Sh!t My Kids Say Part 2

So it’s been a while since my last post about the things my kids say in class. I don’t know if my kids aren’t as funny yet in this new semester or if I can’t remember what they say as a result of my Archer-like existence at all hours of the day, but I’m sure there must be a reason.

Publisher’s Note: Jon is never drunk for class and has never ingested alcohol on school premises. (He just wanted to make a meme!)

However, sometimes these kids say funny things.

For example, this semester I’m teaching a fairly low-level LangCon class where the kids know little English and are only 7 or 8 years old. The young beauties in this class number 6: Chad, Kevin, Kyle, Amy, Sophia, and Alice. They prefer to spend more time touching my butt, making random hand gestures, and throwing shoes at each other than they do sitting in their seats to learn English. My favorite thing about these kids is their inability to form sentences. They cannot say, “I want…” or “I have…” or other “I + verb…” sentences. So whenever they need water or bathroom breaks, they just say “Teacher! My bathroom!” or “Teacher, my water!” I can’t tell them to stop, because they don’t understand. Even simple attempts to fix their mistakes (Making them repeat, “I have. To Go. To the bathroom.”) go un-learned because they have the short term memory of a midge-fly. They get to “I have to…” and they forget “bathroom.” I get them to say “Go to the bathroom,” and they forget “I have to…” I guess I’ll just have to listen to “Teacher! My bathroom!” for a while longer yet.

On the other end of the spectrum is my highest level Avalon class – T3. These kids are upper-level middle schoolers who are some of the most fluent in the school. These kids know such vaunted phrases as “pain in the ass,” and delight in making the snarkiest of comments. One of the girls, Sunni (actually it’s “Sunny,” but she yelled at me that she “isn’t like the Effing weather,” the charming lass), was tasked to answer a question about preference between getting a job at a sandwich shop or trying at a job fair. She had 15 seconds to prepare and 45 seconds to answer the question. She started her answer with “I think that going to the Vanity Fair would be better than the sub-sandwich shop. The sub-sandwich shop is not a good job and the Vanity Fair has more potential…” After 45 seconds had finished I just asked her one question: “Sunny, do you know what Vanity Fair is?” She just looked at me, then her eyes widened. “I didn’t answer correctly? What was I supposed to say?”
“Job fair, Sunny, not Vanity Fair.”
“Teacher, what is Vanity Fair?”
“It’s a popular magazine in the United States for fashion and pop culture.”
“Sorry, Teacher, I watched a movie last night.”
Hahaha. Sunny saw a movie, which meant she confused Vanity Fair with a job fair. Not something I thought to ever say from my professional experiences.

My final comments are from my JA class. There is a student in there whose name was “Jelly Pizza.” I say “was” because she changed her name to “Reina.” My first day in that class, she started running her mouth about everything and anything that came into her head “Teacher, I’m hungry. Teacher, do you have a girlfriend? Teacher, do you know Jesse teacher? Teacher! I don’t think so…” and anything else. She is easily has one of the most effervescent personalities I have ever seen and a fairly intelligent mind to support it. At the beginning of class, I always write the students’ names on the board so I can give points for participation. Since it was my first class with them and I didn’t know all of their names, I played a little game with them where I ask them their names and write nonsensical things upon the board. For example, I ask, “What is your name?” “But, Teacher!…” so I write “But Teacher” on the board and everyone laughs. Well, Jelly Pizza’s real name is Jessica, but she did not want to tell me even Jelly Pizza, so she said “Teacher, you are a cucumber-face!”
“I’m a cucumber-face?! You are a carrot-face!”
“No! No! No! No! I am not a cucumber-face! I mean, not a carrot-face!”
So I wrote all of that on the board. MWUHAHAHA! I am victorious! However, what I find the best part about this is her creativity in coming up with an insult of such devastating impact. She is only 11 or so and has such powerful and energetic spirit that she can use English is such a way… it is incredibly refreshing in the midst of the other “dead spacers” in the school (You know, the kids who simply show up and waste the air of everyone in the room because they don’t want to be there).

As you can see, my kids keep me on my toes. I don’t know what it is, but I seem to have found a new source of hope and enjoyment in teaching in these kids. Perhaps it is these crazy things they say, the familiarity I have gained after 6 months here, or the new/relaxed attitude I have towards my classroom management, but I am beginning to find genuine happiness in this job. Hooray for the crazy sh!t my kids say!

Intensives (and Winter Term in general)

I didn’t really post about my winter semester, now did I? Slight oversight on my part, I assure you. As ever, I exist to serve and aim to “strike!, balance!, redress!” all manners of informational deficiencies. Well, let me start by saying that as of right now I only have around 1.5 weeks left in the Winter Term… so… uh… better late than never? There were some significant changes in my schedule, which led to significant changes in my daily life that I am sure resulted in my unfortunate inability to keep you updated on my every errant thought. For such a grievous error, I humbly implore you to skip these sentences and begin the following paragraph.

As you recall, my Fall Semester educational buffet consisted entirely of Avalon fare. While nutritious for a growing boy and greatly aiding in the digestion of turbulent agitators, it was rather like a child having the option of “All you can eat” and just picking pizza, ice cream, and mashed potatoes because that is all he knows. Well, for my second pass, I was gifted with the broadened knowledge of a little salad bar I like to call LangCon. Now, I mentioned last time that LangCon is generally for the younger kids – from kindergarten kids just learning the alphabet all the way up to later elementary kids who are near-fluent. When they reach late-elementary, they either have to go to Avalon or find another school entirely, although we do like to keep kids in the family for their middle school years. My schedule, as such, reflected a much more sophisticated palate:

Oh yes, still with the color coordination. I am boss!

