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Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts

Monday, March 24, 2008

Plus One

     I have officially started at my new job. It's amazing that I can work a "long" day at the school, eat supper, buy some necessities for the apartment, and still get home before seven. Coupled with the fact that the owner of the school keeps telling me not to rush or to try to go through the lessons in a certain amount of time, I am feeling mightily relaxed. The school has this crazy new idea of actually teaching the kids so that they learn, not to level them up in classes, sell books, or to feed the mommies' egos. The difference between this school and everywhere else that I have been is like night and day.
     The school has recently moved into a new building. They own the whole building, and it is very well designed. I personally wish I had one less window so that I could have more shelf space, but after the plastic wrapped window experience of POLY I will not complain at all. I am up on the third floor. I have my own room that I teach two and a half set of kids in. In the mornings I teach my prekindergarteners. These are children that are Korean age six (four to five years old by western counting). They are learning English at an alarming rate, and they are reluctantly relinquishing their dominance in our power struggle. Originally there were seven students, but we gained another student last week. I teach the same children from nine:thirty until three in the afternoon.
     After the prek'ers I swap to my first graders. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I teach what is dominantly a reading and conversation class. These students are a kick to work with because their English is very good, but this is their first hakwon experience outside of Kindergarten. They had very little concept of how to keep up with their homework, so I bought them a set of notebooks to write everything down in. These classes run from three:thirty until five, with a ten minute break near the middle. The Tuesday class is a mix of some of my reading students, and a couple of students from another reading class. The schedule is the same, but this time we study a north American science textbook and do a small experimenttowards the end of class. It is really fun, and I think I enjoy it as much as the children. On Thursdays I go home at three.


PlusOne

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Transitions...

     I am in a state of transition. It is a bit like being a minnow in tapioca pudding. Friday was my last day at Sungdong POLY, and I am now finishing up the last hurdles of the new visa process, and should hopefully begin teaching at PlusOne by the beginning of March.
     Why the change? Well, I'm still searching for a school with integrity. POLY quickly proved itself to not be such a school. I am not going to get into details here, but from the moment I turned in my notice (over a month ago) I have felt a weight off of my shoulders.
     On the other hand, PlusOne is proving itself to be an awesome school. Everything that I have seen shows a relaxed atmosphere with more devotion to teaching the children rather than making a quick buck from the parents.
     I am not putting up any PlusOne pictures just yet. I have another week and a half of down time, so I should be able to catch up on my back log of blogs. Instead enjoy my farewell photo essay of POLY.

**I apologize in advance if I have misspelled anyone's name**




ByBye POLY


Monday, November 19, 2007

Where to begin?

     It's been a long month. Dad has come and gone from Korea, Jungwon and I went to Namsan, and of course there was Halloween at the school. I'll keep the text short, and let the pictures do the talking.

NamsanHalloweenDad

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Descending Life Line (one)

     Here is a little comic that I doodled while I was sitting in a coffee shop in Seoul. I was thinking about the strangeness of teaching children in a language that they don't completely understand. The particular class that I was envisioning has the disadvantages of almost no English, attention span, or chances to release excess energy before class. Luckily there has been no actual fires, yet.







     The boy in the comic is saying, "Wayne teacher! Wayne teacher, homework check! Wayne teacher! Teacher! Wayne teacher, homework! Teacher~~~!"
     The caption at the bottom reads, "...And then there are whole classes that I fill with a sort of monologue: "Nick, don't stab Steve. Why is John on fire again? Alex, please get off the table. Andy please get in your chair. One moment Paul. Steve wake up. Paul help John, please. Dan put your toys away. Nick, don't eat Steve. John stop burning..."