More -er

My students had watched the "Daft Hands" version for the song 'Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger' by Daft Punk. 

They loved it.  So I took it one more step and showed them this video…

and asked them if they could do it.

I was greeted with a lot of no's.  Which is understandable.  The group of kids in the video are older than them.  And probably had multiple weeks to practice this song.  I was asking them to do it right then, same day.

But I'm not completely heartless.   I only asked them to do it with four cards.

In their groups (of four) each member would have a card that they would have to hold up when they heard their word - harder, faster, better, stronger.  They had heard the song perviously, we watched the Korean middle schoolers do it, and I showed them a version of the song with just the lyrics so that they could see their word when it was sung.

I wasn't asking too much!

Here's the results of how one class did...  

Not too bad if I do say so myself.  Only having heard it 3 times and never practicing.  I'm teaching a bunch of "geniuses"! 

Spelling Bees

was held this week for our fifth graders.

About 16 students signed up to compete to see who would be in the in-house champion.  

The winner would then go on to an area spelling bee, and from there - if they should win, I would assume they would just keep going up the ladder.  Never having been a champion speller, or even any good at spelling in general - I do not know how such events go on, but that is my best guess. :-P  

I made a list of 35 words, including 15 riddle questions, that we used to wean out the weak and find our winner.

Six students were left at the end

It was a bit difficult eliminating it further.  But eventually we got a winner, Min Seong (the boy in green on the end) was crowned and the celebration he displayed could have put any professional football player to shame in the end zone!! 

He's now studying up and with his already high English skills, he should stand a really good chance in the next competition. 

Good luck Min Seong!!

-er

Taller, faster, stronger, bigger, -er, -er, -er…

My 6th graders are currently learning the art of comparing two things*.  Which they seem to understand, but only choose to answer by shouting out one word answers.  :-/  English fail. 

So in order to make things a bit more lively, a bit more fun (comparing pencils and book bags can only take you so far) I planned for a Class Olympics today!

After a short review - two pages of stimulating textbook work - I explained how the Olympics would work, was greeted with happy smiles and eager head nods from my students; we headed outside to get the games started!

We compared: 

 height - taller

 speed - faster

 strength - stronger

size - bigger

Besides the craziness that ensued, it was a highly successful day!  

*We tried to compare 3 things, but they couldn't quite pick up the difference between -er and -est.  So we decided to not push our luck.  Test scores are what matter here anyways @.@

Phone Domino

My mom gave me great advice about teaching.  

She reminded me that despite the fact that the material will be old to me, it's new to my students and I have to keep it fun and fresh.

For everyone involved!

So I took her advice to heart!

Following the midterm, my students spent two weeks bent over government issued workbooks drilling through material that was no more fun than a broken record.   After the dull drag of that had finished, and my students were mine again, we finally got back to normal lessons.  

First up for my 6th graders was 'Who's calling, please?'.  A carbon-copy review of last year's 'Is Peter there?' lesson.

So to keep things fun and fresh, I borrowed a game idea that I had seen at another teacher's open class - Dominos!

The teacher who I got the idea from had made a fancier version, full of colors and pictures and all that jazz.  Mine… not so much.  

But the students still liked it!  

And really that's all the matters. 

Evaluated

For a while now - probably for as long as I have been in Korea, and I'm sure well before I got here - Native English Teachers have been hearing that "Korea is slowing trying to get rid of us".

The likelihood of it, the actuality of it, the possibility of it really happening is all up in the air.  

But the they have slowly been making small moves to reduce our numbers.

The number of NETs placed in high schools throughout Korea has been significantly decreased, if not entirely eliminated.  There are rumors that middle schools will be next.  And so on and so on, until there are none of us here.

Which would be really sad.  

Sure I don't want to be here my whole life.  

But I don't want to be forced out either.   

When it's time for me to go home or start another journey - I want it to be because it is my choosing and not a government decision to save funds and return things to a homogenous environment.

