean which means nothing to people who speak English. Lucky for us some of the policemen could speak English so they told us what we were supposed to do. It took us well over an hour to get home. It was a very fun day, though!

Mizzou in Korea!?

Package from my Gma Bonnie :)

Candied Grapes!

Awesome Fireworks Show

Typical Subway ride in the AM

Sun-man at the Fireworks

~ E

"Erin Teacher look so happy!"

I have officially been in South Korea for about a month! It is crazy how fast time flies and the amount of things I have done in the past month is insane!

I think the school events of this past week are going to be pretty normal when looking at the rest of my time here in Seoul. I am getting used to the routine of going to school Monday through Friday and waking up at 7am. Mornings are still not my thing but it is nice being the only one in my dorm in the mornings since Keely has to leave at 7am for her school. This week I was able to teach 6 English classes as an assistant teacher. It really helped my Tuesday and Wednesday go by quickly. The 5th graders were learning about the phrase "Do you want some more?" and the 6th graders were learning about "What do you want to do?" I had the opportunity to be an actress in the mini dramas that my teacher and I came up with that focused around their phrases of the week. Needless to say I am a terrible actress but I think the kids all loved it anyways :) There were a bunch of games that each class played as well which was nice to get kids moving while learning. Some of the games included Top 5 (kind of like Family Feud in US), Speed Game, dancing and singing to songs, Snowball, etc.

So here is how to play the Speed Game above. One player starts at each end, either the top or the bottom. They say "Ready, Set, Go!" and begin saying the phrases that are contained in the unit. Each student must point to a phrase and say it clearly before moving onto the next phrase. When their fingers meet they must do Rock, Paper, Scissors, and whoever wins can continue while whoever loses must start over. Whichever player gets to the opposite side first wins the game, but the game can be played as many times as needed. It is a game of recognizing phrases while working on pronunciation, accuracy, and speed. The children loved it and it was good to see them loving English. In the classroom, each student had a partner and they were given the Speed Game board so they could play with their partner. So everyone in the class was playing this game and no one was left out to be watching. It was great. Another good point is that this game can be modified to any unit that the children are studying!

Here are some writing samples that I took during the week as well. I asked students to simply write about their summer vacation. I wanted to get an idea of where they were at with their writing skills when it comes to grammar, spelling, sentence structure, paragraph structure, punctuation, capitalization, etc. I was surprised at the results that I received. Please keep in mind that the 6th grade students that I will be teaching my unit plan to are considered to be the HIGH level of English learners. Also, in the English classes at Seokgye, their focus is not mainly on writing but instead speaking and listening.

Example #2

Example #1

I guess it's safe to say the students like us! :D

Clever spelling of the word ocean

 HINT*** please click on the picture if you would like to see a bigger version so you can read some of these samples :)

I also observed many classes outside of English this week. I really had a fun week! One of the first classes I observed was a Gym class with 2nd graders. They were learning how to play the traditional Korean hand drum called a Sogo. The 2nd grade homeroom teacher gave me a drum and a stick and threw me right out there with the girls. They were all giggling at me because I had no clue what I was doing. I had to do a performance with them so I just watched the leader and danced, hopped, skipped, frolicked, and played my drum just like she did. I wish I had a video of me because I would have looked ridiculous. The kids at the end all said "Erin Teacher look so happy!" because apparently I was smiling the entire time :D

Traditional Korean Sogo

The next class I was able to observe was a 6th grade Art class. They were making traditional paintings using black ink and popcorn. Once again, the art teacher put me right in the action and I was a 6th grade artist. Most of the kids had better paintings than I did but I actually find mine to be very pretty! Once it has time to dry I will be able to take it home with me, which makes me feel more like a kid because I used to get so excited anytime I could take something home to show my parents hahah! So this lesson was supposed to be cross-curricular between science and art because they were learning about the microwave. I thought they would be able to use the microwave to pop their own popcorn but it just ended up being a few PPT slides about microwaves and then they spent the rest of the time making their paintings. I think the students all enjoyed this lesson because they could eat popcorn as they worked! I know I enjoyed that part of it, too!

My masterpiece!

The next two classes I observed were Science and Social Studies. I did not get any pictures of these :( but they were interesting either way! In 4th grade Science, the students were learning about plants and the difference between plants found in areas like deserts, mountains, and beaches. There was a very, very short PPTPPTs, posters, food, and went into great detail about what their package would include. Some of the topics were Seoul Tour, Hometown Experience, Making your own Pottery/Traditional Tea, Traditional Food, Thanksgiving Day Chuseok, and Gwanghwamun. Overall, I would have to say I loved the Social Studies presentations the most. It was multi-lingual, very informative, and I saw all of the hard work that each group put forth!  

I was also put to the test this week with many questions from Kuki Teacher. She is an English teacher for the 3rd and 4th graders. She literally took notes on me, which I found to be interesting. Some of the many questions included my philosophy on teaching, my goals in life, and what I look for in a mate. The last question was one that really made me laugh. The other 2 are very reasonable questions. Her response was what amused me the most. Every time I said something she would say "Ohhh, very good!" and immediately write it down in her notebook and circle it with intensity. I ride the subway home with Kuki everyday so we always have interesting conversations and we are learning a lot about each others culture!

After a long and busy week at Seokgye, it felt awesome to get done with work early and to have a three day weekend ahead of me! October 3rd is a national holiday called Foundation Day, or the day Korea was founded back in ancient times. So far my weekend has been spent relaxing, catching up on sleep, working on lesson plans, and shopping at Coex which is the biggest mall I have ever laid eyes on. It is difficult to shop here in Korea because either everything is VERY expensive or nothing fits because it comes in one size, which is too small! I cannot figure out sizing either. Some places have small, medium, large while others have random numbers like 32 and 245. They measure your feet in millimeters and your height in centimeters! It is so hard adjusting to all of these different measurements and frustrating. Eventually I will get it! I think the best part of my day yesterday was my dinner. Keely, Falyn, and I ate at Kraze Burger and we had burgers and fries. Not only was it delicious but they served Budweiser! I had to get one and it was a decent price as well ($3.50 equivalent). I was satisfied with my burger, fries, and beer to say the least.

Delicious BLT for lunch

Korean version of the Chicago Bean???

Yummy! Beer, Burger, Fries :)

More updates from my life in Seoul are in the near future, so keep checking back! :)


~ E