Teaching Teaching Teaching

Hey Everyone!

 

Well, we have finally started teaching at our schools here on Ganghwa Island!

I am actually sitting right now in my classroom in between classes.

Andrew and I are finding that the job here is so different than what we had envisioned!

On the first day, I walked to school at 8am. My school is literally 3 minutes down the road, Andrew on the other hand has a bit more of a hike, a 30 minute walk. His Co teacher has been driving him for the first week, to get him acquainted, and he’ll just buy a bike soon.

I went straight to the teachers lounge when I arrived at the school. The schools here only heat the actual classrooms, so teachers wear their jackets inside during the winter and you go from room to room very quickly. The teachers and principle were all very kind and welcoming to me, offering me coffee and green tea. They all told me I was very tall, pretty and “So Smiley! You Smile All the Time?!”

I met my co-teacher Seo Won Choi, who is very talkative and has pretty decent English but a thick, thick accent, which makes it hard to fully understand her.

She showed me my schedule, my desk and the classroom, which is very nice and comfortable.  The school then had an assembly and they had me stand in front of the school and introduce myself to all the children.

The schools here are run VERY differently than the ones back home,

Schedules and classes are changed on a dime, with no warning, so there is very little structure in the school. I was supposed to have classes all morning of my first day, but something changed and so I had only one small one. The children were told to ask me any questions in English that they wanted to know about me, the questions I got were:

 

Have you had plastic surgery?

Do you have a baby in you?

How many times you make baby with husband? (yuppp they asked that)

 

HAHAHH oh man…

I literally sat at my desk, next to my co teacher all day, on the computer. I kept asking her “Is there something I should do? Can I do something for you?” But she kept saying no, that during hours of not teaching, all I had to do was sit around and wait, sooo my day was full of a whole lot of nothing! Lesson plans aren’t even really expected from me, they all come from a textbook, so the work is quite easy and mindless, actually.

I sat at my desk and at 4:30 on the dot, we all left to go home for the day, aaah what a hard day at work. Here are some pictures of my classroom and school:

My Desk:

 Turned out Andrew had a very similar experience at his school. He isn’t actually teaching classes until march, so all he has to do for the next month, is go into school and clock hours at his desk, and prepare any lesson plans or assignments that the teachers need him to do. All he did on his first day however, was laminate one thing and sit at his desk on the computer, also with nothing to do!

After our first day, we went out for a dinner with the other English teachers on the Island. We met a bunch of teachers whom we hadn’t met yet, and went out for a Korean meal at a restaurant near our house. We had some Kimchi, some kind of spinach and sesame dish, a big beef bone stew with potatoes, and a type of fried rice. Afterwards, we went out to a local music venue/bar sort of place and hung out with everyone some more.

 Today involved a little more for me at school thankfully (it can get a little TO boring), I played a game of english word hangman with the 3^rd graders, and then got to teach an entire 4^th grade class all my by myself while my teacher was busy at a meeting. The Kids all wrote me letters in my class, which were hilarious and adorable:

My Favourite "Teacher tall 173 cm Good" HAHA

 And afterwards when I was sitting at my desk between classes, a few girls ran in and gave me a gift and letter they had written me, very cute. They gave me a hair tie, a chocolate and one of those dangly toys you put on your cell phone (a STAPLE item in korea).

 Well that’s about all the updates I have for you now, Tonight, Andrew and I are going to trek out to Costco and finally stock up on some groceries, were getting sick of eating out and are craving home cooked meals.

 

Will update again soon, love you alllllll

xo