So when my students were asked to do an evaluation about their opinions on 'the need for native teachers' (i.e. me!) I couldn't help but feel a storm of butterflies take over my stomach.

10 questions.  On a scale of 1-5, 5 being best.  That was all it was.  10 questions to evaluate the need of my job. 

No big deal. 

Oh wait!  Let's make it even more specific and only ask one, ONE, class per grade and see how they feel.  And let's use that as a small sampling, a little insight, and estimated average if you will!!!!!

Bahhhh!!!!

Overall, my students seemed to like me and think there was an actual need for me.

Bless those little monsters!

  

However, they don't make the decisions.  So now it's a waiting game.  

A waiting game to see if the government thinks the same in the upcoming months.

Men's Club

I seem to have become a member. 

Despite lacking the obvious body parts and facial hair, I have warmly and without reservation, been made a mandatory member of the Men's Club of Daepyung Elementary School.

And although at first it was a bit awkward.  

Now I love it.  

Love it because people talk to me!

I'm still baffled - completely baffled - that the women at my school - my own gender - choose to avoid me like the plague.  Which I don't have!  So there is NO REASON TO IGNORE me!  But they do.  And it's shit.

So the fact the men want me to join, want to talk to me, are happy when I show up to meals, join for beers or even help clean out a nasty, dirty, old storage unit at school… makes it ok by me to be a only (token?!) foreign, female to join them on their outings.  

Now that volleyball has ended (2-1), I have seen them less in the last few weeks and it is really sad. 

Hopefully things will pick up again and the boys will be back in action.  Because I miss my school friends.  I miss having a greater connection to my job and the people I work with.  I miss feeling like I belong there and am not still a guest after all this time.  

Here's hoping for an active year with the Men's Club!

(in the most non-perverse, non-sexual way ever possible!)

Photo-

Left side: Hyung Geun, Seung Hee, Si Hwan

Right side: Joo Hyun, Duck Joo, Mr. Baek (VP), Seong Jin

Appreciation

Most days being a teacher feels like a pretty thankless job. 

Sure, sure the smiles and laughs are rewarding.  The look on a student's face when he finally has a  breakthrough and understands what you've been teaching him (for weeks) is rewarding.  And all that stuff. 

But it never hurts to actually be told "thank you".

As the only foreign teacher in my school, most days I'm just thankful if anyone talks to me - student or co-worker.*

So I wasnt expecting much (read anything) for Teacher's Day.  In the past I had seen other teachers get an array of gifts - from flowers to sweets to other small tokens of thanks.  Me?  I've always gotten a whole lot of nada.

Not this year!! No this year I got letters!!!

^^

*my co-teacher does talk to me everyday.

3 Rounds

It is part of Korean culture that when you go out, you go out for 3 rounds.  

Where and why this started I have no idea.  This is one point of cultural information I cannot provide you with the answer.

I haven't ever really participated in this tradition.  With my school the first round is always dinner.  Which I happily attend - sitting quietly while no one talks to me and eating fabulous food for free is a meal I can deal with.

Free.  Food.  What is not to like there?!

It's the later rounds that I have had no experience with.

A second round was suggested a lot my first year, but I always backed out.  Going to a norae bang (karaoke place) is not my idea of fun even when I'm in my drunkest-make-poor-decision-moments.  So I graciously passed on those.

In my second year, my school had significantly fewer dinners and second rounds were never mentioned.  So there was no public singing to dodge.  Phew!

However, this year...  Dinners have returned (yay free food!) and talk of multiple rounds has resurfaced.

But there seemed to be an established tradition at my school - when talk of the second round came up, all the women lowered their gaze and leave promptly after eating.  There was no assumption that they would join or that they should.  I foolishly thought I was in this category of 'count me out' as well.

Maybe I used to be.  

Having backed out so many times before.  

But these are new days at my school.

