Teaching: First Week

Kids are kids..

Wednesday was my second day of teaching. I felt confident teaching these classes today as these children were older and behaved a bit better.  I had a 6th grade, a 5th grade, then a mixture of 4th and 5th grade.
I'm learning to be a bit quick on my feet and hopefully it will develop more over time. I expected to be teaching different students in each class but one of my classes contained students from a previous class. I didn't want to bore them with the same lesson, so I improvised by playing a game with information from their previous lesson with me.

Friday concluded my first week of teaching. This day was very difficult. I had two 1st grade classes(one all girls, the latter all boys), and a 3rd grade class. My girls were adorable and listened very well. They were also very smart, as they knew their ABC's, shapes, and could write them. My boys were, well, my boys. I didn't get too much teaching done here. This class consisted of attempting to get them to chill, they were bouncing off of the walls, literally. One student began to cry because he missed his mother, and another bumped his head while running under tables. It's safe to say that me and my coteacher's patience was running thin! During the time between classes, I met another English teacher. He gave us some advice on how to manage a class: Smile less, have rules, and be firm. My 3rd grade class was my final one of the day. Being worn out from the previous classes, I was determined not to have a repeat. I think I caught myself smiling once or twice. As I say, kids will be kids. After studying all day at school, then extra activities such as studying at a hagwon after school, Tae Kwon Do, and piano lessons, these kids barely have time to play.

I hope to find a way to allow them to have fun learning English.

Proud moment: I rode the bus alone to my elementary school on Friday. My Yeungnam University Buddy translated the bus route into English for me and wrote it in both English and Korean. *Shoutout to Jeongheon Heo. I felt like a little kid carrying a note home from the teacher. If I got confused on where to go, I would ask a Korean at the bus stop. Everyone was so understanding and eagerly helped me.