Postby Bobtheduck » Wed Oct 21, 2009 5:00 pm
I'll have some photos up soon. All I have now is pictures of my room when I got here as I was unpacking. I"ll also have a vid or 3 up on youtube, but with my crappy digital cam, not my camcorder because I don't have a firewire port on my laptop.
Edit: I just got back from the doctor's. The Korean teacher I went with was worried it would be very expensive because I don't have insurance yet. I was too, but he was "really sorry" about a 36,000 won (just for simplicity, I'll say 36 dollars) visit + prescriptions. Where I'm from, at least, a visit to the doctors without anything else would be about 45 bucks (no insurance) and prescriptions (which are filled differently) are a different mess altogether.
I've got a cornucopia of medicine to take, now, and a mask to wear when I'm in public (which I forgot to say thank you for, and I think the Korean teacher was embarrassed) and I still get to follow the other English teacher around when she goes to the Kindergarten.
Right now, I officially have only 2 or 3 classes a day, but I'm supposed to follow the other foreign (She's from Manchester, England, and all the kids know about Manchester because, I think, of the soccer team there) teacher around to her classes and in the Kindergarten in the morning, which I'll also be, um, "teaching" starting next month.
I'll take my camera with me to the school tomorrow (I'll need to buy a battery charger soon, though) and snap pictures of the area. Some of the girls in one of my classes all had to snap pictures of me on their cell phones, and shoot video of me whistling, which they thought was really funny for some reason.
What I was told by the other Foreign teacher here is that in this type of school (Hagwan? Private english school), the Foreign teachers are used more as bait to lure parents to enroll students, and not so much as actual teachers. This has left the other Foreign teacher's classes rather... ineffective. I've tried to do something halfway in between what they expect from her, and a full lesson, though. I feel terrible just giving them word searches and such, so I try to expand on them, talking about the subjects of the word searches, drawing pictures and miming and talking about them
One of my classes today, I did a word search about fruit. I tried to talk about each one of the fruit on the list, and I'm learning (very difficult, because it is 100% against my instinct) to speak P-a-i-n-f-u-l-l-y------s-l-o-w-l-y. The second class I tried the same things, but they got distracted when they saw the word searches, which amount to time sinks and don't really teach much, even though they can read the words on them. They wouldn't listen to what I was trying to get them to talk about (bugs) and instead grabbed for the word searches. I ended up wasting a lot of time with that, but I used the time they were doing that to write all the names of the bugs on the board and draw pictures of them, and throw in a few more. It went well once they finally finished the search, but I think I may have shorter word searches for them next time... I would like to spend more time talking and less time doing... that.
The director is supposed to be very nice, and I don't have any real reason to say he's not, but I have a difficult time reading him, particularly since he doesn't speak English well (gotta love irony) His wife is in charge of payroll and deductions (for maintenance on the apartment, insurance which I don't have yet, cell phone bill, pension, etc) and I see her far less than I see him.
My first two days was a bit more of a disaster, though... I was thrown into this with basically no instruction, because the director didn't speak English well. I didn't know what level the kids really were, and to be honest I still don't really know. That makes it difficult to plan anything, but more recently (after learning to slow down a lot and not feeling (too) embarrassed about it) I've been able to connect with them pretty well, with copious miming and sound effects. The worst part, though, is remembering to actually use grammar correctly, because it's a huge temptation, particularly when I'm in slow speaking mode, to talk like a caveman, and I know that really won't help any of those kids.
I don't think I've found my wife yet, hehe (my Dad says I'll come home married, and have “Korean grandchildren” for him. He had wanted to adopt a Korean baby in the '50s, because he was in the Military (but not in Korea) during the Korean war and saw a lot of the destruction (in film reels and such, I'd have to guess) and wanted to help out. He wanted to rescue the kids from that. Due to red tape, mostly, he wasn't able to do this.
So, yeah, Pictures will come tomorrow after I get back from the school.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evcNPfZlrZs Watch this movie なう。 It's legal, free... And it's more than its premise. It's not saying Fast Food is good food. Just watch it.
Legend of Crying Bronies: Twilight's a Princess
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