Teacher Michelle

So my days are quite different from Tr. Olivia's. Officially, I am the 6th Grade science teacher. However, the school's immersion program was fairly new back in the days the 6th graders were entering elementary school, so there is only 1 6th grade immersion class, 6 Faith. This is my homeroom, and there are 34 students. My Korean co-teacher, Teacher Sapu, is the other homeroom teacher, and is an amazing co-teacher to have. He teaches the students their Korean science classes, math, and some other things that I can't quite figure out, Korean literature maybe? No clue. He is very good with the kids, and it is really entertaining to watch them interact and have no idea what they are saying. Oh how nice it would be to know some Korean. He is generally in the room when I teach, but doesn't pay attention to us and just does his own thing, which is nice.

This is the front of my classroom. My co-teacher sits at the desk
in the front with the really nice monitor.

The back of the classroom and my desk, with the not so nice monitor.

Me and my Korean Co-teacher, Teacher Sapu.

As Olivia mentioned, we are also the homeroom teachers who intervene with any problems and have responsibilities outside of our specific classes. Since my kids are older, I don't have them coming up to me as upset all the time and have yet to have a super injured child (thank god), but they have English journals that I grade once a week and school vocabulary tests that I also grade. I also don't have to be as alert when I take the kids to lunch or while they are eating, but I still sit with them to ensure they aren't beating on each other or something.

A class picture that they animated, blew up on
 the computer, printed out and colored. These of my kids!

When it is time to teach science (which the students have 4 times a week), my English co-teacher, Tr. Liz (who has a different homeroom), takes half the class for LA and I am left with the remaining 17 for science class. So I teach each lesson twice. As the kids get to the older grades, they also have English writing class and social studies, so I also teach writing twice a week. So far, most of my kids participate and seem to be really interested in the materials (in science that is, they couldn't care less for writing), but I think that is soon to change. There are very intense entrance exams for middle schools, and my students are set to take theirs in the end of October. They have been studying for this test very hard every day, on weekends, and most of their summer vacation. So I have a feeling once they are accepted into a middle school, participation will dwindle. But, maybe not!

Some of my 6th graders getting ready for class

Since I really only have 2 different 6th grade classes, the school decided I should probably have some more teaching hours. So I also teach after school intensive science classes for 2nd-6th graders. I see each grade twice a week, and am meant to expand and challenge their science abilities and knowledge. These classes are rather small, with my 2nd graders having 7 students, and only 1 in my 4th grade class. The amount of knowledge these students have never ceases to amaze me, so I am constantly challenged on how to challenge the students.

The school also has Creative Activity classes, which are for the 4th grade only. Some of the English teachers have the pleasure of teaching these classes, which can be whatever you want them to be. There is a games class, where they just play board games all period, arts and crafts, Russian, sports.. the sky is the limit on the class. I chose to teach the students Spanish. Again, these kids are so smart! They exceed expectations in languages, just like in my science classes. Some of them are picking up the lessons so quickly. I am really enjoying this class because I am also taking this opportunity to teach some Latino culture. It is interesting, on the first day of class I asked my students where in the world Spanish is spoken, and they could only name Spain. So there is a lot to be learned about the culture and the people. I've already taught them the basics of salsa dancing!

I learned today that I will be getting more teaching hours in the next week, as I am technically not teaching a lot of the time. I spend most my time prepping though as I have such a range of classes. I will soon be teaching some of the Korean teachers English.

I am really enjoying my time in Korea, and coming to teach here is probably one of the best decisions I've ever made. I am not only learning a lot from the country, but also from the students. They all say and do the most interesting/entertaining things while continuing to surprise me every day with their intelligence and abilities. It's pretty amazing.

Teacher Olivia

Now that Michelle and I have told you a little bit about our school, we each thought we would let you know a little more about our own classes in our own entries. I teach first grade science where I have 102 students split up into three homerooms - Faith, Love, and Hope - and I teach one third of the students in a homeroom at a time. In other words, I teach three 40 minute lessons to nine groups of 11 or 12 first graders. I also teach two after school review classes for some of my students, so 5 to 6 classes each day.

The students call me Teacher Olivia, or more often Olivia Teacher, which I love so much more than Ms. Baad! I have also had one or two call me giraffe teacher thinking they were hilarious, although it isn't really that surprising because it isn't really rude here to just point out things about someone's physical appearance, like saying "you're fat," and I am obviously exceptionally tall compared to their Korean teachers/parents. They also told me I was tall like an elephant the other day, but I definitely prefer giraffe haha.

The science material is very basic and the kids are all so smart, already knowing most of the material from kindergarden or their Korean science class. As such, I spend a lot of class singing science songs, playing games to solidify the concepts, doing experiments, and every once in a while watching Bill Nye or the Magic School Bus which often times is really helpful for the kids that have poor English skills since they can more easily visualize what we are learning about.

Some of my students playing with their handmade wind vanes after a lesson on weather tools. Sorry for the blurred pictures! I accidentally used an odd camera setting. 

Some of my students, like Cindy, have very limited English yet can still have fun with our experiments. As a side note, all students have to have an English name. Some pick their own, others are given by their parents, or even by their teachers. Cindy recently changed her name from Sinby - one of the many questionable English names some of my students have as a result of this practice.

Something really nice about teaching science is that the kids tend to inherently like it. The fact that we play games and get to do experiments and projects is a nice change of pace for them from their other classes. It is frustrating that the point of the class is for the students to learn English, not really the science material, so sometimes it feels like they don't bother to do anything but memorize the definitions of the weekly vocabulary words. However, I do try to throw in fun memory tricks for them for some of the concepts so hopefully they will have learned some actual science by the end of the year!