New VP.  New/more males members and with that…

My luck ran out Friday because I was in for all 3 rounds.*  

- Round 1

After our volleyball scrimmage, the teachers who played (and a few others) went out to dinner for sashimi (raw fish).  Like we were back in the 1800s - the male staff sat at one table, and the females at the other.  Throughout the dinner there were...

Points that should have been warning signs:

1. No female teachers were drinking or even asked for a drink

2. I was offer beer and included in several of the cheers with the males at the other table

3. Male teachers saying in Korean (then translated to me) that they wanted to get to know me more.

4. Get a clue Meagan!

- Round 2

Getting to know me more, turned out to be me, and only me - talk about throwing me under the bus - going with the 7 male staff members of my school to play pool.  Nooootttt awkward. At. All.  

This, however; turned out to be great fun.  Sure, talking to my co-workers wasn't the smoothest or the easiest thing at first, but as the evening went on things got easier.  We were even able to taunt each other while playing; and I ended up having a really good time!

^sorry really crappy photo, only one I managed to take the whole night.

- Round 3

Despite losing to one co-worker and another who looked like he was going to fall over from his soju-fueled drunkenness (the males drank 5 bottles of soju - that I saw!) we continued on for the next round.

The final round took us to a local pub on Yeongdo.  We all crowded in around a table, ordered beers and fruit - because what else would you snack on while you drink cold, light, beer?!  And then ordered some more beer and snacked on dried fish, squid and meat.  I choose to pass on this round of snacks.  But it was still great fun!

After that the night came to an end.  

Or so I thought.  

The whole night had not taken us out of a one-mile radius of my apartment or school.  I knew exactly where I was and how to get home.  I wasn't worried about walking myself home.  It wasn't even 9pm!  

But my co-workers wouldn't hear of it!  We split up into two groups, said our goodbyes and then I was walked with my escorts back to school and given a ride to my apartments (all which took longer than had I just walked home to begin with but what can I say… they were being gentlemen).

*Although I started out apprehensive about how the night out with my male co-workers would go, in the end I'm really glad I went long for the last 2 rounds!!  The men at my school are really great people and it felt so nice to be included and to have co-workers want to talk to me!  I also may or may not be in love with one of my co-workers.  He is the most adorable thing!! ^^

I'd go for more 3 rounds with them! as long as there's no more dried squid.

Cheerleader? F. No.

Volleyball has started again at Daepyung.  

I'm sort of… kind of… maybe… ehh... looking forward to playing.   

No.  I am still.  I was...   

What I'm looking forward to isn't the games.  The games are poo.  I do like when we have in house practices and little matches so that games resemble a more balanced depiction of what I spent half my life playing!  But it's just all the other times we play - like when it's supposed to matter and count towards the tournament that I don't like.  That's when things get reallllly boring for me.

I just still don't get it!!  Why… WHY do you need 9 people on the court?!  It is NOT so that more people get a chance to play.  Because standing - freaking standing - on the court = is not playing.  Never touching the ball because there is literally a screen of humans in front of you, next to you, near you at every moment so that your chances of touching a ball are more negative than positive = is not playing.

This is why I was never a cheerleader.  And also because my dad wouldn't let us.  I can almost distantly remember my dad saying "Why would you cheer for someone, when you could be playing?"  Fair point Thomas!  Now I understand it even more.

It's not that I'm a poor sport.  Or maybe it is a little bit.  But really standing while you're supposed to be playing isn't fun.  I don't know who that's fun for.  I can't imagine that would even be fun for the people who aren't good at sports.  And that's not to say I'm amazing.  But I'm definitely better than wasting my skills by just having my standing behind the field of humans.

Ahhh rant over.

>.<

Let the Games Begin

Sports Day!

This year it was big, BIG, BIGGER than last year.  

Bigger by a whole festival.  

Last year there were some smash hand-made games, a few cultural-throw-back-traditional replicas and some human-tug-of-war (which was cute); not this year…. oh man this year they stepped it up!  