Now, you’ll notice some small changes between my fall and winter schedules. First, my hours are slightly different. Well, tally-ho! my good friend! You are ever the astute observer. Indeed my hours have changed from 2:30-11:00 PM to 1:00-10:00 PM! Earlier in the day is nice and all, but it does make it a little more difficult to communicate with you in the evenings or make myself an extravagant breakfast in the morning (or recover from late nights…). Also, you’ll see that my first two classes of every day are the same. Again, you always were a bright one, which is why we’re friends, you know. Now those two classes are LangCon 5D classes (the “5” stands for “5” and the “D” stands for “day.” Look at you learning!) and they are for the youngest kids I teach. The Nina-g (“g” stands for “green,” meaning first semester at that level) class is hit or miss, but the Nina-p (“p” stands for “purple” and means second semester at that level) class is always hellacious. I mean that in the most respectful of terms for a class where the kids routinely kick me in various manly places, yell over me, draw on the board with their own markers, use their cell phones and video tape class, don’t do their work, and generally disregard any attempts at education that humans have developed since the stone age. I’m sorry, I think those were inside words… These two classes actually perform the most interesting punishment ever exacted upon a teacher: the dreaded “poop rocket.”

I’m traumatized right now… the flashbacks… Courtesy of ViaKorea (Click at your own risk)

Oh yes, my dearest confidant, that is exactly as its name implies. Whilst the teacher continues in perfectly executing each and every responsibility and requirement so charged to said august position, a fiendish young devil hiding within the cherubic bodies of the children will suddenly seize control and manipulate that child into forming “the rocket.” The rocket is a simple achievement where the child clasps his or her hands angelically, but then extends the pointer fingers of each hand together much like what we in America would call a “Finger Gun.” Then, with the little devil fully in control of the under-developed child’s mind, these hands will be thrust into the backside of the teacher (who is either walking between rows to check homework or ask other students to please stop eating tape), producing an indignant squawk from the teacher and raucous peals of laughter from the entire class. The humiliation is bearable, but only barely so as it is considered improper to scream at the kids or beat them severely as such a violation would warrant. (In all seriousness, WTF?! This is a country that thinks “crazy” is tantamount to a swear, and “raspberry” noises are considered incredibly unclean, but shoving fingers into a person’s butt is completely acceptable? I guess cultural diversity really is a wonderful thing.)

Well, that little tangent aside (Haha, tangent! Aside! Woooo…. nerd!), I’ll finish with: Pinta-g is the next level above Nina-p and I really like my class. They are really good kids (no poop rockets) who know a decent amount of English and we can have some fun. I used to teach two sections of Pinta-g, but that second one got switched to a Navi-p. Now, the reason behind that was: Alice (one of the Korean teachers) has been forced into taking some extra responsibilities in LangCon and does not have time to teach all of her classes. So, there was a big shuffle of everyone’s schedules a few weeks ago and I was placed in the curious position of teaching the subjects typically taught by the Korean teachers (Social Studies and Science). So, I am now the “Korean” teacher for that class and have absolutely no idea what I am doing. Yay. Luckily, I had 3 of the 4 kids in that class in my Intensive Debate Class (getting to that soon) and they are all very smart kids (it’s the 2nd highest level I think). Hooray LangCon! Otherwise, my Avalon classes are very much the same as last semester (HA and MB and JB) and I see many of my students from last semester in my classes. That is a very interesting feeling, knowing that I taught these kids last semester and to see how a new class dynamic affects them. So, that’s the schedule! I have earlier hours, I work more hours, I have more work to do outside of class for my LangCon kids (journal grading and whatnot), I am settling into being a teacher, and I’m learning more and more every day.

Now I mentioned something about an Intensive Debate Class. That was no mistake. There is a curious practice in these private academies where they add extra one-month-long classes to the standard schedule. These classes are offered in the second month of the Winter and Summer semesters to coincide with school vacations. Back in the middle of December I was asked to develop and implement a debate class for the month of January. “All well and good,” I thought to myself as I stroked my beard. “However, you said ‘develop’ instead of teach. Why the verb change?” Well, as it turns out, LangCon has not done a debate class in quite some time (if ever) and I was tasked with creating a course. Now, I have little experience in debates and less experience with kids, so of course there is no way that this could go poorly. Oh, it also turns out that they wanted to offer this class twice. The catch being that one of these classes would be the normal “twice a week” for 4 weeks (8 classes) and the other would be five times a week for four weeks (20 classes). Well, I’ll be darned if I wasn’t going to make the best debate class I could for both those classes and teach them both myself! Mostly, I was excited about how all of it was overtime pay and the chance to maybe try to teach kids something not in a book. So I put my own spin on it! Made up all the materials, handed out packets, made them do research, and had them do some debates. For the 5D Debate class I even did a whole week on public speaking. It felt fantastic to teach material I had designed myself. And you know what? It wasn’t a total poop rocket. It wasn’t the best thing to come out of LangCon, but it was fun, the kids learned stuff, and I learned stuff too. Hooray for learning! (Hooray for 28 hours of overtime!). Ah, and I did all of this while entertaining Lindz for company! True story: I’m awesome.

