Well, I was in 2nd grade this past week and I loved every single minute of it! English instruction does not start until 3rd grade in the schools here in South Korea. I was very worried about this because I did not know whether the kids would know enough English to understand me. The teacher told me just to expect very low levels except for one girl. She lived in Boston, MA for 2 years and her English is exceptional! I can have almost a normal conversation at normal speed with her. The 2nd grade teacher is an absolute sweetheart. She is in charge of 34 energetic little ones! I was shocked but ready for the challenge. Another big challenge that I knew about ahead of time was the fact that the teacher told me that she is VERY lenient with her students. She really does not have many rules and no real classroom management. When a student does something that is unwanted the student has to go to the back of the room and stand with their hands up. Not my favorite form of classroom management, but like she said she is VERY lenient!
Hello, 2nd grade!
Every day except Wednesday I was in the 2nd grade classroom from 1st to 4th period. The 2nd graders only have class until 4th period and then they eat lunch and go home. Their day is very short which surprised me! For a country that is so keen on education, their students do not seem to go to an actual school for a good chunk of the day. Anyways, Monday was the day that I did my introduction PPT. I changed it a lot for these 2nd graders. I used a lot of pictures and just a couple words on each slide. It went over very well. The students were engaged and I was pleasantly surprised at their English skills. Once again, my little puppy Ozzie is a huge hit every time I introduce him! :) I was able to observe and assist in an Ethics class and PE class on Monday. I really like the idea of the Ethics classes here. They are teaching their students how to behave in society in an acceptable manner. It is a great concept filled with lots of role playing by the students. I think this concept should be extended into the upper grades as well because those are the students who seem exceptionally rough with one another. The PE class that I helped out with was by far the worst PE class I have ever seen. The students were working on jump roping but they only jumped rope for 10 minutes. The other 30 minutes of the class they were put up on stage and were practicing a song and dance. The students were lined up in 4 lines and expected to stay there and do this song and dance over and over again. This is extremely difficult for anyone let alone 34 little 2nd graders.
Tuesday I observed and assisted in Art and Math in 2nd grade. The students were listening to Peter and the Wolf in art class. I thought it was a pretty clever song to use and it wasn't what I expected for some odd reason. Then the students created an art project that showed how the music moved throughout Peter and the Wolf. There are many different instruments to listen to so the students all had very unique projects. I was set out to help a boy that apparently never pays attention. The teacher told me that he doesn't listen and she has just given up. I've noticed that he just walks around the room and does whatever he wants. It is kind of a distraction, too! Well, I sat down with him and he just thought I was hilarious because I speak very little Korean and he speaks very little English. Somehow we made it all work. I managed to get him to sit down and concentrate on his project. He became interested in what I was doing because I was creating interesting shapes that he liked. When he saw me doing that he tried to make his own. It all worked out eventually :) The Math class that I observed was literally 10 minutes long. The students were working on being able to recognize shapes that were cut in similar ways. For example, the students were asked to identify shapes cut in halves, thirds, or fourths. This was the extent of math.
Wednesday I was with my usual 5th and 6th graders. I forgot to report on how the postcard exchange went between the 6th grade classes! So, I handed out the post cards to each student and they were thrilled! They were so happy to get a piece of mail that had their name on it. The post cards that class 6-4 sent to USA finally arrived. The pen pals in USA have finished writing their letters and they are on their way back here to South Korea. The students are so excited to get them!! I cannot wait to see their faces when I hand them out. Back to other news in English classes. 6th grade was finishing up there unit on "That's too bad!" They spent the whole class playing a survey game where they walked around and made plans with people in their class for each day of the week. They had 4 days where they could make plans and 3 days where they were supposed to be sick. This was not my favorite game because it did not really make sense for how this fit into the unit. I gave the teacher an idea that we decided to do after the first 6th grade class. The students were required to write a journal after viewing an example that I made. It talks about how they got their sickness during the week, how the got better, and what they did afterwards. This way the journal related to the unit "That's too bad!" a bit more. 5th graders were finishing their unit on their family. The teacher said that the book was too easy for them so the last lesson she changed to being about similes and families. So the students were learning how to form sentences like "My mom is as beautiful as a rose." I was glad to see the teacher bringing a challenge to them because the book was not challenging enough! The students all seemed to grasp the concept by the end of the class. The funniest statement during one of the 5th grade classes was "My dad is as happy as Hippocrates!" when he meant to say hippopotamus! Too funny!! I taught them the short word "hippo" which helped them out a lot! Ah, I love teaching English Language Learners. The 5th graders are always willing to participate in class and I love that about them! They give everything their best shot!
