Brad, no bread!

These past few weeks at school have been going really well at school. I think the students and all us teachers are finally feeling settled and into a routine. I can honestly say I enjoy going to work everyday and finally feel like I am teaching and getting through to the students. An example of why teaching ESL is so much fun. This past week we were talking about the letter b. When asking one of the classes what words begin with B, one student was trying to say bread. However, every time she said it came out as Brad. I wrote Brad on the board, just to be told numerous times by the class, “no brad, brad.” I had no idea what they were saying, finally one student said, you eat it. And then it dawned on me, bread! These miscommunications happen daily, and they make my job all that much more entertaining.
Update on my class, I now have 9 students, with one more starting next week. Gordon gives the placement test to see which class new students should go into. However, I am not sure what the actual point of giving them is because the administration makes up their mind all on their own where new student will go. Thus, the reason I have received all 4 of the new students. His opinion was for this new boy not to be in my class, but of course no one really listens! So, now Gordon and I have 10 students and the other two have 8 students. I thought 10 was the max, but I was informed today it is 12. I am not sure where 12 students are fitting in these classrooms, but I am hoping they finally give the other classes some new students before I hit 12!
Today we had our second field trip. We went to the Children’s Museum, which was a 100 times better than the last field trip. We spent a little over two hours exploring the 3 floors of the museum. Afterward we had lunch there, where the students brought their lunch. Gordon had told us ahead of time not to worry about our lunch because there would be plenty to eat with the children. I was a little skeptical, but of course, he was correct. These parents provided so much food for their children! Plus, some parents prepared food specifically for the teachers. Unfortunately much of the food is bimpop, and I can’t eat it because it almost always has some form of shell fish. But there was plenty of fruit, crackers, and candy to go around. My only main objection to the whole day is the amount of control the other Korean teachers try to take in our day. I understand they need to be there to help, but I do not like them taking over and speaking in Korean, when I have specifically told my class what to do. Spending most my day with Gordon’s class helps a little in this because most the Korean teachers know by now not to interfere with his class. However, the few occasions I am split up from him, they try and take over and give the exact opposite directions I have given. It is frustrating because the class gets confused, and I have no idea what they saying, and we can’t communicate because they don’t speak English. It always makes me feel like they think I have no control over my class, which is not true either. I asked after the field trip if we were allowed to bring this up and Gordon said of course, but that it probably won’t change too much. It is also frustrating because my Korean helper, Liz, is amazing, and if people would just let Liz help my class and Gordon’s class like she is supposed to, then much of the confusion would not be taking place. I always feel bad bringing up these issues to the director though because then all the Korean teachers end up getting in trouble. It is a crazy system here in Korea, where they treat us foreigners amazing, but treat each other with little respect. Over all though, the day went great and my kids did an amazing job, I was very proud of them and told them on our bus ride home!

Weekend Hiking Trip

I never wrote a blog about this, but thought I should post the pictures because it was an amazing weekend. I kept meaning to write about it, but then the week got away from me. Here is the jest of the weekend. It was a group of other foreign teachers here in South Korea. We met at 11:30 at night on Friday evening and took a bus to the Southern coast. We arrived at 5:30am at the base of the mountain and hiked up for a few hours. We stopped quite a bit along the way for sunrise, breakfast, and a few temples tucked away in the mountains. It was an exhausting morning, but wonderful too. It was refreshing to be out of Seoul for the weekend and get away from the buildings, smog and mass amounts of people. After the hike we headed to an island, where we did a little hiking, but nothing like the morning! After the island we went to watch the sunrise and hiked a few miles to the top of mountain. We ended the day with a bonfire at the beach. It was an exhausting day, but I met some great new people and felt refreshed for the following week!

“His name is Jayden, it used by Steven, but he doesn’t like that name anymore.”

After school on Thursday I was informed I was getting a new student on Friday and I was meeting this new student in 10 minutes. The short notice of the information did not surprise me all that much because it is Korean culture to not let you know anything until the very last minute. My new student came in with his mom and one of the administrator’s who doesn’t speak any English. This was a fun interaction to try and handle; a shy, scared boy, who clung to his Mom, and two Koreans who spoke no English, and me, who speaks no Korean. After a few minutes the boy let go of his Mom and came over to me and I showed him around the room. Turns out this boy speaks more English than the Mom and administrator combined. I kept trying to ask him his name and he wouldn’t tell me, which I found odd. And of course, no one else in the room could really help me. After they left I ran into Liz, my Korean helper, who informed me his name is Jayden. It used to me Steven, but he didn’t like that name anymore so his Mom changed it to Jayden. This explains why the boy had no idea what his name was when I was asking him. I honestly believe it would be easier if all the children kept their Korean names and we just had to learn how to say them. I had crazy names back in Renton, so I am sure I could handle it.

