Teacher, Checking Please!

I think one of the more annoying parts of my job is that I need to check the preschoolers' work during class. I try to have all the students work at the same pace, so that I can just go around one time and "check" everything.

For this, I typically draw a big red circle (the Korean equivalent to a check mark) with my red pen on the page in their workbook . But the students, especially the ones in the older class, began to request special notations. At first, they started with hearts and stars to replace the ordinary circle. Things spiralled out of control in the following weeks.

Next, they would ask for diamonds and triangles, so I drew those too. Then they wanted combos (both together). "Heart star!" Paul would cry, or "Diamond circle!" Sarah would demand.

I was feeling playful one day, so I suggested "Do you want an ice cream cone?" They loved it. Soon, every kid wanted an ice cream cone or a double ice cream cone on their paper. This opened the gates. They were past basic shapes now. Today, some of the requests I got included:
"Ice cream cone, candy, chocolate bar!"

"Gold and silver!" (I just drew bars for these)

"Heart, diamond, ice cream cone, candy, star!"

"Table!"

"Orange juice!" (this was my favorite)

Vacation

I had Tuesday through Sunday off from work for Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving. I went to an island off the coast of Incheon called Deok Jeok Do. There were about ninety English teachers in our group, which was organized by IFX. We rented out an entire four-story motel for two nights. Here were some of the highlights:

1. Hiking and bouldering along the coast of Deok Jeok Do, and jumping into the ocean from a tall rock we found.
2. Singing my heart out at the local norebang (karaoke room).
3. Burning myself with a roman candle.
4. Hiking down a mountain at sunset, and nearly killing ourselves as we walk down the trail in the dark. At the end, we entered a bamboo forest which was nearly pitch black.
5. Sleeping on the floor every night.
6. Bonfire.
7. Playing Kings.
8. Meeting a lot of cool English teachers from all over.

I got back home, had a Korean lesson, and then went directly to a baseball game. My old suitemate from Pitzer, Nick, is here in Korea on Fulbright scholarship. We met up for the game, and had a pretty fun night afterwards, finally ending up at yet another norebang.

The next day, several of us made our way to Seoul to do siteseeing. We saw a famous prison, made by the Japanese to hold Korean resistance members. Our tour guide was Roy, a ten-year old Korean kid who lived in Las Vegas for some period of time and spoke nearly perfect English. He led our group of about eight twenty-somethings around for about an hour.

My Seoul trip ended with a delicious burger and an 8,000 won draft Guiness.

Pictures again

Outside my front door. Dino Meat is that blurry white sign.

My washing machine. Jinna helped me figure out what each button does.

The view from my window.

My bathroom.

Home sweet home! Is that a TV and a microwave on the floor that haven't even been plugged in yet?

The perfect way to start out the day, with some "Ah-moan-duh (almond) who-lay- ee-kuh (flake?)"

More Pictures

Sex Ed Class

Look how excited the Americans are to be in this sex ed class.

Angela and Sara,

Jason, the boss-man

Sophie

Left to right: Linda, Sophie, Sally, Jun

Making rice-cakes. I'm obviously an expert at this.

Me, looking very teacher-like. Not shown: the three students who are wandering around the room despite my ineffective threats.

Pictures

Sara

Minnie. I don't know that snowman.

Jun, Minnie's little brother

Every Thursday morning is gym.

A birthday party that Jason couldn't be more excited about.

Top row: Cali, Me, Jason, Jinna, Bettina

Bottom: Alex, Katie (Alex's twin), Sara, Angela

Johnny Appleseed and company

Johnny Appleseed is a 6-year old Korean kid with a mullet. As you can imagine, he's the greatest. He can't speak a word of English, but nevertheless J.A. never fails to have an enormous grin across his ridiculous, mulleted head. Whenever you address him as merely "Johnny," he and the rest of the class rightfully protests with cries of "Johnny Applesee-eeed!!" When you finally say his full name, he lights up with that grin of his, and looks around at his classmates, completely ignoring whatever reason it was you addressed him in the first place.