Doing the survey game
6th graders!
Thursday and Friday I was given the chance to teach in 2nd grade! The teacher left it very open ended and told me to teach whatever I wanted. I did not know what they knew in English so I got some advice from some of the English teachers in my office. They said that the students would know the alphabet for the most part and colors. I decided that my lesson on Thursday would be about the alphabet. I started off the class with a YouTube song of the English Alphabet. We listened to it once and sang to it the second time. The students all loved it and wanted to listen to it more! Then I read a short book called ABC T-Rex. We talked about what type of animal a T-Rex is and what the T-Rex is going to do with the ABC's before I read the book. The book did have difficult words in it but I really did not care. The pictures showed things that the students knew so they could say "D! Donuts! Dunkin Donuts!" I liked the book because the students could see the ABC's and the pictures were great. Next, we played the Human Alphabet Game. The students were in three different groups and they had to form different letters or short words with their bodies. They absolutely LOVED this! Even the students who seemed to not care about anything else in 2nd grade were participating. At the end, I rewarded them for their hard work with one piece of candy each. My classroom management for times when I needed to re-gain their attention was just repeating one simple word, "Quiet" It was harder to get their attention because the students do not have any sort of phrase that they recognize even in Korean that means pay attention to the teacher. They caught on more and more each time I used it though. My class on Friday was over farm animals. I started by reading them a book called "Does a Cow Say Boo?" It is a fun book that talks about farm animals and the sounds they make. The students all recognized the animal either in English or Korean but the fact that they recognized them was important to me. After the book I asked the students where these animals lived and many students new the word farm. I explained it to them and the students caught on. Next, I put a picture up on the TV screen of a hidden object game that I made. The students helped me find all the farm animals and then we learned how to spell them, what color they are, and if they are big or small. The students liked helping me spell and loved participating in the hidden object game. To finish the lesson, I asked them to draw their favorite farm animal and color it. The results were all good. Some students even wrote the name of the animal on their paper which is great! I finished the class by telling them my favorite farm animal, which is a cow. I gave them all little gifts that included cows and they soaked that up!
W
W
E
D O G
A R T
Alphabet Bulletin Board in the
hallway
Cow Mask :)
Bird!
2nd grade girl drew my dog
for me! :)
Friday, November 11th, 2011 (11/11/11) was also Pepero Day! It is pretty much like Valentine's Day I believe. The pepero is shaped like a one so November 11th is a very fitting day for this holiday. I received 5 boxes of Pepero from the 2nd graders! They come in all different types as well. My favorite are the wafer stick covered in chocolate and almonds. Very tasty!
Yummy! Pepero!
Two kinds of Pepero! My favorite is
on the left!
I was sad to leave 2nd grade and the kids were just as sad that I was leaving. We took many pictures together, they wrote me notes (in Korean, but it is the thought that counts!), and they even tried to stop me from leaving by blocking the door! They just stole my heart. I cannot wait to have a class of my own that just steals my heart and I look forward to seeing them everyday. My friends all tell me I chose the right profession.. I would have to agree :)
Don't leave, Erin Teacher!
Half of the 2nd grade class :)
Some students that HAD to take another
picture with me :)
The other half!
So after school on Friday, Keely and I headed to Mr. KU aka the body building competition on campus. I found it to be quite entertaining. Our friend from Pizza Nights, Minchul, particpated in it so we went to cheer him on. I was surprised at how built some of these men were but overall I just wanted to throw them a steak and say "Eat up!" It was fun, though! Each participant took their turns up on stage doing their poses and flexing while their choice of music was playing. The crowd really got into it, too! Every decent pose by the participants results in an "Oooooo!" or "Ahhhhhh!" by the crowd which was mainly men. Minchul came in 3rd place so we were all excited about that!
1st, 2nd, and 3rd place!
Minchul!