Stepped it up so much that several days worth of my lesson were cancelled so that children could practice.  Practice running.  Practice routines.  Practice games.  Practice more running.  

It seems very… senseless.  

Sure, sure.  It's for the children!  It's supposed to be a good time full of friendly competition, laughter and games.  But midterms are coming up.  Like next week!!  And you're cancelling classes so that kids can practice - running?!  Isn't running a Darwinian trait?  If you can't do it - you don't survive, i.e. SOL to you?!

No, no we're past those evolutionary needs, and are now at a stage were we must practice running so that the parents will be impressed and praise their children for the quickness of their tiny feet! 

And so that is what Daepyung did.  

They practiced routines, and games and running so that the parents would be impressed.  

Impressed?  Eeehhhh maybe.  

Cute?  Absolutely!

Vacation Cha-Cha

This is definitely my school.  

Or at least... it is this year.  

Good grief! things have gone all topsy turvy at Daepyung, and I can say it is NOT in the fun way.

A lot of things have changed this year; but with the Korean school system - that is how things work.  Teachers are required to change schools every 4 years, while vice principals, principals and other head administration people change every 2 years.  They say it is to keep any one person from becoming too powerful/influential at a school, but I say it's a bunch of phewy.


Anyways… this year, at my school nearly half the staff changed!  The first couple weeks were disorienting for me - seeing all the new faces and having to figure out who was who and what they were teaching.  However, not much of it effected me.

What did effected me was: a new co-teacher, Jeong eun, and a new vice principal.  

Jeong eun is great!  She is really kind, friendly and willing to help out with all manners of troubles that I have.  The new VP is… he's new.

And being that he's new (both to our school and to the job - yay!... this is his first every job posting as a VP…) he comes across a bit timid and reserved.  That coupled with this persistent need to consult my contract and adhere to every letter of it is driving me ever-loving-mad.

Sure, I will admit that some of the things I have asked him for, I did so (mainly) because in the past, with my old VP, I would have been allowed to do as I wanted and gotten no gripe for it.  So this year, I've asked for things thinking that since the principal is the same - part of that old mantra had to still be around.

Right?  

Noooo, wrong.  So wrong.

It's all gone out the window! and with it some of my sanity and 83.7% of my patience.

Why the correlation to a latin dance?  Because...

With the program I work for, EPIK, when NETs renew their contract for another year - they are given a bonus vacation.  It's 10 days that should be used after the start of the new contract and within the first 6months.  It is encouraged that this bonus vacation be taken in conjunction with a holiday/when school is not in session period of time.  Most NETs take their renewal vacation during Spring Break at the end of February.

• I had asked my school - back in November of last year - if I could pair my renewal vacation with my summer vacation (8 days) so that I could go back to America for a long period of time.  
• I asked back in November, because I wanted to make sure all the i's were dotted and t's were crossed to ensure that everything was in order before Mrs. Jang left.  (at that point I had no idea who my new co-teacher was going to be.  And co's can be a real toss-up here.)
• My VP said yes, my principal said yes - I hugged her - and I told my family and all of Facebook I would be home for a month this coming summer.

And now the dance…

I asked Jeong eun if we could get my vacation dates confirmed this week, so that I could start looking-to-buy a flight home and get things sorted with family and friends as needed.  She was all for it, and on Tuesday (the day of my amazing open class) we asked the VP if he could sign off on my leave.

He said a lot of things in Korean, most of which was not translated to me; but the part I was told was that:

• I couldn't take that much time off.
• I couldn't miss school.
• I had to do camp.
• It wasn't possible.
• I couldn't go home.

What I did was cry.  

I was so frustrated from the wasted open class, so tired of the back and forth with my new VP, so over the vacation struggle that I just didn't know what to do.  However, some part of my brain knew what to do >.< and its response was to ever-so-coolly send water running down my face.  Freakin' fantastic.

