Back to School

I returned from Thailand Sunday morning and found myself back behind the desk Monday morning. What an unfortunate thing. Jk. Actually, I was really looking forward to coming back to work. If you hadn't noticed, January and February were really slow months. There just wasn't much to write about with no school. Add to that the disturbingly cold weather and relatively little amount of snow, and you get one sad girl (that's Seasonal Attitude Disorder). I can't believe how great I feel now that I've returned from a couple of weeks in the sun! I was talking to a friend on the phone last night who is a teacher here but former psychologist back in the states, and he agreed. The weather has been effecting him as well.

So, I'm back and ready (almost) to start teaching again!

This semester/school year should be really interesting (remember: the school year in Korea begins in March). I have all new students unlike what I was told back in December. There are good and bad things that come out of that, I think. The bad part is that I won't be able to build on the things my kids learned last semester and I'll be struggling all over again to figure out where their skill level lies (particularly important because I started mid-year last semester whereas these kids are all fresh out of middle school and no one knows what they are capable of). The good part is that I can start fresh and correct a few mistakes I made last semester and no one will know the difference. :)

As far as co-teachers go, I am still with Mr. Nam. Argh. But I am optimistic. I only have three classes with him this semester as opposed to five in the last and I'm planning to make him be more involved by asking him to do some of the lesson planning. We'll see how that goes. Maybe I'm being too optimistic... I have two other new co-teachers at the girls school, one is an old friend and the other is a brand new teacher just out of college herself. We're getting along really well and I think teaching with her is going to be a lot of fun since we're almost the same age and she's new here too.

The boys school is a different story. I'm a little apprehensive about the situation there. Last semester at the boys school was amazing and I had such a great time, but things are looking a little complicated now. I will only have 7 classes (maybe 8) there but I'll have at least 5 different co-teachers--only two of which I know. They also decided they want me to teach listening from a book and have already purchased all of the materials. The kicker is that no one told me they would be doing this until the first day of school. Jerks. I'm pretty sure they did that on purpose, knowing that I would protest. Now, I recognize that there are some good things about teaching from a curriculum (mostly that I don't have to lesson plan) but the big draw back is that I lose all of my freedom to do fun lessons on things like St. Patrick's Day, Easter, April Fools, and repeating the post card project. I'm also a little annoyed because the curriculum they picked out is all on listening and requires little more of me than pushing play on the tape recorder (this is how a typical Korean English class works when it's taught by a Korean). That kind of pisses me off. I want to be able to initiate my kids in conversations so they can practice speaking with a native--that's the primary intention of my program. Anyone could press play on the cd player. Anyhow, I'm choosing to get over it but I have a feeling it's going to be a little difficult to get past all these unexpected changes.

The best part of this semester is that I'll be teaching fewer classes which will hopefully afford me a little more time to put together higher quality lesson plans. One unit I'm really looking forward to doing is a two month series on the major events of life, starting at birth and ending at death and covering all those big things in between: school, graduation, driving, dating/marriage, working, having kids, family structure, holidays, and finally funerals. I'm not sure that we'll get through everything but I'm hopeful. I'm also hoping to do the post card project in that remaining month with the girls school which should, once again, fun for everyone involved. :)

In total, I'm technically supposed to be teaching my full 21 classes this year, but I'll really only have 16 classes with kids. The remaining five classes are supposed to be teaching English to other teachers, but yeah right! If I have learned anything about Korea, my experience tells me that I'll be teaching one teacher class and that's all. We'll see though. They've already surprised me a few times this last week... One cool thing about my schedule is that within those 16 classes, two are special classes where I'll be instructing the lowest level English students an extra hour each week. One of the cool parts about this is that I don't have to teach a formal lesson since I'll already be seeing each of those classes earlier in the week where they'll be getting the meaty stuff; I get to use these hours for fun English games and projects! Woo hoo!! I didn't get to play many games last year with my kids so this shall be a lot of fun and hopefully I can get to know these kids better since I'll be seeing them twice a week. An added benefit: instead of the usual 30 kids in class, these two classes are only about 20! That means more concentrated time with each student and ample opportunity to participate in class!

As far extra classes go, I've decided not to continue doing extra work. Last semester I did three hours of volunteer teaching with an English Club and two debate teams, but that was really difficult because it took up my free time in the evenings and I didn't always have enough time to prepare something satisfactory for those classes. The downside is that I won't be able to continue building those personal relationships with my girls from last year outside of class. But who knows. Maybe I'll feel different in a couple weeks once things get moving. I could handle an hour of English Club but I won't be doing any work beyond that.

As far as privates go, I should begin lessons next week. I'm going out to dinner this evening with the two women who want me to teach their three sons and hopefully that will go well. I'm really looking forward to working with those boys. When we met back in December we all talked about doing two hours a week, but I'm starting to think that maybe I want to do three. I could really use the extra cash. I want to pay off my loans ASAP.

Actually, speaking of paying off loans, I expect to put down $4,000 this month--even after two weeks in Thailand--which makes me happy beyond belief. Nothing feels as satisfying as making a payment that big and knowing it won't affect your daily life in anyway.

It's been a good week. Hope there's more to come!