Hold the Sarcasm, Please: Weekend #2 in Dogye

I’ve survived my first whole week of teaching. It was… amazing, truly. I hope I can keep momentum and still enjoy it at the end of the year. But I go home on teaching days absolutely wired! I have to go for an hour long walk before settling in for the night. The way my schedule is set up, I teach 8 classes with Korean co-teachers (Eun-Hee, Maggie, and Mi Ran? Korean names >.>) and 12 classes completely by myself! At first I was like… Whaaaaat? But then I was like, hmm, lucky! From what I understand, this is a rather unusual arrangement for an Elementary school, as you usually teach 22-ish classes with several different Korean co-teachers and play the role of “assistant” aka the dreaded tape recorder in most cases.

But as I said before, my school is small and a little impoverish. Staff for the entire school is about 15 people. The nice thing about it is my after school classes are small too. The largest class has 13 students and the smallest class has 1 (it has 5 but apparently the boys think it’s more fun to cut and play soccer- turds).

Grade 1- I haven’t met them yet.

Grade 2- My favorite, favorite, favorite group. There’re 9 of them, and they are so freakin’ cute. But my Korean teachers are like, no, no, just do abc’s and color. They are too young! I think this is a HUGE mistake on the part of the Korean education system (children don’t start learning English until Grade 3 typically). These kids SOAK things up at impossible speeds. I spent my first lesson teaching them a powerpoint of Halloween with new vocabulary, had them color a worksheet, and then did a mock run of trick-or-treat. It was a smash hit.

So my next lesson I played a game with abc’s. Way, way too easy for them. So I started putting up simple words on the board like ‘cat’ and ‘dog.’ Barely slowed them down. So I put up the Halloween vocab (which, remember, they’ve only seen once—the day before). That slowed them down, but they still whipped out the answers within a minute or so. Ghost! Witch! Dracula (vampire)! Candy!

Then I had them do the Hokey Pokey and Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes explaining what each of these things were. After getting them dancing and giggling and in a great mood, I put the vocabulary up on the board and ask them, “do you know what this is?” Damned if they didn’t have good guesses just by the first letter of the word. Oh, and they said my feet stink and put my socks back on when I was showing them the difference between foot and toe :P

Grade 2 is approximately ages 6&7. They are so malleable and aren’t “shy” (I say “shy” because I don’t mean shy in the traditional sense—more the way we become more aware of our behavior and its effects within society dictating how we act sort of “shy”—the child might be extremely outgoing in all other aspects but English) because they aren’t afraid to make mistakes or not be perfect. They are fantastic at copying (too good, I accidentally made an absent minded gesture and the next thing I know I have 9 little copy cats) and really eager to please me (the candy doesn’t hurt).

Grades 3 & 4- Not as eager as Grade 2, I still like these guys a lot. One class is almost entirely girls and they decided that it would be a great idea to COVER the entire chalk board with “Welcome Erin Teacher!” and “Love” and “Did you have a great weekend?”, etc. I’ll post a picture of the board as soon as I get it from Eun-Hee.

The problem I have with these classes is Eun-Hee (my co-teacher and their homeroom teacher) tends to baby the heck out of them. She assumes they are very bad at English and translates things into Korea instead of letting the kids figure things out through my vocabulary and actions and visuals. But, lo-and-behold, when she left the class settled down and understood my instructions perfectly.

This is especially apparent when we teach together in the normal lessons as co-teachers. It’s kind of counter-productive. However, I’m really sad because she’s going to be moving to another school (teachers are requires to rotate between schools ever 3 or 4 years; I think this is fantastic, but I wish it wasn’t mid-year).

Also, in-class, I co-teach with the Grade 3 teacher. She does not speak English well and really rather not be teaching it. So she uses me as a “tape recorder” and all the kids (and me!) are bored to tears with all the repeating they have to do. I’m not sure how to spice it up without stepping on toes. She’s an older teacher and not particularly happy to have me in her classroom, I think. I think if all 20 of my classes were like this one I’d really, really hate my job and Korea and wish to be back in retail.