Something else a little frustrating is that the school was recently told by the government that they can no longer test the kids before placing them in immersion classes, as it is unfair to exclude these kids. As a result of this being the first year that this was put into place, there are definitely some kids with extremely low English skills. In theory I guess they are just supposed to learn from osmosis but it is really hard for them, and boring since they often don't really know what is going on. This can then lead to the kids being disruptive which causes its own problems.

Indoor wind vanes during one of the multiple Typhoons we have had in the past month. 

"In winter it is cold. Some animals hibernate but dragons don't"
The kids had to make a book where they wrote a couple of sentences about each season and drew a corresponding picture. Harrison had his mind set on drawing dragons so I told him he could if his sentences corresponded accordingly. For fall he wrote "In fall it is cool and dragons fly south." Creative, funny and indicative of his English skills and his grasp of the concepts.

In addition to teaching science class, we are also basically a homeroom teacher for one of our classes - my homeroom being 1 Faith - and are in charge of the class if the Korean homeroom teacher isn't there, helping the kids get to lunch, etc. Normally for me this means intervening during the break after lunch when kids are teasing each other or crying for various reasons, at least when they choose to come to me to tell me about it. Dealing with this can be difficult of course when the kids involved don't speak the best English or are too upset to explain what happened. In these cases I normally just have the kids with better English translate for each other but it doesn't always work. It really hit me the other day how helpful speaking Korean would be in these situations when I looked up from my desk when I heard someone crying to see one of my students looking like something out of a horror film with blood gushing all down his face, all over his clothing, and all over the floor. I grabbed some tissues to hold over the cut to slow the bleeding (he ended up going to the hospital to get stitches on his forehead which he is now quite proud of) and rushed him to the nurse. Of course, although I asked him and the girl with him what had happened I was unable to get a coherent response and still don't really know what caused the cut, or why my kids came to me instead of the Korean teacher in the next room.

Overall I am really loving teaching here so far. Sometimes it is draining but the kids are so smart and sweet and funny that it makes it totally worth it. I don't regret the decision to do this one bit and can understand why many of the teachers at our school have been here for over a year. It is definitely pushing me towards wanting to teach for a career and not just a year abroad.  

Sahmyook Elementary School

Alright, I guess it is finally time to tell our few readers about what we actually are doing all day with our time, and the reason we moved to Korea. We both are teaching science (Michelle 6th grade, Olivia 1st) at Sahmyook Elementary School, a private English immersion school in Gwangju. Basically this means that the kids in the immersion program have science and language arts in English in order to strengthen their English skills. Instead of a traditional English classroom where we are straight up teaching them English, as we would have done in a public school job, we are teaching English via science material.

Sahmyook Elementary School

Olivia's homeroom, standard for most classrooms in the school. 

The foreign teacher's desk sits in the back of the room.

As a side note, the school is Seventh Day Adventist, although I don't really think that many kids are actually SDA. This doesn't really effect us other than the school lunches being vegetarian, prayers coming on over the loudspeaker every once in awhile, and not technically being allowed to drink anything with caffeine at school - but what is hidden in an opaque travel mug doesn't count. The kids do have bible class during the day and Sabbath School on Saturdays, where two of the foreign teachers assist.

Speaking of foreign teachers, there are 16 of us. We are primarily from Canada and the continental United States, but we do have a teacher from England, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico as well. We are each paired with a Korean co-teacher who is there to make sure our students get the weekly lesson plan, vocabulary lists, assist with discipline if necessary, and answer any questions we may have. We were both lucky to get great co-teachers, as some are apparently not so helpful.

We recently had a photoshoot with all of the foreign teachers.
Here is the first awkward pose the photographer chose. 

And again, a nice awkward group shot. The Korean teacher on the
bottom right is Olivia's co-teacher,  Teacher Elizabeth, who also
serves as an advocate for the foreign teachers. 

Our Korean Apartments

Hello family and friends! Sorry it has taken so long to write another post but we have been busy settling in, meeting the other foreigners in the area (at least some of them - apparently Gwangju has a foreign population close to 20,000), and of course starting to teach. We promise to get a post up soon with more information about our first couple of weeks but for now here is a quick photo tour of Olivia's apartment.

Here is the entrance to the apartment. This is a small area where shoes must be removed before entering the living space. There is also a shoe closet here where visitors can place their shoes... or foreigners like us can store all of their extra belongings. 

Directly to the left of the entrance way is the bathroom. Unlike a traditional western bathroom, in Korea the shower and bathroom are one and the same. The shower head is attached to the faucet and the water flow is switched between the two with a small knob - as a result it is quite important to remember to switch the water back after a shower to avoid drenching yourself later when going to use the sink. 

Here is the living space, a single room with a bed, desk, and wardrobe. Some of the teachers at our school have larger apartments with a living room and a bedroom, but we were placed in the smaller/newer apartments. As a side note, all of the foreign teachers live within the same 3 buildings which are all within a 5-7 minute walk of school at the most. 

Again here is the bed, with bedding provided by the school, with the exception of western style sheets which we had to bring from home as they are not traditionally used in Korea. On the wall you can see the air conditioner (thank goodness we have ac with all of this heat/humidity we have been having recently) as well as a phone and a control panel for hot water and floor heating. The doors use keypads instead of keys (so convenient!) and have doorbells with intercom systems which are answered with this phone. 

The desk and TV, apparently with English movies and channels that we haven't explored yet.

Lastly, through the frosted doors you will find the kitchen and laundry area. 

It is rare to find a dryer in Korean apartments, so we have multiple drying racks instead. The pinkish/purple container in the bottom left is a rice cooker, another staple of Korean apartments.

Michelle's apartment looks almost exactly the same as we live in the same building only a floor apart. We hope to post soon with more details about school and our city when we have the time!