Well, I seem to have exhausted your eyes from just solid text for the past 1400 words. I’m so sorry. To you and your brain. Consider yourself fully informed about what my schedule was like this past semester (considering that it changes in two weeks, it really isn’t worth that much). I’ll have more for you soon. I promise!

Korean Christmas

I know that it’s a little late to be posting this, but I still wanted to share it with you. I spent my first Christmas away from long-time-friends and family this year (and Chanukah, too, but that was covered here) and was a little unsure how festive this season would be. Part of my apprehension about the season had to do with how few vacation days we had to celebrate. Now, I’m used to having at least two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s since that is how life worked in the American public school system: You generally had a week of play time between Christmas and New Year’s, sometimes 2 if they fell on Wednesdays. Then, in college, I had final exams in the first two weeks and was home until the first week of January (Hooray for J-Term classes!). Here, we had Christmas Day off (A Tuesday) and New Year’s Day off (Again, Tuesday). Couldn’t even take off the Monday… So, could we go anywhere? No. Make plans? Not really. What ever could we do?

First I decided to set up my Christmas decorations in my apartment:

This is how I prepare for Santa in Korea.

As my parents were kind enough to send over a package of gifts and festive items to make the spirits bright (no spirits in the package though, suitable spirits were acquired here), I displayed them under a fake tree and a coat hanger-turned-general-purpose-Christmas-pole. Preparations complete, I still had to find a way to celebrate.

“Hmmm…. I can help with that!”

Chris’s girlfriend, Angels, was kind enough to invite us to her apartment for a little party on Christmas Eve. So we went over and had some fun, drank some wine, watched some Aeon Flux (apparently it was an animated TV series on MTV?) ate tons of delicious food prepared by Angela and Chris, and enjoyed ourselves. I was made happiest by the lovely cookie I found:

The perfect Yin-Yang Cookie. It means that balance and harmony will dictate the life of whosoever consumes it.

So that’s a good Christmas Eve, but what about Christmas Day? Well, we were debating the available options – go to a bar and bring food, go to a Chili’s or Outback Steakhouse or some such restaurant, or go to a place and cook food – when our bosses surprised us by allowing the use of their apartment! We were incredibly thankful for the opportunity to cook a delicious Christmas meal, do some Secret Santa stuff, relax with friends, and enjoy a fully furnished apartment. Everyone brought a little something to cook up or drink down, a Secret Santa gift, and a joviality the likes of which had never been seen before in Korea. Me? Oh, the newest co-worker Lindsey was my Secret Santa so I got her some chocolates, wine, and a bottle of Soju. What food did I make? Traditional Jewish food of latkes. So I’ll just let the pictures do the talking for how well it turned out:

The view from our bosses’ apartment.

“….Lo, on the day of His birth, they feasted upon the latkes…”

Our delectable spread!

That’s a plateful.

The gang feasting.

Secret Santa!

Christmas success! Ah, I forgot to mention that we got another little gift from the universe. At 9:00 PM on Christmas Day, our newest teacher arrived from the United States. His name is Nolan and he is replacing Ryan down in LangCon. Here he is with us out at dinner a few nights later:

Nolan (L), Phil (C), Andrew (R) prepping some delicious Korean BBQ.

Here’s hoping for the best in his stay!

Finally, the last, best part of December. I got a facebook message from someone I hadn’t seen in three years: Paul Cross. His sister is apparently a teacher up in Seoul and he got some time off from work to come visit. So:

Paul (L) and HyeMee(R) out for a mid-afternoon jaunt through Seoul.

After this photo, I actually had to split for the airport because I was slightly more excited about a different event. Lindsay Van Brocklin had graciously agreed to take one month away from her job search and her family to come visit me for a month. She landed on Dec. 29th and brought with her a new energy and life to my depressing little apartment in the middle of snowy Korea. You’ll hear more about her once we get to January’s make-up posts, just suffice it to say that she arrived and made me the happiest I’d been the whole time I’ve been here. Ok, too much about the personal life! Next!

Recap: Christmas was all about – bosses’ apartment, great food prepared ourselves, successful Secret Santa, & new teacher.
Got to catch up with Paul, Lindz arrived.

What did January have in store? Read about it next!

Sh!t My Kids Say Part 1

So my kids have started to amuse me with the little things they say, as I’ve pointed out here. I figured I would start collecting them and putting them down to share with you all. It’s only fair that you get to experience all that I do and get a few laughs out of it too. As Lindsay mentioned, they are “a precocious bunch” and I must add that they love to challenge me in any way they can. Mostly this involves tricking me into saying a bad word in Korean or asking if I know a word in Korean. Never one to suffer insults, I retort with something intelligent about their height or haircut (they all have the same haircut, for the most part). Sometimes I even just ask them questions about things they probably don’t know about, like what “effervescent” means, or what is going on in Syria, or who the Vice President of the United States is. They know the President, so VP is smarter to trip them up… Despite their little moments, they still manage to say things that border between amusing and mortifying. Here are a few, decide on your own where they fall.