Saturday, Betsy and I took advantage of a free professional development conference at Yonsei University. We met up with one of the English teachers from her school. It was very interesting and I liked some of the sessions more than the other professional development conference that I attended. We got free bags, lunch, books, and a highlighter. I love free things. The sessions that we attended were called Active Lessons with Dramatic Results, Building Productive Language Skills, and Teach Speaking, Reading, and Writing at the Same Time. They were all good and I enjoyed the presenters. I really like going to these professional development conferences on Teaching English as a Second Language because this world was all new to me before I came here. It is nice to hear some new strategies from people who have been doing this for awhile now. After the conference, Betsy and I headed to Ewha University to do some shopping. It was the perfect fall day! Our shopping was pretty successful, too!
The rest of my weekend was spent working on my portfolio and other things that I have left to complete (and bungee jumping of course!!). The end is near and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! It is hard to believe that I only have 9 days left at my school and 18 days before I leave Korea. There is so much that I still want to do! I wish I could stay just a tiny bit longer so I could get a few things checked off my list here. I am excited to head back to the United States though. I miss my family, friends, and dog! My remaining time here is going to go by so fast. Next thing I know I will be boarding a plane. Until then I just need to enjoy myself and work towards graduation!!!
As you can tell, I am very excited about this! I think the adrenaline is still moving through my system! Bungee jumping has been something on my to-do list for quite some time! I didn't think about doing it in South Korea, but when the option presented itself I was not about to turn it down. To say the least, my mother was very worried and tried to convince me out of it several times. I'm the type of person that once I have made up my mind I will go through with it.
So, Falyn and I left on our adventure at 1pm today. We took the subway for about 45 minutes to a station called Gangbyeon. Once there, we bought a ticket for a bus. We were on the bus for about 45 minutes and stopped at Cheongpyeong and finally ended up at Gapyeong. I think we both just assumed that when we arrived at the bus station that the bungee jumping thing would be right there. First off, we are in the middle of NO WHERE and we look even more out of place because we are foreigners. Falyn found some military men and described bungee jumping to them. The men told us we needed to take a taxi to Nami Island. Talk about a lot of methods of transportation in one day. So some nice Korean guys hailed a taxi for us. We went about 10 minutes in a taxi and when we finally saw the bungee jumping sight we both literally squealed. The taxi driver got a kick out of us! Nami Island is such a cute little place and it seems to be a huge hit with families.
I decided to head up to bungee first! We decided that Falyn would use her FlipCamera to film and my camera to take pictures at the same time. I put on the sweet harnesses, which felt like a diaper, and waited in anticipation. Surprisingly, I was not nervous at all until I got to the top of the jump, which is 55 meters high (180 ft)! The guy rattled off these instructions in Korean and I just stared in confusion. How was I supposed to jump correctly when I had no clue what he was saying!?? I think he caught on because after he explained to everyone I went up to him and asked what I was supposed to do. Since I am obviously still alive and unhurt, he clearly had enough English to explain it to me :) When the "bungee master" finally called me up (after about an hour of waiting at the top while freezing my butt off!) and strapped me in, I could feel my stomach getting butterflies! I stepped to the edge and was shaking I was so nervous! He said to me "Ready?" and I looked back and said "Yes, I guess so..." Next thing I know he was counting down the time and I jumped! I screamed like a little girl but it was so much fun! I'm surprised I didn't pee my pants though! Once you are at the bottom just dangling there, a guy in a little blow up raft comes and gets you. He pulls you into the boat and takes off the bungee. This was one of my favorite experiences here in Korea! I would do it again in a heartbeat!
