During the Open Class, other teachers from your school, the Vice Principal, the Principal, teachers from other schools and even parents come to observe and remark on how well you performed. Special care is put into this lesson - painstaking care!! Every detail is overly thought out, planned, practiced and tailored to make sure that no hiccups occur during the live show.
This is how Koreans do it.
For foreigners, it is a little different.
However, I wasn't too worried for my open class this year. I felt as though I had a handle on my lessons and my students, my co-teacher and I had a well-practiced system of teaching together that rarely experienced any major problems and I thought the school liked me. Pressure was at a low. Even when my co-teacher asked me a week out (4/16) what I had planned for my open class - What do I have planned? Nothing! It's over a week away! I plan one day at a time. Are you crazy? - I wasn't stressed.
I started to feel a little stressed (4/19) when I learned that the grade I had requested to do my Open Class with was being taken by the other Korean English teacher. And I was a bit more stressed when she seemed blind to the slight setback she had just given me...
Seoyeon: Meagan, I am taking your Open Class.
Me: What do you mean?
Seoyeon: I am taking your Open Class. I will do my Open Class with 5-4.
Me: Why?
Seoyeon: Because I have to teach alone.
Me: But you're Korean. They are Korean. You can communicate with them!
Seoyeon: But I am teaching English.
Me: Yes... but you're Korean. You speak Korean. The students speak Korean. How is that hard for you?
Seoyeon: tilts her head and smiles.
Me: (#$%^*&**&^!!!@!@!@!@~~!@%%$&%*&*^_++)_()(*&^%$@##$%^&) Ok...
You need to understand that 5-4 is probably the best class in the entire school! To have them taken away from me was a small slap in the face, but Mrs. Jang got us the second best class in the school, 6-2, and things were back on track. My stress levels were lowering.
We worked together throughout the following week to prepare a lesson plan that was fitting to our style of teaching and accomodating to the Principal's style. This is where the stress really started to pick up. Not because I was nervous or anxious, but because I was annoyed. I never make a lesson plan. I'm sure a lot of teachers would drop their jaw at that admission, but I don't. I make a PowerPoint, maybe a worksheet, plan a few drills to practice the vocabulary and key expressions and I'm done. I use what's on the screen and how my students are getting on to direct my pace and agenda for that class. So to have to come up with a lesson plan that needed to be itemized, scripted and planned down to the second so that our Principal would accept it was driving me nuts! I can't work like that!! I can't be fake and controlled and robotic. It's not happening!
Thankfully Mrs. Jang is an amazing teacher/person/partner to work with. She felt the pressure from the Principal for a moment, but in the end she fought it and said we were going to teach our Open Class how we teach all of our other classes - using a natural approach. It's our goal for our students to learn the target list of words so they can pass the exam, but that is only a secondary goal for us. Our primary goal is to get the students' English comprehension to a level where they are able to understand everything else I say. And for the most part, it's going pretty well.
But even though we said we were going to teach our Open Class like normal, when it came time for our evaluation (4/27), the pressure was on overdrive.
Our first class was a fail, we only made it half way through what was planned. The second class was a bit smoother, but things were still awkward and unnatural and you could tell we didn't have it together. We sent our second class back 10mins early so we could regroup and get things ready for our third and final class, our Open Class.
This did the trick. By the time kids came and sat down I was ready to go. I was taking back control of the lesson and going to get things done. I was ready, but apparently no one else was, because no one showed up to do our evaluation.
About 15mins into the lesson one teacher showed up, 5mins after that two more teachers came, half way through a 4th teacher walked in, and finally with 15mins left in the entire lesson the Principal came strolling in and took a seat at the back of the room. So glad you could stop by!
We were nearly done. Just had the game to finish. Should have been an easy ride to the end. But our Principal didn't seem to understand what we were doing. 5 times she spoke out during our class. 5 times she interrupted to ask questions and project her input. 5 times she drove me crazy! I was in such shock over what had happened I couldn't even talk. Mrs. Jang was in the same state. We both just looked at each other and said a bunch of "Why?"s "What!"s and let out exasperated sighs. There goes my evaluation. The goes any chance of a high score and any thought I might of had about teaching a third year in Korea.
I don't remember how the next class went. It was a fourth grade class. What I taught, if they were good, if we finished the lesson - I have no idea.
I do know that I when I went to the lunchroom I was unprepared to face the Principal. But what little bit of my prayer that wasn't answered during my Open Class was answered during lunch - the Principal wasn't eating with us. I was so happy that I took my chopstick and made stabbing motions at the rice. This did relive some of my stress, but unfortunately the other teachers knew I had my Open Class that day and they also had no trouble interpreting my body language. Ooops. They got a laugh out of it though and we all moved on to our Kimchi.
Sadly, the drama from our Open Class didn't end that Friday. On Monday (4/30) the Head Teacher and Vice Principal had a loooonng conversation with my co-teacher regarding her desire to bring up the Principal's actions during the teacher's meeting that day. They both thought it was a bad idea and that Mrs. Jang should just let it go. But Mrs. Jang didn't have a chance to bring it up OR let it go, because the Principal attacked her once again. Only this time she did it in front of the entire staff! Shit really went bat crazy!!
I wasn't there, but I heard it was bad. So bad that Mrs. Jang walked out of the meeting and was called to the Principal's office the next day (4/31). She was gone for 3 hrs. I finally saw her again when I was leaving school. All she said was "I'm still alive" and then told me how they had had it out, both parties apologized and that the Principal admitted she was wrong.
All because of a fake, useless, generic Open Class that gives no true insight into a teacher's skills or abilities. And I have to do another one! >.<
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