We didn’t do anything with the Halloween vocab, instead using the pre-made “Backpack” lesson plans. I basically just had them do several pages, making up little games and checking understanding as we went along (“who is wearing a pink sweater?” “Teacher is wearing a pink sweater!” “Who else?” “Im-soo!”), before splitting them into teams and having them play games with the software. The winning team received stickers. Sometime in the middle of my class, I had a surprise visit from the principal and vice-principal. I hope I made a good impression.

I even had a little girl in Grade 3 today tell me that it was her birthday and she was 9 years old. Does that sound like bad English to you guys? She had absolutely no prompting by her teacher or help. She was just tickled that I sat by them at lunch and wanted to share that it was her birthday.

I’ve been told over and over by several teachers that the “students aren’t good at English, so please don’t have high expectations.” But as someone walking in with no expectations and simply evaluating their level, I see nothing wrong with their English. Most of the kids are doing great. I almost feel like the teachers’ low expectations are being picked up by their kids :\

Grade 5 & 6- I don’t have many of these guys in my afterschool classes. This is the hooky class where the students all ditched but the 1 boy. This leaves me with a unique challenge. Sung-Ho is extremely quick and very good with phonics. He also loves to do spelling. He likes to spelling things and have me write them on the board. Which is wonderful; I’m thrilled. But somehow I need to figure out how to tailor a special lesson for 1 (but up to 5) student(s).

In the main class, I was struck by the huge maturity gap between Grade 5 and Grade 6. Huge. American ages this would be the pre-teens 12-13. Grade 5 they are still very rowdy, although smart, and not really tuned into social vibes yet. They mostly wanted to know about my family and my pets and America.

On the other hand, Grade 6 was very interested in MY social standing in Korean hierarchy. When I introduced myself, they asked, “how old are you?” and “do you have a boyfriend?” These may seem rude, but as I’ve explained before, these are important things to know in Korea about someone you’ve just met. Their hierarchy is based on seniority, age, marriage, and many other things. The girls were very interested in American culture, asking if I knew [of] “Angelina Jo Lee” and “Beyounce” and “Lady GaGa.” And did I like Korean pop music? “Ooo, G-Dragon! What’s your favorite song?! Just Heartbreaker?” (it’s the only G-Dragon song I know, LOL, therefore it’s my favorite) and “Big Bang so hot!”

So, as kids, I like them a lot. But on the English front, they are extremely “shy” and somewhat frustrating. Getting answers from them is a test of patience and by that point the novelty of English has worn off and they see it as a chore.

Overall, I’m having a blast. I think for the larger classes I’m going to continue using the “Backpack” workbooks, tossing in my own little twists as I go. I also want to make a complimentary lesson to go with the backpack lesson to reiterate the vocabulary and grammar. So day one would be a backpack lesson and day two would be my lesson. For the littlest ones, I’m just going to make the lesson plans as I go and work on phonics and reading and vocabulary instead of grammar. As I said, the small classes are going to be the biggest challenge. I’m going to have to make more intense one-on-one types of lessons for them because Sung-Ho was just annihilating the backpack at warp speed. It’ll give me something to do on god-awful Wednesday, where I sit on my butt with the VP for the entire workday.

On a co-worker front, I’m enjoying my co-workers. Most of them are still afraid to talk to me, but several of them usually manage “hello” or “good morning” or failing that “Erin!” My “big sister” (awn-nee) is hilarious, she loves to give me huge hugs and use me as a high-item fetcher, and omg, her kids are so cute. She lives in the same apartment complex as I do, and I ran into her coming out of the corner store. Her kids are Eun-Soo and Min-Soo (I have Min-Soo in my class). Eun-Hee, my co-teacher, seems to be perpetually confused/amused by me, but she’s been so helpful in getting my feet. The nurse is usually happy to sit by me at lunch and talk to me even after I baffled her with the idiom “fingers crossed.” She’s been to China, Thailand, and Jeju island, and she’s amazed that I’ve been to Italy and Japan.

