My classes today went really well again. Again, I didn't have a co-teacher in the room, because the co-teacher was the woman who was having her class recorded and observed today, so she was preparing for that all day! The first class broke the previous record for the fastest time. It was 0:45 and they got it to 0:43. It was great -- when I was writing their time on the board, I was soooo suspenseful. First I just wrote 0: and they all started cheering. Then I wrote the 0:4 and they all cheered more, and then when I wrote the 0:43 they went crazy!! It was pretty epic. :-D I love when my classes go well! It really puts me in such a good mood.
This morning at our weekly teachers meeting, they "revealed" the promo video for the HS that they have been working on. It was pretty embarassing to see my little "interview" aka me saying nice things about the school that they told me to say. But whatevs. It's a pretty epic video over all, and I asked to get a copy of it, so hopefully I will!
So this afternoon I observed the "demonstration class" which will be put online to promote our school. This teacher had been working on this class for over a week. The lesson plan was 17 pages -- most of our English teachers were there, the VP (although he slept through at least half of the lesson), and some English teachers from another school. Not to mention 3 cameramen. They had all these cables, cameras, and mics rigged up everywhere. So, one of the goals of her class was that it was all in English, which it was. But I got there 15 minutes early, and all the kids had been there for awhile and she was explaining the whole thing to them in Korean. So pretty much, she talked them through the class in Korean and had them practice all the English, then had the actual class in English. I think it is such a joke! I know Koreans are big on saving face, but to me everything comes off so phony and staged and it gets on my nerves. Also, she would ask questions in English speaking way too fast and not even listen for the students to try to respond, she would just continue -- so all her questions were basically rhetorical. The students totally weren't understanding what she was saying, but they knew what was going on because she had walked them through everything in Korean. One funny thing happened, though. During the pre-class run through, she played a recording of me reading one of the letters for a listening activity. All the students heard my voice, and then turned around and looked at me sitting in the back of the room, clearly not talking or moving my mouth. Their faces had looks of shock/surprise/smirks on them. I thought it was cute that they obviously recognized my voice. One of those "you had to be there moments", but I got a kick out of it.
After that, it was time for me to head out! I ended up running to catch my bus at a stoplight just before it changed. Phew. But, then I had to wait 15-20 minutes for my connecting bus, so it still took me 65 minutes to get home. :-( I took an hour long nap and then decided to take a shopping trip to E-Mart before dinner. I bought lots of things:
Nesquick
Skittles (wanted M&M's, but they didn't have any)
Big bag of candy that will be at least some (hopefully most) of the candy I'll use for my Halloween lesson in a couple weeks.
Stationary
Congrats card and Winnie the Pooh baby hat (one of my co-teacher's wife had a baby girl yesterday morning)
Shampoo/Conditioner
Bread (my host mom buys this, but it seems like half the time we don't have any. The boys scarf it down when we do, so I figured it'd be good to get my own loaf for when we run out)
Random picture upload:
Jun-ho got soaking wet when he went to play soccer with his friends and then it started pouring!
Best notebook EVER! "Gothic Sponge"
Banner I found at our school today: I can't really read it, but I think it is congratulating 2 students on getting through the first round of the admission process to Seoul University. The schools use this as a measuring stick for how good the HS is: how many of their students get into Seoul U, so it is a pretty big deal.
1 comment:
hey there-
i'm linking to your blog in mine. I am so impressed how often you keep it updated. trying to give anyone of those back home as full of a picture as possible of this crazy korean teaching experience.
see you soon,
kirsten
Post a Comment