Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

Last Friday I made my pitch to let me really teach and not just be the pronunciation monkey. Volunteered to give up my evenings, start at 3 and work till 8. The boys in my high school are just sitting around their classrooms in the evenings not studying anyway. Got the answer yesterday. "Your idea does not fit the school's schedule."

So I was pretty grumpy when I got up this morning. My first class on Tuesday isn't till 2:30, so I had the whole morning to fritter away. And I did. Not in the mood to do any lesson planning for the few classes I do teach, especially since Wednesday this week I don't have any classes at all. Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. Four cigarette breaks from browsing Dave's and I'm bored. I come back from the last one and Mr. Postman is there--with my boxes from home. Hurray! Long sleeve shirts and books. Now I have something to obsess about. Which box is missing? Is there some way I can slip out early and start unpacking them instead of hanging around here doing nothing?

5th cigarette break. It's 10:30 in the morning. Mr. Lee comes out. He's one of the English teachers. He stutters. He starts reviewing what he told me last week and the week before. Something about dividing his Grade 3 boys into two groups and me teaching one of them in a different room. All fine. He's told me several versions of this before, all with a different start date. Ms Park, the other English teacher and the only one in school who can speak English, says she doesn't understand his plan in Korean. I have the acuity to ask him when this new plan will start. Next Tuesday? He says, No. Now.

Yikes. I say, "Give me 5 minutes to find some materials". And off I go. (I impressed myself with not throwing a temper tantrum. I have done so in similar situations in the past.)

Good class. Only 8 boys. One of them is an extremely deep bow-er every single time he sees me anywhere. But he bows to everyone.

Break time. I find out I'm getting a second group the hour coming up. I'm not worried now. I'm prepared. Seven boys show up. Things go well. At the end I have them introduce themselves. My name is X. I'm from Y. (That's about all the best of these guys can handle. ) One of them gets up. He says, "My name is X. Call me Handsome Boy from Gilgok". The other boys laugh at him. (He is pretty good-looking and clearly lifts weights.) I put my arm around his shoulder and say, "Handsome? No. I'm handsome." He falls on the floor laughing and rolls around. The other boys are laughing hysterically at him. Fortunately the bell rings just then because there is no way to top that gem of wit. The class tough guy who doesn't seem to have understood a word all hour prompts the class leader to bow. The whole class bows to me. Ego boost.

In the afternoon my known scheduled classes come and go off without a hitch in my pronunciation monkey routine. (Sit there for 50 minutes and pop up three or four times and say the word of choice. Today's main challenge was 'information'. )

My last class of the day on Tuesday is English for Teachers. It keeps getting cancelled for things like MT and I don't know what all. Well today it got cancelled again. This time because the school principal wanted to practice his English without being embarrassed in front of the others who can't speak any better than he can. He's been studying a list of sentences for the last 3 weeks in a major effort to master English conversation without speaking. In three weeks he's advanced as far as: Me: Good morning. Him: Thank you. And you?

This was my first 'conversation' of more than one sentence with him. His first sentence is 'We learn English 10 years'. I see the thin end of a wedge here. Clearly he knows the traditional way of teaching English hasn't worked in the past and is not working now. Maybe, just maybe, he will be open to a new idea. Probably not, but right now I have a little hope that I can escape my role of pronunciation monkey.

After school Mr. Lee brought 4 boys, including the Handsome Boy from Gilgok to unload my 7 boxes and carry them up to my apt. Now I know which box is missing. I unload a loaf of home-made apple bread on them. That's 4 apples gone, 35 more to go before they rot.

It wasn't such a bad day after all. (I don't think the box is missing permanently.)

PS: I didn't mention that last week I happened to say I like spaghetti. Today Mrs. Choi comes over to say she went to Costco last weekend and has brought me a gift. It's 6 packages of pasta: radiatori, fusilli and farfalle. That's over 6 POUNDS of pasta. I wonder if there is a recipe that calls for sour apples and pasta.

[blunder1983]

I love rotten days that arent.

I had one a couple of weeks ago. Found out we only had 3 days Chuseok, and had a hellish first class. Then I played Fallout and cheered up a bit. Then we had KFC (something very like KFC) for lunch, followed by an awesome class. To top it all off I found out I was going to an amusement park the next day and had friday to do whatever I liked.

*sigh*

I forsee a few more fun surprises with midterms coming up. Thinking Xbox + English Zone + Super Monkey Ball might work well in those situations.

[Kenny Kimchee]

Hey, sounds like a day in the life of a JET! Good stuff!