I’m now teaching a class called IEWC, which stands for the International English Writing Competition. These are really smart high-school-aged kids who are almost fluent that are going to write timed essays for a competition (HA! NERDS!). The first class I had with them, last Thursday the 25th, we were writing an essay on Intelligence. They had to pick a stance on whether they thought Intelligence is something you are born with or if there are other factors that contribute to an individual’s Intelligence. Both students chose “Other Factors” and started brainstorming examples, details, and other supports. The funny part came when one of the students said that parental teaching styles really mattered. I asked, “How so?” To which she responded, “In class the other day my teacher was talked about how good parents teach good things to the children and they learn good things to make them more smart.”
“Ok, that makes sense(obvious grammar mistakes aside), any examples?”
“Yes. My teacher was talking about the Jewish [sic] whose parents have always teach them to question and think. So the Jews childrens learn this and that is why there are… many… in the world… umm… smart Jews.”
Sheer brilliance, this one. Never have I heard the Jewish tradition summed up so nicely by a Korean kid with such an off-handed air that it was something that is commonly (I can only assume) taught in public school. Blew my mind. I couldn’t stop smiling/chuckling for a good five minutes.

This next one has come up in several classes. On certain days, I have started playing Team Jeopardy with a couple classes to make sure they really understand the material (and so that they can try to win some candy). I never have enough material to fill 5 whole categories, so I borrowed an idea from my coworker Andrew to include a “Random” category. This is usually Avalon-specific stuff. One of the questions I use is, “How many foreign teachers are there up here at Avalon and what are their names?” Well, the kids first get it wrong by guessing anywhere from 5-14 (the answer is 7), but the hilarity ensues when trying to recall all of our names. They can get several very easily: Josh (who they call Ajoshy since that means “old man” in Korean), Phil, Andrew, Jon (me!), and sometimes they call Jesse “Canadian” (He is one of two Canadians up in Avalon… so I guess they’re right?). The problem comes for the other two foreign teachers. After the first time I asked this question in Jeopardy and heard the response, I started to watch in my other classes to see if it was the same across all of them, and I found it was, meaning I think Korean’s are all slightly racist: They stop, look at each other and just start moving one of their hands in a circle around their faces. As if they are covering or wiping it. They don’t ask me anything, but they make this motion and all look at each other with these pained looks on their faces like they don’t know what to say. So I have a class of fourteen little Korean boys and girls in near silence mime-washing their faces for about a minute, looks of consternation on their faces, occasionally rupturing the silence with frustrated grunts and a quick sentence back and forth to find an answer. Eventually one of them usually says, “The guy who… The guy is… His face is…”
“You mean the guy who doesn’t look like Jon Teacher? What do you mean?”
“Teacher! The guy… He *frantic mime-washing of face* not look like Jon-Teacher!”
“He’s black.”
“Yes! Black Teacher!”
“What’s his name?”
“Uh, Teacher, we don’t know!” So you just know he’s black, but can’t say it and don’t want to ask. His name is Chris, by the way.
So after Chris, we always have the last teacher to try and guess. That guessing process isn’t as funny to me, but the answer is since they just say “Girl-people Teacher.” They call Heather “Girl-people Teacher.” Well done, class.

I actually dressed down on Friday and wore a pair of cargo pants (the ones I look damn good in, thank you) and my black polo shirt, untucked. I’m cool like that. During one of my classes, GB210, I had stretched and my undershirt came slightly untucked from my pants. I didn’t expose myself in any way to the class, and it was my side anyways, but they saw the waistband of my boxers. To this, one of the kids, a little snot-head dingus who never pays attention and only disrupts class named “B,” suddenly yelled, “Teacher! I see your panties!”
“Um, what was that, B?”
“Teacher, I saw your panties!”
“B, these are not panties, this is a pair of men’s underwear. Panties is the English word for women’s underwear (in Korean, panties means underwear for both sexes, which I had found out just a few weeks ago, so I was prepared for this).”
“Wait, Teacher are you a this-kind of criminal?” He opened his phone dictionary and started searching while the rest of the class kept laughing. “Teacher, are you a this?” He showed me the translation: sex criminal, rapist.
So my kids think I am a rapist because they saw the top of my boxer waistband. Korea, right?

The final one I am going to post about this week was how two kids in one of my classes, JB 403, have a tendency to be tremendously un-gentlemanly and insult two of the girls. Phill [sic] and Steve are merciless towards Jenny and Chelsea, to the point where Jenny and Chelsea have responded every once in a great while by turning around and delivering a Hulk-smash on one them (Go girls! I mean… no violence in my class!). I am caught in this moral dilemma of letting the girls beat the snot out these bratty boys and having to be a teacher that does not tolerate violence. So whenever I “see” it I chastise the kids and send one of them outside with a stern warning, but I can’t discipline what I can’t see, right? Well, the part about this situation/class that makes this relevant to this post comes in the form of what Phill thinks is an insult. You see, usually everything is said in Korean. However, this week he seemed to translate it into English and just started yelling “Blood hair!” at Jenny. He said this roughly 40 times in the 50 minute class. Just started yelling “Blood hair! Blood hair!” This must be a literal translation from Korean to English since this makes no sense to me. Just crazy 10-year old kids.

I hope you enjoyed this little post and I’ll try to remember all the stuff my kids say from now on.

My schedule

In my haste to tell you all about my life. I forgot to tell you about my schedule in Avalon and what I actually do! All this time I mention my students to you, yet I have neglected to actually tell you anything of substance about my job and what my daily routine actually is. To remedy that brief oversight, I am going to break down the Avalon system as I understand it and give you all my schedule. This is partly because I’d like you to know what I am actually talking about and partly because I am proud of my ability to color coordinate my life on a sheet of paper. I’ll start with the basics and work my way up from there.