It was a giant step backwards.  Not only for my summer plans but also for my coolness.

But as Mr. Brault said above, it's a cha-cha.  

And so it was with my school.  Because within a few days, my VP and principal turned around and said I could have the time off and leave on the date that was agree upon back in November.

Good grief indeed!

cha-cha-cha!

Always The Same

It's always the case.  

It never changes.  

Open classes.

They're bullshit.

How I've managed to continually get renewed in this country is a surprise, even to me.  

Not because of my teaching skills or work ethic (there I'd like to think highly of myself and say I'm a NET star!), but because our open classes are what the heads of school use to evaluate a teacher and, in the case of NETs, decided if they want to have us stay around for another year.

You might remember me saying before how amazingly, fantastic my previous open classes have gone.  >.<

Sooo… why would I think that my open class this year would be any different?  

Does the expression "third times a charm" ring any bells.

Well I can say, that for NETs open classes - especially in my case - that expression is also bullshit!

What a crock it all is.

Jeong eun (my new co-teacher.  Sorry I just realized I never introduced you all to her!  I will get on that.) and I were down on hands and knees scrubbing the floor of our classroom, mopping and sweeping and wiping down every surface we could get a sponge to in order to make our student-destroyed-classroom look a little bit more presentable.

Jeong eun also made an assortment of extra teaching materials that contributed (greatly) to the overall presentation of our open class.

And what happened?  What did all our overly, unnecessary work mean in the end?

Nothing.  

Not a f#@$ing thing.

Because no one showed up!

I would say my mind is blown.  That I can't believe this happened.  That I'm shocked that no one had the decency to attend our scheduled open class.  That the amount of work and stress that went into this was completely wasted.  That is was just plain rude to be so disregarded in such a manner.  

But I won't.  

Because this is Korea and this is just how things go… for me at least.  :-P

Little Voices

My little monsters have come back to me and it has been so wonderful having my classroom full of students and to be teaching again.

A few years ago, who'd have thought I'd be saying that?! 

I used to cringe at the idea of being a teacher.  My parents' friends or other various adults I would have contact with, would all ask me - did I want to be a teacher like my parents?*  I used to answer with such a hard and fast 'NO' that I'd nearly give myself wipe lash.

And now… that I've been out of school for almost 5 years; what do I find myself saying I want to be?!

A freaking teacher!

I couldn't have figured that out while I was in university and saved thousands on the right degree.**

No… hindsight is a real kick in the ass.

But even with saying that, I don't regret what I've done, jobs and wanderings I had or where I am now.

Because my job is great! 

Just the other day, I got to be Fraulein Meagan with my younger students.  It was 'The Sound of Music' in my classroom as their little voices sang out to songs that went along with our lessons.

Here's a little look at my Korean Von Trapps…

* my mom was a middle school teacher for many years and my dad taught high school English

** I have a degree in Zoology, which (when I leave Korea) I want to use to teach high school science.

What Another Year Looks Like

Here's a look at what life was like my second year in Korea.

*here's a look at my first year 

Where You Been?

I took a little time off.  

Nearly a month.  

Why?

Why do I ever stray from my blog?!

Ooohhhh right - because I just get lazy and find the everyday happenings of my life mundane and routine and I forget that I'm living a life that most others (excluding the few thousand expats that are in Korea with me) are not.

So I just stop sharing.

But without being too harsh on myself - February wasn't too eventful.  There was a lot of sitting around.  Literally.  

I deskwarmed for the entire month. >.<

I wasn't supposed to, I was supposed to teach for a bit of it.  But as things work in Korea - plans changed…

 and I sat.

In my personal life there were a lot of dinners with friends, another round of goodbyes as contracts ended and friends left , visitors from the States, a trip to Seoul in which we did nothing cultural (tourist fail), visa renewal and many visits to Misorae.

Good times.  

Even the goodbyes.  