Jayden’s presence in my class now brings my total up to 8, at the end of the month, when Julie, my other new student begins, I will have 9 students. I was a little sad because this means my nice, small, easy going class is no longer there. Jayden’s first day went pretty well. He definitely is not the shy little boy he portrayed with his Mom in the room. He came right in and began talking to everyone and getting into anything and everything he could. He does speak a lot of English though, which is very helpful. He adds a lot of energy into the classroom, and definitely did about 10 things on Friday that if any of my other students would have done I would have taken a star away. Within the first 10 minutes of school he said 2 bad words in Korean. I knew one already because one of the other classes says it and I learned quickly it was a bad word. The other word my students informed me was bad. I have to say I love my original 6 students. They are so cautious about following the rules and get really upset when one of their classmates is not following the rules. Today I was in Gordon’s class talking to him real quick, and Tong Hu came in with a very serious look on his face and took my hand and led me back to class to show me how Jayden had dumped all the markers out and then walked away. The rest of my students would have never done this and knew I would not allow them to do that. I do think Jayden will be a good addition to the classroom, and will quickly learn what he can and cannot do in my class.

An update on the changes blog I wrote last week. After Casey and Toriann both calmed down a bit and the four of us 6 year teachers spoke again as a group, we decided to keep the classes as they are now reevaluate at the semester mark. Toriann and Casey decided to switch around a bit what they are teaching, in order to make both of them more comfortable and happy with what they are teaching. Gordon and I are staying the same, and the kids won’t really have to adjust because the schedule stays the same. It seems like such an easy change now and solution to the problem, but at the time when we were all talking the problem seemed so hard and complicated! It’s amazing what a weekend can do to clear everyone’s head and make the solution to the problem seem so simply. Again, it was good to know that both Gordon and the director support us and will help us. Gordon informed us again about how happy the director is with our floor and what a great job we are doing. I have found Koreans don’t give compliments and praise all that often, so I take this as a great sign of encouragement and respect from the director.

I went hiking last weekend, and added some of the pictures. The hike was only a few subway stops away from my house. Throughout Seoul there are various mountains you can hike and it makes you feel like you are out of the city for awhile. I realized one thing I miss a lot about Seattle is the landscape. Seattle varies from city skyline, to water, and mountains. In my Seoul, particularly my neighborhood, all I see is buildings. Now that spring is here it is a little better because the trees are in bloom. I miss Seattle’s beauty and realize how lucky I am to live in such an amazing city. Other pictures I included were of an area of town Toriann and I found by accident. We were trying to navigate the bus system and meet some girl’s we met awhile ago for dinner, but took the bus the wrong direction. We didn’t figure this out until we were half an hour from our house, meaning we were another hour from our real destination. We tried to find the bus going the opposite direction, but we couldn’t. In the end we decided the area we found was interesting and so different from where we live that we would just skip dinner with the girls and explore this new area. We found where the U.S. Embassy is in case we ever need it too. We decided we should play this game a few times a month, where we get on a random bus and see where it takes us. We were pretty proud of ourselves for using the bus on the way home too. We are never truly lost because we can always use the subway, it is just more fun to try and figure out the buses. When I finally learn to read Korean this task will be much simpler

Some new cute pictures of my class =)

Possible changes to come…..

This past week was overall a good week in terms of teaching and my students, but something felt off all week for me and I couldn’t really verbalize or understand it. Toriann and Casey were having a hard week in terms of teaching, and so on Thursday after work, which happen to end on a really bad note for us all, we went out to get a beer and basically complained to each other. While were we out together we all discussed our frustrations with teaching here, all of which we had heard before, but still needed to say it out loud to each other. In the end we realized we simply just care too much about our students and whether or not they are learning. There are many people who come to Korea simply as an excuse to travel and party. Others come here to truly understand a new culture and teach children. The three of us all came here for the latter reason. Some of our co-workers, who thankfully we don’t directly work with, did come here for the first reason. It frustrates us because while we are really trying to teach and care for these children, they are doing the bare minimal and complain about how other teachers have it way easier in terms of teaching. After we finished complaining about what we don’t like about co-workers, staff, and how things are done at our school, we decided to actually come up with solutions to the problems.