I see the principal occasionally; he seems to be a very quiet and purposeful man. The vice-principal and I share an office; he is happy when I try to say Korean words and follow their customs. There are several other male staff members, but most of them avoid me :\ A bit of a cultural thing there, I think. All the older female teachers avoid me, and again, I think this is a cultural thing (xenophobia with the older generation- remember, Korea has been “isolated” from the West for a long time and is still very traditional even compared to China and Japan).

I actually use lunch as a good way to get exposure to all the staff. I try to slide in between the Grades 1-3 lunch and the Grade 4-5 lunch. One, I don’t have to fight the little hellions off to get my food. Two, all the staff gets a chance to see me (I sit at a different table every day). Three, Koreans inhale their food; seriously, so if I get a ten minute start I might finish when everyone else does with Grades 4-6. Four, it gives the cafeteria staff a chance to see me and talk to me (and give me extra food :D). They learned I don’t like spicy and gifted me a huge bag of mul kimchi (umm, yummy… sour rotting cabbage without the red pepper). I was so tickled none-the-less. I’ve also been gifted crackers, moon pies, milk, persimmons, an aloe drink, some weird orange-milk drink, and a sweet potato.

I’m hoping with my first paycheck to buy something for the office (maybe oranges? persimmons? a cake from the bakery in town?) as a gift. Gifting is very important here, as is sharing. It puts new meaning to not eating something unless you have enough to share. I’ve had people reach over and help themselves to my candy bag and my plate quite a few times (I was asked first, but it was considered a given I would say yes, and sometimes the asking was post-snag), and this is not considered rude. I was more than happy to share my “river snails” (I’m so, so glad I asked what they were! They vaguely looked like a mutant mushroom without the shell, so I was leery. I must have made a horrified face because they went, ‘give them to Nurse; she loves them!’).

I really feel like I lucked out with Heung Jeon elementary, even though it’s considered to be in the “butt-crack” of Korea by most native English teachers. The town has a population of approximately 2,000 Koreans plus 6 foreigners. Maybe I’d feel differently if all I wanted to be was a “tape-recorder” who spent 20 classes doing mind-numbing, brainless repeating with no prep work at all, or if I were a party animal, who wanted to just hang out with other foreigners and go drinking at bars/clubs every weekend. But I’m not. Now if only it weren’t so dang cold! At least I have my ondol (heated floors) to sprawl over at night. Ondol is love. Now if only I had a kotatsu too. Double heat love.

Today was a very interesting day. Today I met my pred. Shelley (who I swear is Steph’s—old co-worker at Petsmart-- long lost twin), who showed me around town a bit and answered my random questions, although I probably could have done without the explanation about the dogs in the neighborhood that may “disappear” in the near future. We went to lunch with several of the other English teachers in town, so I got to meet Alexcia, Gary, Moriah, and Franchesca. Alexcia goes, “One of the students said they love Erin teacher. I just wanted you to know that.” One week and I’ve already got a fanclub! ‘You will be loved’ rang through my mind.

The restaurant we ate at was Eun-Hee’s uncle’s restaurant. So instead of joining us like she was planning to, she ended up helping her uncle. I think she was very intimidated to have so many native English speakers together. The food, however, was delicious, although my meal was too rich (creamy rice and chicken with salad and pickles).

After that we all scattered, as several of the teachers were teaching English camp. Eun-Hee, Shelley, and I went to a local coffee shop and had smoothies. The shop is very nice and apparently the designated hang out. And, of course, it is all the way on the other side of town from me. So I’m going to have to learn the bus system unless I have an extra 30 minutes to walk there. We also snacked on roasted chestnuts, which were also very good.

Then we ran into some of our students at a Coal Mining sponsored festival. It was pretty much like any other festival… food, toys, entertainment, cotton candy… and hamsters. No, really. This lady had a bucketful of hamsters! Guess who now has “Gigi” and “Kiki”? I spent my last 14, 000 won on two hamsters, a wheel, and a cage. Pet withdrawl, pet withdrawl! I asked for two girls, and we agreed that they were girls, but since they’re only about 5 weeks old, there might be a surprise. I need to go to Samcheok to buy a real cage, a water bottle, and some food from Home Plus.

