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!