The six year floor is set up right now where each class rotates to all four of us, and has one elective at the end of the day. Back home, these 6 year old children, are actually 5, and thus would be kindergarten. Those of you who are teachers reading this can understand how difficult it would be having kindergarten students changing classes every 45 minutes. Having 4 different teachers, all with different expectations and ways of teaching is hard on them. Not to mention the fact that they really don’t know English all that well, and are having to hear 4 different English accents throughout the day. Since I have some classroom management skills and teaching background it is easier for me handle the changes and help the classes settle down quickly. It is also easier for me to understand you need to be tougher in the beginning and by doing this you end up having more fun in the end because they know the expectations. If you have never taught, this lesson comes later and it is harder in the beginning. I tried to reassure both Casey and Toriann they are doing a great job, but I understand the frustrations too. In the end we decided it would be better for us teachers, and students if we went back to how the schedule was last year where they only switched two times in the day and had only two teachers. This would mean a change in what we all were teaching. Part of the struggle now is feeling a connection with all the students in all the classes. It is easy for our homeroom because we see our class in the morning for snack, first period, lunch and the end of the day; as well as one elective during the week. For the rest of the classes we only see them for 45 minutes. It is not a very long to build a connection with the children individually. Now, I know eventually this would come, but at the moment Casey and Toriann really aren’t that happy, and want to be making a difference. All of which I find admirable and can respect. Also, I do agree it would be easier for all involved in the long run and be more effective. After our brainstorming ended 5 hours after we had begun and we were proud of our idea but realized we needed Gordon’s input in this change since he is in our teaching group. We all respect Gordon a great deal because he has been doing this for a while and is an amazing teacher .Somehow I ended up being elected to be the one to talk to Gordon first before we all went to him. I think because I was the least emotionally about it, and Gordon and I think more alike when it comes to teaching. I agreed and said I would arrive to school early the next day to give myself time to speak to him.

Friday morning came and I arrived to school early to get some work done before Gordon and I talked. For those of you who know me well I get nervous in any kind confrontational setting regardless of who the person is or what the issue is. I almost bailed and didn’t talk to him because I know Toriann well enough to know that the next morning she would have gotten over her frustration and probably been okay if we didn’t change how the classes were set up after all. But, I also knew everyone would be unhappy in another few weeks and we would be right back here complaining again. So, I sucked it up and talked to Gordon. I am not sure why I was nervous because we all get along so well and Gordon is by no means a threatening person, but I think because I respect him as a teacher, I got nervous. Our talk went well, and he said a lot of the same things to me that I had already told the other two about how change takes time and everyone involved would get the hang of the rotation and the kids would settle down after some time. He also agreed he would support us no matter what we wanted and was fine with going back to the old way of teaching. He admitted he was a little sad he was not involved in our original conversation and hoped we would all always come to him with concerns. I explained the other two would talk to him later in the day, they just wanted me to explain our idea first. While we were talking Toriann and Casey arrived to school, and it became slightly awkward for us all knowing I had just had this talk with Gordon and they knew what it was about and yet we weren’t all talking together. So, Gordon, being Gordon, said, “can we have a group pow wow and just talk this out all of this?” In case I never mentioned before Gordon is what the school calls the head teacher. He has been at the school for almost 3 years now, shortly after they opened and is respected a great deal by the director. Because of this Gordon has many meetings with the director and will all us teachers. He informed us during our pow-wow that the director always comments on how we are doing a great job on our floor and she is very pleased with us. She is aware how hard we work and can see how much we care about the students. This made us all feel better, and was encouraging to know our hard work is noticed. I think Casey and Toriann definitely felt better, and we agreed to go to the director with our idea and see what happens from there. I did tell Gordon I didn’t want to give my phonics to him though, since he taught phonics last year. He agreed I could keep it if I agreed to take over math, which I am more than willing to! Wish us luck on our talk with the director!

Coast of South Korea

One of my co-workers Casey invited me, along with Toriann and Megan, to an event her recruiting agency was holding; a trip down to Jinhae, in the southern coast of South Korea. It was an all day event, with the main goal to see cherry blossoms. However, since it has been a long winter here in Korea, there were not many cherry blossoms actually in bloom. This did not stop us from having a great day, meeting new people and seeing new sights of Korea.

We set out at 5:40 in the morning to walk to the bus before the 6:20 am departure time. It was early, but we figured we had a few hours on the bus to sleep. The first two hours on the bus were extremely quiet, as everyone on the bus was sleeping. We stopped at a rest stop around 9 and the Koreans leading the tour woke us all up and after the stop made us a play a get to know each other game. We had to walk around the bus and get to know new people and tell them about ourselves. Having this occur at 9 in the morning when I had to get up at 5:00 was not the most appealing event to me, but I participated regardless. It was a good opportunity to meet a few new people and truthfully those people who I really didn’t want to get know any better. It also woke us all up. The four of us girls were sitting in the back of the bus and met three other guys who were also friends and sitting in the back of the bus. We quickly realized we got along well and ended up being the loud kids in the back of the bus for the remainder of the day.