Where I work in Cheongju can be conceptualized as a franchise. They have headquarters in Seoul and have obligations and dues towards the Avalon/LangCon company. Right there, I come to a second point: Avalon and LangCon are separate organizations, but act in concert. LangCon is a private enrichment school for lower-elementary children while Avalon is a private enrichment school for upper-elementary and middle school students. I know even less about LangCon than I do about Avalon, so I won’t make stuff up for you (refreshing that I choose not to for once, hm?). Up in Avalon we have different programs for each of the age groups. For the upper elementary-aged kids we have the Champ program and for the middle school students we have the Ivy program. Within each of the Champ programs there are three main divisions and there are three classifications within each division. The divisions for Champ are, in ascending order, Dash, Jump, and Glide (D, J, and G respectively), and they are subdivided into Base, Intermediate, and Advanced (B, I, and A respectively). So, a Dash Advanced is abbreviated as DA, a Glide Basic is GB, and so forth. The Ivy program has four different divisions: Horizon, Mountain, E is… something, and T is for… T? Sure. Horizon and Mountain are subdivided on the same B/I/A scale, but E and T are subdivided based on 1, 2, and 3. So, Horizon Intermediate is HI, Mountain Advanced is MA, and E2 is E2. Hm, anticlimactic. The kids graduate from one to another through some method that I don’t know anything about, but I imagine it has to do with performance and intelligence.

Each level has its own quirks, pace, and areas of focus. For example, while the E level is doing mock TOEFL preparation, the Horizon kids are working out of a book with lessons such as “The Making of a Sand painting” and “What is ecotourism?” It sounds really impressive, and it is when you realize these 13 year olds can do four or five pages of all English text, listen to a teacher who only know English, and think through it all in English. Makes me feel lame!

Congratulations, you now know the levels. But it isn’t like I just walk into school and each class has one book that we work through each day. The school is divided into a 3-day group that comes Monday, Wednesday, & Friday, and a 2-day group that comes on Tuesday and Thursday. Each group will come in for a three-hour period, during which that class will have 3 1-hour lessons. One or two will be taught by a foreigner and the others will be taught by a Korean. The students have classes in Reading (RC), Grammar, Speaking (SP), Writing (WR), and Listening. I don’t know the abbreviations for the others cuz I don’t teach them. Sorry. Each subject has its own book, which means each kid brings 3 books to school every day. We foreigners only teach Writing, Speaking, and Reading. So they will have each class once a week, except that there are two reading classes a week – one taught by a foreign teacher, one taught by a Korean. The only difference between the three- and two-day classes is that Wednesday is a “Wacky Wednesday” of secondary programming. We teach out of special Wednesday-only book and alternate between two schedules every week.

I think I have explained the system and schedule well enough to introduce my week without too much confusion:

Oh the life…

Color coordination across similar divisions and yet enough variance to determine the different day? Yeah. It’s kinda like that.

The format for each of those cells is as follows: level, room, class type. So GB 4AUD WR means Glide Basic, room 4 Auditorium, Writing class. The two parts that you may have questions on are the split box on Wednesday and the IEWC on Thursday after my E2. The split box is because on Even Wednesdays I teach my JB403 class again and on Odd Wednesdays I teach GB210 instead. The IEWC class is a new addition starting on the 18th for the International English Writing Competition where I will help students write essays. As you can see, I mostly deal with the younger kids: JB and GB. That is kind of difficult in terms of behavior (them being mentally older than me) and communication. However it is also nice because I have half the planning then if I had more dispersion across the divisions and classifications.

So most days my classes start at 3:50 and I don’t stop until all 6 classes are done. That means I better have all my materials prepped and printed before I start my day. And I better not get hungry. Prep is heaviest on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday because that is the first time I teach the classes I have two of (GB210SP on Monday = GB403SP on Tuesday, etc.). Thursdays used to be the best day because I had so many breaks and I ended on the E2 class, which is not overly taxing and the closest I can come to talking to the kids on an equal level. With the addition of the IEWC, we shall see what happens, though, and I look forward to it.

“Such a schedule!” you gush approvingly. “How organized!” others of you cheer. Then somebody, I think it is O’Hagan, says “You deserve a promotion!” Now usually I don’t agree with my friends, but you are right. Thank you. With this organization at my disposal, I am free to use my time more effectively to prep for my classes. A very efficient machine of creativity and productivity, I am. From the moment I enter the building anywhere from 1:30-2:15 PM until classes start at 3:50, I am furiously thinking, reviewing, editing, creating worksheets, and mentally getting myself presentable to teach the hell out of English to these kids. Then I teach, take an hour at some point to cram food into my stomach, and am forced to leave at 11:05 PM. I try to use the last few free minutes of each day to prep for the next day, but on Fridays and such it is actually difficult to focus so I decide to not hamper my future efforts.

Woof. I think that was a little too much information for you wasn’t it? Well you asked… Let me know if there was anything I left out and I’ll try to add it in the comments.