So, my week was spent in the Science classroom! This means I had to spend a week with the teacher that everyone is trying to set me up on a date with. Awkward. It actually went rather well. Science is easy for me in Korea because I can see what the students are learning. I only observed and taught 5th and 6th grade. These are the students that I have English with so they all know me rather well. It also made it a bit easier to manage the students in a classroom. Monday and Friday was spent with the 6th graders. On Monday they were learning about fulcrums, load, and effort. It has been quite awhile since I have studied this so I had to give myself a refresher before I went into the classroom. The teacher likes to include real clips or movie clips into every class so students can relate it to their lives. The movie clips this week were from the movie Tangled. If you have not seen the movie Tangled, please do so! It is adorable and loved by all kids. The scene was when Flynn Rider was catapulted into the air and landed on the horse, Maximus. He then quizzed the students and asked if this was possible in real life. Every student said no and then another video was shown were a similar thing happened in real life. The reaction was "AHHHHHHHH!!!" So, the basic format of every lesson is to engage the students with some movie clip(s), quiz the students to get their brains thinking, explain the goal for the class, explain the experiment, and allow work time for the students to finish the experiment and write down their predictions, observations, and explanations. I think this is a good basis for science classes but altogether it is very predictable for the students. They could walk in the class everyday and guess how the class is going to be structured. I am glad to see that the students are given a significant portion of the class to conduct experiments. The teacher does not give much assistance but instead clarifications. On Friday, the 6th graders were learning about the pulley system. Again, a clip from Tangled was used. This time it was when Rapunzel uses her hair to pull her mother up to the top of the tower. It is amazing how a simple Disney movie can portray science in a way that students can relate to it. The 5th graders were learning about crystals. On Tuesday the students figured out how warm water can hold more material inside of it. Then on Thursday, they used this knowledge to make a crystal. I always liked making crystals in science class so I was happy to experience it again.
Most embarrassing part of my week!! I walked into the Science class on Tuesday. One of the 5th graders shouts "Congratulations Erin Teacher!" I had no clue what he was talking about so I asked him "For what?" and he responds with "Science Teacher is in love with you!" Now what do you say back to a 5th grader who says this??! My response was "Shhhh, class is starting!" That is the best I could do in this embarrassing moment. Also, apparently my English is "real" English according to the students. They all said that they want to speak like me and that the teachers speak "fake" English. My students are something else!
Overall, the students really like the science teacher. He has a great rapport with them and always uses some humor throughout his lessons. He just got done with his military service so I was told that he addresses them like they are in the military. I can tell that he has a real passion for teaching science and enjoys what he does. There are some definite differences between American science classes and Korean science classes. First off, the kids here in Korea run around the classroom, tackle each other, and rough house during class, before class and after class. In the US, none of this behavior is tolerated. This is how accidents occur, people get hurt, or things get broken. A beaker of chemicals was broken during a 5th grade class. I was glad that the teacher took it very seriously and the students knew that they had done wrong. The group that broke the beaker was being careless and not concentrating on their experiment. Another difference is how the chemicals in the science classrooms are handled. Generally, students are not allowed to handle any chemicals with out proper eye wear in the US. In Korea, the students are not required to wear any eye wear and none are provided for them even if they wanted them. Finally the students are allowed to handle the raw chemical. If the students need more of a certain chemical the teacher just puts a huge container of it out and they pour it for themselves. Students are also careless with the chemicals. They pretend to eat it or pour it out on the tables. I was a bit scared during some of the experiments. Personally, I do not think this reflects on the teacher because this is how kids act throughout the entire school. I think it is just how science classes are in South Korea. There may be more trust in the students and I think the US has taken more precautions.
My English classes for the week were pretty routine. Every 4 units, or about 2 months, the students are allowed to either level up, level down, or stay at the same level based on their test scores for the units. So in my Ocean Level English (high level) I had some new faces and some students who were no longer in my class. The classes are still about the same size. I am still not sure how I feel about separating students by their levels but it is what the Vice Principal of our school thinks will work best for all of the students. It is up to the Vice Principal how classes are run in each school regarding separating by ability level, having homeroom teachers doing PE, Music, and Art, the length of the school day, etc. In 5th grade English, the students are learning about families. I started each class by introducing my family. I allowed the students to ask questions such as "How old is your (brother/mother/sister)?" or "What does your (father, brother, sister) like to do?" The students really like to hear about my family and it gives them a chance to practice English. We also discussed the different members of a family including mother, father, brother, sister, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, cousin, nephew, and niece. Nephew and niece were definitely the hardest for the students to understand. I am not a fan of the Simpson's but it is a huge thing over here so I introduced all of these words using the Simpson family. Before each member was introduced they had to unscramble the word and guess the persons name. Literally every single student knew every single member in the Simpson family. Shocking? I'm not sure. The sure fact is that I now know every single member in the Simpson family. The 5th grade classes were ended by playing a board game in each group that utilized the new key phrase "What does your ____ like to do?" In 6th grade English, the students were learning new vocabulary for different kinds of sicknesses. They learned words such as fever, dizzy, cold, bloody nose, runny nose, backache, stomachache, headache, etc. I also taught them some words to go along with these sicknesses such as thermometer, crutches, band aids, cast, etc. Apparently thermometer is a rather funny word mainly because it contains the words mom and meter so they pronounced it "mom-meter" instead of thermometer. Ah, I love my English language learners! We played a few short games like Bingo and Charades to work on the newly learned vocabulary.