Our first stop was to the Korean Naval base, it is opened to the public only during the time of the Cherry Blossom festival. While at the naval base we toured the famous Turtle boat. It was a boat used over 400 years ago to help defeat the Japanese’s attempt to invade Korea. Koreans are extremely proud of this boat. We met one of the navy men and he gave a very prideful and expansive explanation of how the boat defeated the Japanese. After exploring the naval base we headed back to the bus and went to downtown Jinhae to take part in festival. The town holds a festival every year in order to honor the famous Korean naval hero, Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who helped defeat the Japanese invasion of Korea over 400 years ago. This festival consists of streets in the downtown being closed off and more booths than there is even time to see. There was more seafood than I could imagine, and prepared in ways the that I couldn’t even imagine to be good. There was dried, flatten squid and stuffed fish heads amongst a few of them. I chose to eat the chicken on a stick, which was delicious. Another delicacy in Korea is cooked larvae. One of the guys on our bus bought a cup full to share with anyone who wanted one. I chose NOT to have one!!! Casey and Megan both did and I was very proud of them! They said the worst part was biting it and actually knowing it was a bug you were eating. After exploring the many streets of booths, we headed to the beach to see more of the coast.

We took a quick hour stop and strolled out a large dock overlooking the water and rocks. I forgot how much I enjoy seeing water. Living in Seoul all you see all day is buildings. This is quite the contrast to Seattle, where I could enjoy water, mountains, and the city life of buildings. After the coast we got back on the bus for our 5 hour bus ride back to Seoul. When we first got on the bus our tour leaders mentioned that Nori Bong would be taking place later in the evening. Nori Bong is what we call karaoke. I thought they were kidding, because how can you sing on a bus. I had failed to see the large tv in front of the bus, which turned into the place where the lyrics were shown. Turns out getting a group of young adults to sing on a bus isn’t really that hard of task, especially when you include free Soju. Soju is Korea’s famous alcohol, which happens to be incredibly strong. It was quite the bus ride back to Seoul. I can only imagine what our bus looked like to the other buses on the road, a group of 40 white young adults singing and dancing. When we arrived back in Seoul, Casey and I decided to hang out with our new friends from the back of the bus. They have this tradition where they go the batting cage when it is a warm evening and hits some baseballs. At first Casey and I were a little apprehensive about this because the ball was coming out of the machine faster than I remember it coming out from back home, but in the end I tried. I ended up loving it and actually did a fairly good job. Casey and I decided this should become a new tradition of ours as well. Next we headed to my favorite bar in our neighborhood because they have pretzels from Costco! You can’t find pretzels anywhere else in this city, and I love my pretzels and they are free =)
Despite the lack of Cherry Blossoms, it was a great day meeting new friends and seeing a new part of South Korea.

Pictures

I finally learned how to make a slide show. Here are a few picture that pertain to the blogs I have written.

“Sorry, I forgot to tell you she has seizures sometimes”

I got a new student this week, bringing my class size up to 7. I still have the smallest class, but in a few weeks I will have another student, making it 8. I will finally have the same number of students as Toriann and Casey. I hope my class can continue to be the class all the teachers are looking forward to teaching each day. As one of my co-workers said, “We all need a Pine class once a day to keep us sane.” (My class name is Pine in case I never mentioned that before) My new girl hasn’t spoken up much, but she smiles at me often, so I guess she likes school. I was thinking about how it must be overwhelming as a child to come to a school where the teacher looks different than you and doesn’t speak the same language as you. I would have been the shy, quiet student too. On Friday at the end of the day in gym class she had a seizure. I wasn’t around for this since they have a separate gym teacher, but Gordon, who was teaching Drama right next to the gym class, brought my class up early and informed me what had happened. The other kids in my class were very concerned for her, and I had to reassure them that she was better now and would be okay. Again, how scary for this girl, who, on her second day of school has a seizure in front of her classmates. My kids kept pointing to their mouth and saying “out of mouth.” I got they were referring to the foam, but it I felt bad for everyone involved. It turned out she has them often. She fell asleep shortly afterwards and her Mom came and took her to the hospital. After school, Liz, my Korean helper, who I adore and does an amazing job, came up and to me and said “Sorry, I forgot to tell you she has seizures sometimes.” In all fairness to Liz, she is very busy, and probably did not realize Cindy would have a seizure on her second day of school, but still, these little bits of information are important! It just reminded me again of how dependent I am on Liz to inform me of all the little details that I don’t know about because I can’t communicate with the parents or even the children sometimes.

