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.