And apparently they have fish tanks! Franchesca has a tank she’s not using, so Shelley suggested I ask if I can have it. It’s not a dog or rat, but hamsters and fish won’t die if I go away for a long weekend hiking or skiing or visiting Daegu or Busan or Seoul.

I did have a good laugh (evil chuckle actually) when this kid ran by pointing and Shelley, “America!” Shelley was so affronted. I told her technically he was right because Canada was in N. America. That just ticked her off even more and she huffed, “I’m not an American!”

Eun-Hee and I had a wonderful discussion about religion in the train station parking lot after seeing Shelley off. She invited me to visit her church and I agreed. It is apparently a small congregation and she plays piano for them. I’m seriously considering taking up piano lessons or some form of martial arts to fill my free time.

On the way home I was ambushed by several students. Most of them just wanted to inspect the hamsters and say hi/bye. One of the little girls skipped along beside me, chattering at me in English and Korean. She spotted a dead cat and we had a deep conversation about how it was dead (which, really, amounted to “The cat is dead. That is so sad.”). We also fooled around with my camera and played chase.

Somehow I’m more exhausted today that my teaching days.

So, I decided since it was so beautiful today, that I would go explore the side streets of the town. I happily wandered around, enjoying the weather and peering in shop windows and plotting how to get a big pot home to turn it into a hamster cage. I also wandered through a few farms, pausing to watch some women make kimchi.

I went to this park with an adult playground—I mean exercise equipment. I wish they had adult swings. But one of my co-workers was there with her family! She told me about the massive tree in the middle of the park. Apparently it’s estimated to be 1,000 and is the biggest tree I’ve seen in Korea. Then I played on the toys, enjoying the leg swinging one and the one that flips you upside down.

Then I went to the little riverside park to poke around. I played on some more equipment then climbed down into the river bed to explore. The river had some minnows in it and I wanted to catch some fry, but I didn’t have anything to scoop them up with. I found lots of interesting bugs though.

And I found an empty hamster cage :( I knew most of those baby hamsters from yesterday were going to die, but still, that one didn’t last a day. I looked around for the hamster, but I’m sure a feral cat ate it in short order. Actually, maybe it got lucky with a quick death instead of dying of dehydration because the “cages” didn’t come with a water bottle.

While I was chilling on a bench, watching some kids play, a lady came over and started talking to me. Of course, every single person asks, “Where are you from” (or “where from?” usually). So I expected her to ask a few questions and take off. Instead we had a nice conversation and she asked me if I had any Korean friends. I told her 2. She asked if she could come to my house sometime and I said sure. So some random Korean lady has my address. Oh, and she’s a Jehovah’s Witness to boot. Which really surprised me. And that’s my second church invitation. But it’s sweet that random strangers are worried about me being lonely and wanting me to feel welcome (assimilate-- assimilate—the Jehovah’s witnesses remind me of the borg from Star Trek, but nicer).

Then, I took a walk on the other side of the small mountain that appears to split the town. I promised Eun-Hee I wouldn’t do any hiking UP the mountains until I got a cell phone (sensible), but I still suspect if she knew how far I walked out of town, she might have freaked a little. It’s not like there’s anything in those mountains that could hurt me—the Koreans ate all the mammals and birds in the Korean War (seriously, I haven’t seen so much as a squirrel—I was excited to see a DUCK today) and there’s no poisonous inverts.

On the way back I spoke to some high school boys, who were very amusing. One boy tried to tell me it was raining (it was gorgeously sunny) and another gave me a preview of his singing talent (and hit a scale higher than I ever could have). I also had several kids scream, ‘hi!’ and ‘Erin teacher!’ and even some of the parents said hello and waved.

I also found some broccoli at the supermarket… SCORE!

I can’t believe I was worried about the food. I really want to try the little yellow melons and the weird green fruit. Fruit is expensive and chocolate is fairly expensive… and there’s no cheese ;.; I have to go visit Shelley in her town 90 minutes away by train for cheese… but vegetables and grains are ridiculously cheap. Even my broccoli was only 3, 000 won ($3) and it was one of the most expensive items in the produce section. And someday I’ll figure out how to buy greens that aren’t pre-packaged.