Miss you family!
That was my school week in a nut-shell. Next week I am moving onto 2nd grade. I am a little nervous about it because these students do not have any English instruction during the school day. We will see how things will go but I am guessing that they may be my biggest challenge.
I was very excited for this weekend because instead of staying home and doing homework all weekend I would actually be out and about experiencing Seoul. I am trying to pack my weekends full with all of the things that I want to do before I leave. Hopefully I can fit most of it in.
Friday night was the first night of the Seoul Lantern Festival 2011. It was held down at Cheonggyecheon Stream by Seoul's City Hall. It was absolutely beautiful! There were so many lanterns and we were there for about 2 hours. This stream is 8.4 km long so just imagine how much we were able to see. It was packed full of people! Every single lantern was handcrafted from Korean traditional paper called Hanji. They were all very delicate, intricate, and colorful. I am so glad that we were able to visit this while in Seoul!
Lanterns that people floated
on the stream
Just me :)
Lantern palace! AMAZING!
Make your own lantern!
Lotus lantern
Seoul Lantern Festival 2011!
Lantern drum show
In front of the lantern drum show
So crowded!
Saturday was my day out in the city with my teacher, Joy. She takes part in a Korean music class called Pansori and she invited me to go with her. I thought it would be an interesting experience so I decided to go. There was a total of four people there; myself, Joy, the teacher, and another man. They encouraged me to sing even though I knew none of the words and there are no musical notes for these songs. They are simply tunes passed down from generation to generation so you learn by listening. I just made sounds that sounded like what they were saying. The teacher had an AMAZING voice! Her voice is very big and beautiful and she is only 24. Joy told me that she studied at one of the best music universities in Seoul. After the class was over, the owner of the music school invited us to have some fruit with him. I guess I was the first foreigner to ever visit his school so he was very excited. He was taking pictures of me, showing me every musical instrument that he owns, playing some pieces on the Korean flute, having his students sing and play instruments, taking videos, and asking me to play the instruments. Apparently I am a natural at every instrument I tried because there was tons of clapping at my skills. I told him that I used to play flute so he had me try the Korean flute. I made a sound the first time and he was shocked. He told Joy that no one ever makes sounds on their first try! :) The owner even tried to create a "perfect match" with me and his student... who spoke zero English... and is a famous singer in Korea... who is 26 but looks like he is in high school. This was definitely an interesting experience.
The four of us!
Haegeum
Pansori music.. without
notes
The owner playing a Janggu
Korean flute called Danso
My "perfect match" playing
the Geomungo
(Yes, I know this video is black. I did not want to videotape her because she was very shy.)
Next we went to Changdeok Palace. It is very beautiful in the fall and it is one of the best places to visit at this time of the year. To me, all of the palaces look very similar. They have the same types of decorations and painting. Still interesting nonetheless because you cannot find this type of history in the US. I was actually surprised at how many foreign people were there when we went. I have come to the conclusion that foreign people make appearances at night and on Saturdays. The history of Korea is so amazing and they have really come so far! They have a lot to be proud of!
Keeps the evil away
In front of some palace buildings
Beautiful trees at Changdeok
Palace
Such attention to detail!
The main palace building
Fruit that acutally looks
like little pumpkins!
Finally, we ended our day by meeting up with her sister, Na-young, for dinner. They look so much alike and this is the first time that I have been able to tell that people are related! We went to Sinsa and ate at a famous Makgeolli and Korean pizza restaurant. Makgeolli is Korean rice beer. We had Chestnut Makgeolli, which is sweet, and Citron Makgeolli, which is a bit sour. Both were good. They are served chilled and out of a teapot. The glass is more like a small bowl. Korean pizza is not pizza at all. It is good but instead I would describe it to look like a potato cake. I loved having dinner with Joy and her sister. Na-young speaks English very well and is studying to be a neurologist! She rode a bus for 4 hours just to have dinner with us! I definitely enjoyed my Saturday! Everything that we did was fun!