Avalon Update

Well hello, all one of you reading this! I am sorry for the delay in posting, but it has been a fairly interesting week and one in which I felt more than a little distracted. Too distracted to write a post and inform you all about the life and times of a American in Cheongju? Maybe or maybe not, that is your call. I’ll just summarize my distraction in the following manner: I haven’t gotten much sleep, work has been very entertaining and worth my dedicated time, I’ve been watching some TV, and I’ve been thinking a lot on the direction my life should be headed. Oh, and sometimes I’ve been out with my coworkers until the wee hours of the morning celebrating our mere existence on the planet in such esteemed company as ourselves (party, w00t). I’ll try and just give you all a quick update on the past week without dragging you all down with all of those aforementioned musings on where my life might be headed, as God knows it’s scary enough in your world without adding my insane thoughts.

Biggest news first: I got paid yesterday for my first two weeks of teaching. I have finally graduated to the real world and have had a steady, respectable job long enough to collect one paycheck (well, deposit since it is a direct deposit payment system). Feeling accomplished? You know I am! I really really wanted to post this yesterday if I had earned over 1 million won, but it wasn’t true: “Three weeks in Korea and I am a millionaire!” Instead, you’ll all just have to wait until next month and I’ll hit with that same joke. That small disappointment aside, the work is tough and demands a lot of mental preparation on my part, mostly because I have problems figuring out how to talk to people long enough to keep their attention, I tend to lecture when I talk, and I have no idea what the kids are saying when they look at me and talk to their friends (I think the first two are related to each other and the third is simply being a CRAZY foreign teacher). I still like it and I enjoy some of the little dynamic I have with a few of my classes when we can laugh and watch Teacher do crazy imitations of dinosaurs, listen to teacher make up stories about students wanting Teacher to die by throwing a desk at him (never ‘Student wants to kill teacher’ always ‘Student wants Teacher to DIE and throws a desk at him. The students really like the world “die” for some reason), and exacting some public punishment. What was that last one you ask? Public punishment sounds evil! Well then, let me introduce you to two of the fun methods I have employed in the past week to get my students to participate.

When students act up in class or talk back or mimic Teacher or don’t put their phones away or aren’t paying attention, or really anything that may cause me to teach less effectively, I bring a tactic I learned from Ustetha Shereen in Arabic class into play. By this, I mean I make them stand up, walk to a corner or the front of the room or the aisle in between their classmates, and have them raise both arms straight up above their heads. Then they hold that position for several minutes or until they participate. If I think that holding up their arms isn’t enough, I tell them to do that while balancing on one leg. Some of these kids have great balance, others don’t. What ends up happening is that every one of them tries to cheat and lean up against a desk or put their feet down while I am writing at the board, but I just tell them to move to a different part of the room and start over. The other students love this since they get to laugh, the student who is getting “punished” actually is laughing too and paying attention to what is going on in class, and we manage to get quite a bit of work done since everyone wants to talk and tell me something that is going on in English: Teacher! Kevin keeps putting his foot on desk! Teacher! Phil and Steve are falling over all the time! Funny! I think this is awesome for the kids to try and communicate in English about things that you can’t really teach in books and this helps diffuse a ton of the tension and boredom in the room.

The other method was one that I tried out this past Tuesday with my quietest class. It is a low-level middle school class of 14 year olds and if I am lucky, two of them will speak in a class without my calling on them. That doesn’t mean that two people will keep talking, that means that I will hear a person speak on their own roughly two times a class. Otherwise, I have to call on them and pull the words from their mouths like a dentist does a cemented, rotten tooth. Oh, and on Tuesday we had to combine my class with another one since there were so few students (last week, this week, and next week is a “Holding” period for many in middle school since they are studying for their big Mid-Terms which has something to do with getting into better high schools. So they are studying at home and not coming to Avalon). That meant I was supposed to only teach 1/2 of the lesson (can’t get too far ahead of the students who won’t be here) and that one of the kids had never seen my face before. Yet they were all truly quiet, all of them seemed sleepy, and I needed something to do to snap them out of it. So I had them all stand up, form a line, and I walked them around the school asking them to give me a sentence using a phrase we had talked about in class. No one asked me a question or gave me a sentence for a good 10 minutes. This whole time I am walking them through the halls, through the teacher’s room, and back through the lobby hoping that me telling everyone that they would not speak would finally encourage them to speak. It didn’t really accomplish anything except now they think I am crazier. What finally ended this debacle was stopping in a hallway, having them line the wall, and I made them raise their hands above their heads while standing on one foot. I told them that they could not change position until they gave me a sentence. To be clear, these sentences needed to use the phrases “run a fever,” “take one’s temperature,” “suffer from” and “sickness.” They wouldn’t even say “I run a fever” for five minutes before I started walking them nor for the five minutes that we walked until I had them stand along the wall. Woof, brutal.

A little unorthodox? Sure. Effective? Sometimes. Really fun for the class and Teacher? Yes and yes. I’m trying to find ways to keep the kids paying some form of attention and participating, even if it is using English that the book doesn’t cover. For me, that is a little more important than what the book says. Sure the book may be designed by people who know how to speak English well enough to pass the stupid TOEFL exam, but it is so boring and books don’t get you interested in the language. They make you good test takers and are good for working on, but not good for speaking and listening and experimenting with the language. If these kids can understand me when I speak and use words that they know (I can’t use “appropriate” even, so I if my posts get even more small-worded as the months go on, I declare it a hazard of my job and I’m sorry (I can’t even say “apologize”)), I feel they should be smart enough to talk with me and learn English. Maybe that’s me being an optimist and unrealistic, but I’ve been called that before. Maybe?