Larry is an extremely shy kid at first. He would not speak to me, and would actually hide from me. But by the end of my first week, he was following me around everywhere and feeling my beard. Although I've since gotten rid of my beard, he still wants to feel my hair whenever possible. One day I noticed that he had his nails painted. I asked him about it and he laughed as he does about most things. Larry speaks English very well for his age, but I've only ever heard him speak it on the phone. In class and at school, he almost never talks. He lives with his grandparents, and other teachers speculate that his grandfather might hit him.

Sara and Angela love me. They run up to me and hold my hand whenever they can. If another student tries to hold my hand, they will fight them. It's adorable, but too much. They are my favorites, but I don't want everyone else to know.

Andy

Andy is a kid in my phonics class. He has a disability. I think he's autistic. Last class, I told all the students to finish the page, and then we'd go over the answers together. Probably, none of the students understood me, but if I just keep repeating something and pointing, then they usually get the message. Or they don't, and they copy their neighbors.

Andy didn't understand and this made him very upset. He yelled a couple of times, and then he started crying. I'm still not completely comfortable when a child bursts out crying in my class (it happens a few times every week). I usually try to judge whether the kid is likely to stop crying soon, or whether they're going to keep doing it and become a distraction. If they're going to keep crying, I get a Korean teacher to help. In Andy's case, I knew I definitely needed help. Andy went with the Korean teacher, and returned ten minutes later. In another three minutes, he was bawling again.

Gender Class

Every Friday we have a different special event. When I asked one of the Korean teachers what today was going to be, she said "Gender class." I asked what that meant, and she told me it had to do with boys and girls, and that a professional teacher was coming.

I thought to myself that there was no way it could be what I was thinking it could be. But that's exactly what it was.

The lesson was in Korean, but there was no misinterpreting the meaning of the life-size cloth dolls, complete with all the parts that real people have. The lesson started with a video of a 3D cartoon boy and girl dancing. All I was thinking was "Please don't let them strip."

They didn't. But later the video showed a picture of sperm racing towards an egg, and various stages of pregnancy.

It was really funny, and I can't help but think the 4 year olds might be a bit too young for it, but the kids seemed to handle it pretty well. All in all, it seemed like it might be a more sane approach to sex ed than the States. Discuss.

Dino Meat

A new restaurant opened up across the street called "Dino Meat."

Back when the only thing I knew about this place was the name, I still knew it was going to be the best restaurant of all time. Now that I have actually had the opportunity to go, I can confirm that it is the best restaurant of all time.

Every table has a charcoal grill built into it. 14 bucks gets you unlimited meat. We're not talking about Country Kitchen Buffet or any crappy all-you-can-eat joint in the US. This is top notch meat. You take your tray up to the "Dino Meat Freezer" and load it up with marinated pork tenderloin, or paper-thin pork shavings, or steak, or whatever you want. Most of these meats rank up there with the best meat I've eaten - also, you get to eat them the moment they're cooked - none of that heat lamp BS.

The sides are also free and unlimited.

New Teacher

Andrew left last week, and was replaced the next day by a new full-time teacher named Bettina. Great news for me, as Andrew was part time, and that meant I was doing 10-11 hour days in August. Now I work less hours. Also, Bettina seems like a great teacher (she's been teaching children in Korea for one year already) and I can probably learn a lot from her.

I can finally read Korean! (although very slowly).

Here's how I would write Tom in Korean (Hangul): 텀

The "터" makes the "Taw" sound, and the "ㅁ" on the bottom makes the "m" sound. Pretty simple, eh? Everything in hangul always makes the same sound (no silent "e" or "ph" "th" etc. sounds that make English so difficult), so it is easy to learn how to read and write. Although I can read, it is still mostly gibberish to me.

On Saturday, my Korean tutor, Yunghe, took me to see Insadong - the old city. There is a statue of King Sejong, who is credited with inventing the written language of Korea.