Our first week at the school consisted of meeting with Mr. Kim to discuss various aspects of Korean culture and guidelines for getting over our jet lag, observing a couple classes and learning the basics of the curriculum and teaching schedule from our supervisor, Sophia. Also, at Mr. Kim's request we spent a couple days decorating 2 bulletin boards with pictures of the U.S. and Great Britain. Luckily, we were given a head's up before we left home so were able to bring some supplies with us. The students thought it was fascinating to come watch us work on their breaks between classes!
Our first official day of teaching was Thursday October 2nd. However, since there was a teacher that missed a week of classes due to a hospital stay we had to fill in for him a couple of times previous to that. Luckily, the most we had to do was give the students a test. The first couple of days were pretty easy with not many classes, but the next Monday we each had to take on an additional 2 or 3 classes on top of our 6 assigned ones to cover for another teacher. Since our MWF schedule is the busiest I figured that after making it through that long day everything else this year would seem easy. It was sink or swim, and I'm happy to report that we survived! Once we got a few days of the curriculum under our belts it all started to make more sense.
My students range from 1st grade to 7th grade. The younger kids are much more fun but harder to communicate with than the older ones. For the most part the 6th and 7th graders are not very well behaved and it's obvious that they would rather be anywhere else but sitting in that classroom. It's not surprising because by the time they come to school it's already almost 8:00pm.
This is the reception area of the school and what you see when you get off the elevator on the 5th floor.
A view looking through the reception area towards the elevator.
This is the first of the 2 main hallways.
Second hallway - there are probably about 15 classrooms total on the 5th floor and maybe another 5 on the 6th floor.
The students like to run around the hallways and so there are some signs posted to get their attention. This one is my favorite!
The first of our bulletin board projects. Since we had limited time to gather pictures all of the UK is represented with pictures of London!
Our USA bulletin board. Once again, we had to do the best we could to tie all our random pictures together. The large image of Garth Brooks at the bottom is used to symbolize the cowboy and American west!
Here is a view of our staff room. Right now there are 8 foreign teachers, 7 Korean teachers and our supervisor (and sometimes teacher) Sophia who all share this working space.
Another view of the staff room.
Here is my little desk for the next year. Everyone keeps things very organized...mostly because if you didn't you'd have no room to work at all.
1 comments:
Everything in the offices looks so colorful :)
Post a Comment