Tag Archives: schedule

A Day in the Life

19 Thursday May 2011

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For most of you, packing your bags and moving to another country to teach when you’ve never taught before sounds a little daunting. Trust me, it is. My first couple of weeks were so daunting in fact, that at day 8, I literally got on orbitz.com to check out plane fares for trips back home. Couldn’t afford it then, can’t afford it now. I’m almost three months in, and while the job still isn’t a cakewalk, it’s gotten a lot better. Let me take you through my average teaching day. Or at least an average Thursday.

8:00-9:00am
I wake up around this time for no good reason. I work until 9:30-10pm, get to sleep around 1 or 2 am, and wake up at 8?! I eat a small breakfast of whatever I have lying around, which isn’t much. Currently, my stockpile of food consists of grapes, a carrot, an orange, some cereal, and some yogurt. Thank goodness street food is so cheap.

9:00-11:00am
After wasting time on Facebook and checking my email for 30 minutes or so, I completely regret my body’s decision to wake me up at such a stupid time. I generally debate napping, under the misguided notion that I actually have important stuff to do. My brain finally reasons with me that my morning is really pretty inconsequential, and I snooze for another hour.

11:00am-12:00pm
I waste more time. I check my email again. Check my Facebook again. Around 11:45, I question whether or not I have time to watch something on Netflix. I’m currently watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Don’t judge me. At this point, I run my fingers through my hair a few times and debate the necessity of washing it. If it’s too greasy, I usually try to tell myself it’s not. By the time I decide that it’s really past the “no one will notice” stage, I have to hurry.

12-12:45pm
I get ready. I will omit the details.

12:45-1:30pm
At the stroke of 12:45, the time I need to head out if I’m going to walk to work, I regret my decision to get a full-time job. I day-dream about winning the lottery. Eventually, I snap back to reality and rush off to school. I try to appreciate being stared at by the locals. It’s like being a celebrity, I tell myself. I stroll into the lobby area and press the up button on the elevator and wait. And wait. Stare angrily as I see the elevator is lingering on some other floor. What’s taking so long?! I have stuff to do! Eventually the doors open, but if you’re not watching, you won’t know it. Korean elevators are eerily silent. I get to the 4th floor, clock in by pressing my finger into the fingerprint reader, and then the fun begins!

1:30-2:30
Unless we have a meeting about something that generally raises more questions than it answers, I have one hour to prep for my Atlas class, the second-to-lowest level at my school. And the class lasts 70 minutes. That’s right- 70 minutes with 5-6 year-olds. With four pages of material to go through.

2:30-3:40pm Atlas
Atlas class. I spend the class trying to keep my cool and not let the blank stares get to me. This class in particular (I teach two Atlas classes) doesn’t seem quite with it, so they’re particularly frustrating. We get through the lesson fairly quickly, and I generally beef up the lesson with word searches and games like pictionary. Sometimes I just break out the paper and crayons and tell them to draw something that starts with whatever letter we just learned. They usually don’t listen and just draw whatever they want.

3:40-6:25pm
I have a break! Thank. goodness, after THAT class. I eat lunch. Rice and kimchi are the staples, and then the rest is usually vegetarian. When they provide meat, it feels like Christmas. Can’t complain too much though, since it’s free. After lunch, I prep for my other classes. Thursdays are pretty easy, since two of the three classes I have left for the day are listening classes. I play the tracks, and they do the work. Other than that, I have a reading lesson to prepare for, which is also pretty easy. I spend the rest of the time trying to figure out new things to do with my Atlas classes.

6:25-7:30 GI Reading
I have my Tuesday/Thursday GI reading class. Four boys. They’re mostly well-behaved. Even the troublemaker seems to be making an effort these days. I pass out the Daily Tests and check their homework books and record those grades. I collect the Daily Tests and set them outside the door for the TAs to collect. We go over vocab and read the passage. Then I spend a majority of the lesson going over the passage for reading comprehension and make them take notes. They hate that.

7:35-8:15 GI Listening
I have the same class back-to-back, and this time, I’m making them listen. And take notes. They hate that. An easy, yet boring, class for me.

8:15-8:55 GB Listening
Probably my favorite class. The kids are fun, but they can also be a little too talkative. Alright, way too talkative. We’re lucky to get through the listening lesson. I’m also lucky if the kids take decent notes.

8:55-9:30
I put the homework grades into the computer file. I finish typing up my lesson plan and save it into the network. And once that’s done, I try to find stuff to do while waiting for 9:30 to come so I can go home. I clock out on the fingerprint pad and start walking.

10:00pm-?am
I get home and snack on something. I watch Netflix. I check my email. Eventually, I get to sleep, only to wake up stupidly early and start the process all over again.

Teaching

08 Friday Apr 2011

Posted by in Info for New Teachers

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I have never taught anyone before.  I have never worked with children before.  I did not know what I was getting myself into, but I was determined to do my best and pick up the skills I needed to identify with these kids.  My first class was my lowest level class.  It’s the second lowest level we have.  I walked into the room and introduced myself, “Hello, my name is Victoria Teacher.”  Deadpan stares from the 5 year-olds.  One of the Korean teachers popped in there to get something, and in a hushed whisper, I exclaimed, “They don’t know what I’m saying!”  She said a few words in Korean to the kids and gave me a smile and said I’d do fine.

Korean schoolchildren are very shy.  On the first day, maybe for the first 2 or 3 days that you have them, they won’t talk.  It was difficult for me to see if they just didn’t understand, or if they were shy.  It was no doubt a bit of both.  I went ahead with the lesson, which was a whopping 3 or 4 pages of easy material that we finished with about 30 minutes to spare.  I didn’t know what else to do.  So we played Hangman.  I later found out that Hangman has been outlawed at my school.  Whoops!  I guess when the parents ask their kids what they did in this expensive private language school, all they tell them is that they played Hangman.  The parents get mad, call the school, and yell at the Korean teachers.  So no more Hangman.  sigh.

It’s been a few weeks since that day, and I’ve gotten a bit better at this whole teaching thing.  A big thing is knowing how much your kids know.  That can be hard.  They don’t always say, “Teacher, I don’t understand.”  And then the little kids still try to talk to me in Korean.  I learned how to say “Hey!” in Korean, and it’s pretty effective.  They think I must be fluent in Korean by saying that one little word.  If you ever want to get a Korean’s attention, just say, “Ya!”

Some of my kids are wonderful, some aren’t.  Like us, they have their good days and their bad days.  I try to just go with the flow.  At some point, you have to give in a little bit.  Especially with the little kids.  The nice thing about teaching here as opposed to the US is that you don’t have to worry about not touching the kids.  We’re encouraged to play around with them a little.  Muss their hair, poke them, tickle them, wrestle with them.  One of my little boys started calling me Momma and kept trying to give me kisses.  That was one thing I didn’t make concessions for.  Kissing someone else’s kid is just too weird for my American sensibilities.  He then tried to give me a booger.  What a day.

I’ve had to get the Korean teachers involved a couple of times with troublesome kids.  The younger ones will hit each other sometimes.  Just this past Monday, one of my girls hit one of the boys and made him cry.  What a brat!  I get to deal with her later today… joy.

It’s only been a month, and with any luck I’ll have this teaching thing down pat by the end of the term.  Just in time to get a new batch of kids and learn it all over again.  It’s an adventure!