Liz has to call all the parents from mine and Gordon’s class every evening and give an update to how their child is doing. I find this a bit ridiculous because really what can change from simply one day. She did tell me that Chloe goes home and talks about me all the time and tries to speak only English with her Mom. I guess her Mom is getting tired of Chloe only speaking English at home. One of the class rules is to only speak English. I hadn’t been too strict about enforcing this during lunchtime until this week. I had my class practice what they would say to a classmate if they forgot to speak English; I told them to remind their friend to speak English and talk back to them in English, not Korean. We worked on this all week at lunch time, but Tong Hu was having a hard time with this rule. On Friday after everyone had eaten lunch and they were having free time, I had gone to the teacher’s room to fill up my water bottle when Gordon came in and told me he had just walked by my class where he witnessed Ray following my rule about English. Tong Hu had been speaking in Korean, so Ray said to him (in a nice voice), “remember to speak in English.” He then continued to speak to Tong Hu in only English. I was proud of Ray for doing this, even when I was not in the classroom. It was the first time I actually really saw how what I am saying is having some kind of effect on the students!

This week teaching the other 6 year classes went better than other weeks. I realized I had to go back to the basic with a few of those classes and teach the routine again. I also am discovering what routine I actually need and what works and doesn’t work. Having my textbooks and knowing what I am teaching has made this process a lot easier and slowly my classes are realizing what they need to do each day without me having to tell them. This week I had to teach one of my classes how to line up, we practiced about 3 times every day, but finally by Friday they lined up with no pushing and eyes forward on the first try, I was very proud of them. Another 6 year old class was a bit wild and crazy when the year first started, but they have actually come to be one of my favorite classes now. They no longer get out of their seats when they aren’t supposed to, and are getting much better at raising their hands and not just screaming out answers. They still have their moments, but I now look forward to seeing them each day. I definitely feel fortunate about how much I am enjoying teaching and like my co-workers; it is a great feeling actually looking forward to work each day.

I am not a traveler, this is actually home

This week I finally began to feel like I am starting to have a real life and not just the feeling of being a traveler. My first month here has been great, and I feel very fortunate to have the co-workers I have, but I was also anxious to meet other people and see more of what the city is has to offer. On Wednesday night Toriann and I met up with some girls we got connected with through our recruiting agency. I had e-mailed Scot about churches in the area, and he responded with an e-mail of a girl who is a recent graduate of SPU. There is a group of about 10-15 girls who meet weekly for dinner and wine, who are all teaching English here. The girls are mostly in their 20’s, but there are a couple who are here with families and in their late 30’s and 40’s. It took us about an hour and a half during rush hour on the subway to get to the girl’s house, but only 25 minutes on the bus on the way home. Another example of how much faster the buses are once you can figure out where they are going. It was great to meet other girls who are teaching here, who are outside of our school. Their place was amazing and made us extremely envious! It was two stories, with a loft bedroom, a big open living room, nice size bathroom (with a separate shower in the bathroom), a decent sized kitchen area, and huge open windows overlooking a street pedestrian shopping area. Compared to my one room fits all, I was definitely in awe. They do live and work outside of the city, so it explains the size difference. After we left I thought about how lively my neighborhood is and how central it is to everything and realized I am just fine with my small sized apartment. Most the girls have been living in Korea for over a year now and seem to feel so at home here. It made me realize I miss that feeling of having a steady group of friends and being established and having roots. I know these things take time, and seeing that it is possible made me hopeful that someday it may occur for me here.

This week Toriann and I met up with one of the Korean helpers, Angela, who left our school a few weeks ago. Angela brought a friend along whose English skills are a bit stronger, I think because she was worried about being able to communicate the whole time with us. They took us to a Shaba Shabu restaurant in our neighborhood. It was amazing, again I love having food prepared in front of me. If you have never been, you should try and find on and go. There is a pot of boiling water at the table and you can choose what you want to put inside. We chose beef and a variety of vegetables. After most the food has been eaten, you put in noodles and eat it as a soup. By this point the water has all the flavors from the meat and vegetables, so it tastes delicious. I enjoyed being able to finally go out in Korea, with Koreans, it makes it that much easier trying to order food and learn new places to go. I learned a little more about where and how Koreans learn English. I guess many Koreans in high school and college go to either New Zealand of Canada study and live. We asked why not the U.S. and they informed us it is “too expensive and dangerous.” I guess because in the U.S. you can have guns, where as in Canada, New Zealand and South Korea, only police and military have guns. It was an interesting fact to hear from them. We all decided we will get together often for dinner, and make sure Liz, my Korean helper can come next time.