So that has been teaching for my past week. I still have little idea what I am doing, but I think the kids are starting to get comfortable with how my classes work and the fun we can have. Before I end this post, I just wanted to share with you something that came up in my E2 class last night. This class is for kids who are fairly advanced in English, to the point where they are reading essays, breaking them down into Thesis, Topic Sentences, Details, etc. and analyzing them so that they can write their own essays on the material. Geniuses! We teach out of the TOEFL preparation book and usually it is fairly boring and doesn’t have much content to keep you entertained. However, the unit my one student (the other two are in the aforementioned holding period) and I were working on was about writing a preference essay on big companies or small companies. One of the sentences in the TOEFL example essay was, “There is nothing more motivating than feeling a sense of being needed and appreciated.” I just had to stop for a minute and think on that while Chris continued with his analysis. This sentiment just really resonated with me this week since I have been feeling a little culture shock, immersing myself in some cerebral media (Steppenwolf and “Newsroom”), feeling a little isolated without a means of contacting home, and thinking on where my life could head in the near and mid-range future (spoiler alert: I don’t really have any strong motivations and I am very uncertain). Yet it seemed that the blue TOEFL book had an interesting perspective to offer. A cosmic serve for me to return? If anyone wants to talk about something like this, I’d be more than willing. I don’t get much of a chance to go on my “Jon talks” and just debate and argue (not contradict, necessarily) and explore a topic with someone. I miss being able to do that with my friends… *achem*… you.

And on that bombshell I say, “I hope you enjoyed the update on Avalon. Thanks, for reading! Talk to you soon!”

Teaching

Teaching at a private, after-school enrichment, super-advanced, child-brain-developing school like Avalon is far more a treat than some may think. For those of you I have spoken with, I apologize if any of this is repetitive. If you are a co-worker or colleague reading this, I am by no means criticizing Avalon since that is not my intent (hooray for disclaimers!). I can comfortably say that my job resides somewhere between baby sitting, battling wills like a battle royale contestant, teacher, resident clown, and representative American (if I left out any hats that I wear, it is only because, like Mario, they are power ups). For example, in the past three days I have had the privilege of hearing the following in class (these are by no means exaggerations, and all spelling mistakes are artfully reconstructed to not sound as racist while maintaining verbatim authenticity):

“Teacher! Teacher, you are like big ugly alien” Oh, really, student? Am I? “Teacher! No, teacher! You are handsome!”

“Teacher! Teacher, you have small head! Really small head! And you are…*squints and measures head with forefinger and thumb, then counts body length in head sizes* 5 heads tall!” (What?)

“Teacher, Teacher! Teacher, hey, Teacher! Teacher!” Yes, student? “Nothing, Teacher!” (They find great hilarity in this one for some reason)

Julia, what is so funny? “Teacher! Teacher, you… ah… you look like Buldemore!” Buldemore? Julia, what is Buldemore? “Teeaacchheerrr! Harry Potter! You BULDEMORE *squishes nose*” Oh Voldemort? I look like Voldemort!? “Yes! Teacher look like Voldemort!”

“Teacher! You know Gangnam style? PSY? Do Gangnam Style!… Teacher, your face red. Why is teacher face red?”

“Teacher, you say bad word!” What bad word? “CRAZY! Teacher say CRAZY!” Crazy isn’t a bad word… go crazy saying crazy. ( A chorus of “crazy” erupted across the classroom.”

Otherwise, they are pretty decent. Sometimes they hit each other, sometimes they aren’t paying attention, sometimes there is some open hostility towards “Teacher,” but such is life with children. That is one thing I find really funny about this position, calling the teacher  by his/her position rather than by a name. No Mr. Ordog, no Mr. Jon, just Jon Teacher or Teacher. I have taken to calling my students “students” in self amusement (and I am the only one who finds it funny). I need little things to make it through the day, and this is a very big little thing. That and the knowledge that I am molding the minds of tomorrow (either meaning of molding works. As I said, little things). Also, walking through class and “dotting” kids with marker whenever they misbehave is another good one (thanks, Heather, for that little gem). The kids hate it and immediately wake up or stop and scream, “TEACHER, YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” The marker comes right off since it is dry-erase, the other kids get a laugh at the bad behavior, and the class is lightened a bit by the comedy of it all. So a win-win-win.

I have now taught for a whole week (made it, Ma, a whole week!) and haven’t been told that I was too unfit for teaching. I am not the favorite, by far or by any means. However, I understand that I am replacing one of the most laid-back and chill teachers and I am also brand new, so the other teachers are going to, naturally, be way ahead in that category. I’ll keep plugging along and making the best handouts, prepping as hard as I can, and generally being awesome until these kids love me and are fluent (passion and patience!). So, that said, I am going to retire for the eve and get some sleep so that all my creative juices can flow unimpeded.

First Day!

Sorry for not posting yesterday, but I was exhausted after my first day of teaching. Wow, that is weird. I’m not yet sure if I understand that I am in charge of some children’s education.

