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Posts tagged ‘Teaching English’

Nov 18

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Pearls of Wisdom

Like most kids, our Korean students come up with some real pearls of wisdom. Here are a handful of our favorite quotes from our students over the past few months.

Neil Teacher

What happens when I decide to wear my green jumper to school.
SS: “Neil teacher, kaggle, kaggle.”
NT: “What?”
SS: “Teacher, frog.”

SS: “Neil teacher, why you do not diet?”
NT: “I am on a diet. Why do I look fat?”
SS: “Yes, fat. But it looks good on you.”

Mid class I realise I need to go to the bathroom..urgently, I return ten minutes later.
SS: “Neil teacher you make number 2?”
NT: “What?!”
SS: “You know, number 2?”
NT: (laughs) “Well it was more like a number 10 but…”
Later I realise my co-teacher taught them number 2 while I was in the bathroom.

Geri Teacher
SS: “Geri teacher, your husband, I see, bike.”
GT: “Oh OK…”
SS: “He has big head, big arms. Big brain? Good job!”

After a couple of my students saw my friend Lara after school.
SS: “Geri teacher you know lala?”
GT: “Lala? Like lalalalala (singing).”
SS: “Teacher no! Lala chingu (friend).”
GT: “Oh Lara! Yes I know her.”

SS: “Geri teacher, Yu Jin hacking!”
GT: “Huh? She’s what?”
SS: “Yu Jin paper, look me!”
GT: “Oh! You mean cheating…”

SS: “Geri teacher, haircut chang-ee. Your head looks big!”
GT: (Under my breath) “Awesome! That’s the exact look I was after, thanks!”

Holding a picture card with someone making a sandwich on it.
SS: “Kevin can’t go to the park today.”
GT: “Why?”
SS: “Because he is baking.”
GT: “Really? You’re sure it’s not because he’s hungry?”
SS: “Yes, baking is very serious illness.”

Showing a picture of Neil and Ross in Mafia costume.
GT: “What are they dressed as?”
SS: ….
GT: “They wear suits and have guns.”
SS: “Oh. They’re teachers!”

SS: “Geri you baby?”
GT: “No, no baby.”
SS: “Really? Sex no?”
GT: “What?!”
SS: “Sex? (Students make humping actions) Sex, no?”
GT:”….um” (walks away).

I arrive five minutes late to class.
GT: “Sorry I’m late.”
SS: “Geri, you 똥 (ddong)?” (make a poo)
GT: “What!?”
SS: (Student makes pooing gesture)
GT: “NO! I was blowing my nose. I have a cold.”

‎

Oct 28

Performance Day

We’re halfway through semester two and I don’t really feel like I’ve been doing much teaching. My classes seem to get canceled left and right for activities – sports day, test day, English competitions, various field trips and this week; school performance day.

Like a giant school talent show, each class prepared performances, decorated their homerooms and showcased their artwork, science projects and the like. Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of how talented some of my students are.

First grade bag charms
First grade Hello Kitty charms
Third grade artwork
The entrance to my school decorated with students work
4th grade paper boxes
Sixth grade boys doing an adjumma skit

May 13

Geri's 4th grade boys

Geri and Neil Teacher

I hope you’ve been enjoying the tales of our weekend adventures, however interesting they might be they wouldn’t be possible if we weren’t teaching English in Korea Monday to Friday. So here’s an update about our teaching lives in South Korea.

We both teach 22 hours a week, the maximum we can before our schools need to pay us overtime as per our contracts with EPIK. We have friends who teach 11 hours and friends who teach 33, every situation is different. I teach at Yongam Elementary and Neil teaches at Gyondong Elementary, both schools are roughly the same size – 1,200 pupils and within five minutes walk from each other and our apartment. We need to be at school for 40 hours a week, or eight hours a day, so we spend a lot of time desk warming which I use for lesson planning, facebooking, learning Korean or updating our blog.

The school year is divided into two semesters, similar to how university operates in NZ. The first begins in early March and ends in mid-July; the second begins in late August and ends in mid-February. Elementary consists of  grades one to six (age 8 to age 13 in Korean years – 7 to 12 in Western years). We teach a mixture of 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes as well as a teacher’s class. Each class is 40 minutes long and most are taught from the prescribed textbook set by the South Korean government.

Education in South Korea is viewed as crucial for success and as such a heavy focus is placed on all aspects of the curriculum. Students begin to study English at school in 3rd grade, however it’s likely they may have already been studying it at a private school or Hagwon after school. Most of our school students are at school or studying for more than eleven hours a day.

A typical Korean child’s day might go something like this…
8:30am – 3pm Elementary School
4pm – 10pm Hagwon tuition including English, Music, Taekwondo and/or Korean
They experience this five or six days a week (they go to school on Saturdays, once every second week).

Despite this gruelling schedule our kids are still perky, friendly, happy children who greet us every morning at  the school gate with a smile, ‘Hi teacher’ or a high five. We LOVE them.

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