A (not so) Relaxing Summer Vacation
Today was the first day of our summer intensive course. For the next 20 school days I will be teaching a lot more classes. Today I was at work from 9am to 9pm - even with a few breaks in there, it was still a long day in the classroom. Two thoughts from today:
1. In class with my older kids tonight, I was shocked to hear them all mutually agree that they hate summer vacation. They get four weeks off school, but their regular teachers give them a ton of homework to do while their off and their parents sign them up for extra classes in English, piano, violin, math, science and tae kwon do academies. It baffles my mind to hear young kids talk about how much they loathe summer vacation. I'm glad I didn't grow up in Korea.
2. One of my new classes is a group of 2nd and 3rd graders who have never been in an English class before. Today, I had forty minutes to teach them: "Hello, I am ____________." and "What is your name?" It took us all of class to get it down, but we did figure it out in the end. I have never taught kids at such a low level. It makes it even weirder that they are smart, older kids. You don't run into very many kids in America (hopefully) that are normal, intelligent, well-adjusted 3rd graders that can't speak a lick of English. I have my work cut out for me, but they seem like good kids.
Kids at our school use English names (instead of their Korean ones) while they are in class. I have yet to be able to name any kids...until today. I threw some names up on the board and let them choose. I now have a class with a Kellie, a Katie, a Nicole and a Ted. Should be a fun class.
I have discussed other theories of giving classes names. Today I went with putting friends names on the board, but here are some of my other favorites: naming all of the kids after Cosby kids; naming all the kids after rockstars (Axl, Mick, Ringo, etc.;) naming them all after food (Lasagna, Rutabega, Gorgonzola;) naming them all after dictators (Adolph, Fidel, Karl (okay, he's not really a dictator but it's a cool, fun-loving, 100% commie name);) and naming them all after Simpson characters. As you can tell, I have a lot of extra time at work to theorize.
I've got visitors coming tomorrow evening. I am looking forward to seeing some familiar faces in Korea.
Much love from Seoul
1. In class with my older kids tonight, I was shocked to hear them all mutually agree that they hate summer vacation. They get four weeks off school, but their regular teachers give them a ton of homework to do while their off and their parents sign them up for extra classes in English, piano, violin, math, science and tae kwon do academies. It baffles my mind to hear young kids talk about how much they loathe summer vacation. I'm glad I didn't grow up in Korea.
2. One of my new classes is a group of 2nd and 3rd graders who have never been in an English class before. Today, I had forty minutes to teach them: "Hello, I am ____________." and "What is your name?" It took us all of class to get it down, but we did figure it out in the end. I have never taught kids at such a low level. It makes it even weirder that they are smart, older kids. You don't run into very many kids in America (hopefully) that are normal, intelligent, well-adjusted 3rd graders that can't speak a lick of English. I have my work cut out for me, but they seem like good kids.
Kids at our school use English names (instead of their Korean ones) while they are in class. I have yet to be able to name any kids...until today. I threw some names up on the board and let them choose. I now have a class with a Kellie, a Katie, a Nicole and a Ted. Should be a fun class.
I have discussed other theories of giving classes names. Today I went with putting friends names on the board, but here are some of my other favorites: naming all of the kids after Cosby kids; naming all the kids after rockstars (Axl, Mick, Ringo, etc.;) naming them all after food (Lasagna, Rutabega, Gorgonzola;) naming them all after dictators (Adolph, Fidel, Karl (okay, he's not really a dictator but it's a cool, fun-loving, 100% commie name);) and naming them all after Simpson characters. As you can tell, I have a lot of extra time at work to theorize.
I've got visitors coming tomorrow evening. I am looking forward to seeing some familiar faces in Korea.
Much love from Seoul
posted by Kyle at 10:12 PM
1 Comments:
Good luck and careful with the naming process. Some of these might stick with the kids for a long time. The Korean kids who studied at the University of Bonn would use their Anglicized names instead of their Korean or Chinese ones while living in Germany. Yes, I was good friends with a girl "named" Candy and a guy "named" Felix, who later decided he would prefer to be called Winston. I got mad at him about that. I said, "No. You can't just change your name in the middle of the year. Your name is Felix, Felix!"
Sorry. Got carried away. Good luck with intensive classes.
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