As of the last post I was still just shadowing Ben, but yesterday I actually started teaching classes all on my own (did I mention that already?! I’m a teacher, technically). I was nervous as all get out and had no idea what I would be getting into. All the other teachers seem to have this down to a science: they arrive around 1:30/2 and start prepping for their 6 classes, they finish by 3:30/40 and use the last ten minutes before class to mentally prepare for the storm. Meanwhile I am looking around, asking what I should be preparing, how often I should be preparing certain kinds of lessons (games vs. worksheets vs. class activities), how to control my class, what the schedule means, etc. (you get the idea: me like a deer caught in the headlights who tries to ask questions about what kind of car is about to hit me, whether those are new lights, how many other deer has this car hit, etc. until the car has already hit me because I haven’t moved). And, true to form, my first class of the day is known to have quite some trouble makers in it, so I needed to be on top of my game from the get-go (as if I am ever not on my game/in my game/naturally awesome). Plus I was armored with some words of wisdom from sagely Phil imparted in the most sanctimonious of places – the bathroom: Just remember that they are more scared of you than you are of them. Awesome. So my state of being was analogous to the case of a man stumbling through the woods when he comes across a pack of wolves. So armed and forewarned, I assembled my worksheets, teaching books, any shreds of dignity and confidence I had remaining (running slightly above E here, kids) and walked to my class (gallows? I need to check my dictionary…). Entering the class of howling banshees I called them to attention, which achieved roughly nothing, before then raising my voice to a level that could be misconstrued as a booming yell. They settled down fairly quickly, which in Korean terms means they put away their phones (mostly) and talked to each other in low voices in Korean. I don’t really recall much after that in that first class, except that eventually the bell rang and I hadn’t quite fully completed everything I had intended to accomplish. Oh well.

My next classes went far more smoothly: my younger kids were very polite, quiet, didn’t need to be disciplined, and participated all the time. So we flew through everything I wanted to get through and had a little time left over for extra conversation! Woohoo! I was 1 and 1 on the day! The class after that went just as well, as did the one following, putting me up a cool 3-1 and lifting my confidence and professionalism to new heights! Excelsior! Then came the middle school kids for the last two classes of the day. Those two went well as far as establishing myself as a teacher, but not as stellar for completing everything I wanted, leaving a few crumbs to mop up next class. So I’d say I finished around 4-2. Pretty good first day. I didn’t hit anyone. I didn’t swear at any kids. I laid down the law a couple times (PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER!). And not one of the kids attacked me. S. U. C. C. E. S. S. that is how you spell success!  It probably helped that I bribed them with candy… but I’m not ashamed.

Now I need to finish this post and go back to prepping for today. Much excitement and little idea what to do! With enthusiasm and confidence I can do anything! So to paraphrase Homer: Damn the torpedoes! We ride d’Artagnan!

P.S. Thank you everyone for your well wishes. They were greatly appreciated.

To start magnificence teaching!

Hello to the people! This post is just covering silly school stuff, so feel free to skip if you so desire and you can catch me at another post of light-hearted whimsy. We’ll see if I can get into my normal groove today, but it may take me a while/not happen. I must confess: I am not totally in my fully confident state of mind, from which my witticisms and enthralling charisma stem (I know, I know, how can you all resist?). You see, yesterday (Monday) and today (Tuesday) are my only two days of orientation/acclimation to the Avalon English Academy before I take over the classes for myself this semester (on Wednesday). I have been shadowing Ben (who is all that my colleagues have made him out to be) in his classes and observing the class dynamics: how the students interact with each other, how Ben controls the students, Avalon’s expectations of its teachers, what preparation is necessary for which classes, and the teacher/office dynamic. All very important things to ease myself into, especially since I am taking over for Ben mid-semester. Not only am I coming in mid-semester, but – and I wouldn’t have known this by the calm, cool, and collected co-teachers – this is apparently one of the more hectic weeks at Avalon since there are several contests and tests and special days which have disrupted the normal flow. The way I see it, this means I get bonus learning in the form of added stress management, glimpses of non-standard material, and the teachers being more willing to share pointers on the unusual. Lucky me!

Yesterday was my first day at Avalon and I would be so bold as to declare it a success (read here as I didn’t get fired already. Or hit a kid.). I went in early – roughly 1 PM – to meet the directors and get a brief tour of the school. Around 2-2:30 the rest of the teachers arrived and began their 2 hours of preparation before their classes start. I was given leave to ask questions, observe, and learn what I could about daily prep (and was given a temporary desk! Yay!), trying what I could to fight through my sleepiness to perform professionally and intelligently. One of the first things I learned was that they have a Monday-Wednesday-Friday group and a Tuesday-Thursday group (MWF/TTH), so the same group of kids comes on MWF, but not TTH and vice versa. So yesterday being Monday, Ben’s first class began at 3:50 and his schedule (mine as of Wednesday) continued for six classes straight. Meaning class from 3:50 until 9:15 or so. No breaks. All: CHARGE! So you have to be ready by the time initial prep ends or else you are going to have an even looooonnngggeeeerrrr day (we also don’t leave the school until 11, so that is 2:30-11 for those of you keeping track). He has a good group of classes and the kids seem like typical elementary and middle school kids, but with fewer qualms about using cell phones and hitting each other. I hope that the TTH bunch that I meet today will go as smoothly! Oh, and today I’ll have my first mock lesson in front of some of my fellow teachers, so we shall see how that goes!

I am very excited to see how this all goes today and I hope to learn a lot more from Ben, Jesse, Phil, Andrew, Chris, Heather, Josh, Ken, Daniel, and the rest.  Any pointers before I start tomorrow? Cuz this guy is freaking out a bit right now… Not as bad as tomorrow I’m sure, but still, I’m getting there.

P.S. I must publicly apologize to Josh Godo and rectify the error I made in my last post in stating his age as 25. He is 24 until mid-November.