Because despite what Peter Pan said*, I won't forget them - I know they're just off on new adventures!

~~~

*“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.” 

― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

  

Bingo!

It is a hard fact that my English skills are limited to reading and speaking.  Reading might even be a stretch, some words I just blank on.  

Forget spelling.  

That's a skill I failed at from the start.

So the joy I had when I was told that my winter camp would be a phonetics camp was through the motherf#@*ing roof.

I might have said this before, but camps are meant to be fun.  Spark the joy for learning English, outside of the classroom setting.  However, my record with fun camps has been a draw.  50/50.

Of the four camps I've done while being here, I've been able to design* two of them.

• Summer 1 - EBS English camp (a program all online designed by someone in Korea that required me to do nothing, except push a button on the computer to advance to the next screen).
• Winter 1 - Reading and movie camp (I designed the reading portion, picking the books and made all the supporting materials to go along with it.  The movie bit was part of a pre-made BMOE booklet thing, that - although it was created by native English teachers - so fairly shitty on the whole).
• Summer 2 - Reading and craft camp - for the younger students / Reading and writing camp - for the older students (I designed).

that brings us to this most recent one...

• Winter 2 - Phonetics camp (pre-made book by someone, it was decent for the most part.  Not that thorough, but decent.  Although all that was required of me was to repeat words, pass out snack and...)

Play Bingo.

We played a lot of Bingo.  We played Bingo everyday.  But the kids never tired of it.  It was boggling.

But if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

So we played bingo this camp.  I guess that's fun.

*by "design" I mean I was told the type of the camp we were going to have; and I got to come up with an idea for how to carry it out.

Where in the World

I don't mean to play favorites, but it would appear that I do.

And my favorites seem to be my 5th graders, which is surprising and shocking and frankly miraculous because some of those kids are the biggest little shits there are!  But on the whole - I like them.

Really, I like all the grades at my school (*notice I said "grades" and not "students".  I definitely don't prefer all my students); but the 5th graders are the ones that either (A) have the best subject material/topics that allow for creative activities (B) the students themselves are more willing and eager to do creative activities or (C) I just like them more.  And the answer is…

I dunno.

But whichever one it is, maybe a bit of them all, we do fun(er) activities in my 5th grade classes.

And despite the fact that the year is officially coming to an end for textbook lessons, I thought I'd pull out one more big project before we moved into the free-for-all that will start next week and go all the way until the term ends in February.


Our last lesson was 'Where are you from?'.

Not a challenging lesson.  Not even something they had to learn.  They already knew the countries, how to answer, even how to identify whose flag was whose!  My work was basically - make a worksheet, make a PPT, make a bomb game, and come up with something that didn't have them wanting to stab pencils into their little eyeballs.

Thankfully, they don't mind doing the fundamentals on a obligatory worksheet, the PPT was fine because I Googled pictures that pushed the known landmarks/images and found ones that even got me excited, and this is Asia - these kids go mad for a bomb game even if they play one everyday!

So all that was left to keep the pencils a safe distance from their eyeballs was to come up with a project.
**And let me state beforehand that this project is not new, I didn't create it, I'm sure every kid in the cultivated world has probably done something like this at one point in their lives!  But the difference is that my kids had to do it in their second language!

So what did we do?  

We made country posters.  

(See I told you it wasn't new)

Working in groups of 4-5 students they: picked a country, researched 5 facts using FactMonster and created a poster.

Simple and easy.  Or so I thought.  Again - my kids were doing all this in their second language.  I should have remembered that when I was planning out the time allowance!  No matter, we don't need to review for the final when we have posters to make!!!

The extra day really was needed.   Group work, internet searching AND using their second language - all proved to be a bit too much for one 40min period, so without the second day there would have been only 2/20 posters finished.  Which would have been a bit of a fail.  And we couldn't have that for the students or for me!

So the extra day was given...

               

 

               

 

               

 

               

 

               

 

and the posters came out great!!