So I am teaching English at a co-ed high school in Ulsan. High school kids are definitely not my favorite. I love little ones and studied to be a primary/elementary school teacher. These teenagers are definitely not my forte. I feel like we are too similar in age. But I have decided to make the most of it.
I teach 22 classes a week, 19 of which are normal classes. Some are all girls classes and others are all boys classes, only one class is co-ed.
When I started teaching many of the students were very amused by me being a foreigner and they were enthusiastic about classes and learning English. Many of my co-teachers say that the students who shine in my classes are the ones who are problems in their classes, I guess that just goes to show that not all students fit into the perfect mold they are trying so hard to shove them all into. All teachers have the exact same teaching methodology and expect all students to learn in the same way. Even in art classes, if the students are asked to draw a picture of a tiger, and they are creative and draw ones that are slightly different from the norm they are told that their picture is wrong, that isn't what a tiger looks like.
I'm getting carried away, off topic. So right from the beginning I had my favorite classes, and they were always the ones with the naughty students in. Normally the boys classes. I loved that they were making fun of each other(no one gets offended, its only a joke) in ridiculously bad English. I honestly don't care if you are talking during group work in my classes as long as it is in English.
I have had a second grade boy student tell me a story about his friends dad being a multi-millionaire Arab man who married a Korean woman, and they had a son, who came to live in Korea with his mom when his father was working on the oil ships. The story got unbelievable at one point and I knew he was lying and making fun of his friend for having a suntan. But both boys thought it was funny and it got them both speaking English. I loved it.
I have a girl in one of my first grade classes that tries to teach me a new Korean word every class. She is always so impressed when I remember her word and even more impressed when I remember her name. She is so enthusiastic. Her English isn't wonderful but she is always willing to try, always volunteering to go first or do something in the classroom. She is definitely one of my students who is improving the most.
As well as my 19 normal classes a week, I also have one teachers class every Monday morning, 5 or 6 teachers come to my classroom and sometimes I will have prepared a specific lesson and other times we will just chat. At the moment, we are swapping recipes and they are teaching me a Korean card game. Initially I hated having to teach them but since I have relaxed and let the class go more into conversations between equals than having a teacher-student relationship with them it has become really enjoyable for me as well as for them.
Other then that I take an essay club class once a week for two periods. I enjoy these students and I can really see the improvement in the English abilities in them. Their writing has improved tremendously since we started in March. Normally it takes them two weeks to write an essay, they take the steps in the essay writing process very seriously and obviously they enjoy having a chat with their friends every now and then. The essay topics are normally things they are interested in.
The weeks move past with much of the sameness, but occasionally there will be a class that I thoroughly enjoy or a student who just makes my day.
I teach 22 classes a week, 19 of which are normal classes. Some are all girls classes and others are all boys classes, only one class is co-ed.
When I started teaching many of the students were very amused by me being a foreigner and they were enthusiastic about classes and learning English. Many of my co-teachers say that the students who shine in my classes are the ones who are problems in their classes, I guess that just goes to show that not all students fit into the perfect mold they are trying so hard to shove them all into. All teachers have the exact same teaching methodology and expect all students to learn in the same way. Even in art classes, if the students are asked to draw a picture of a tiger, and they are creative and draw ones that are slightly different from the norm they are told that their picture is wrong, that isn't what a tiger looks like.
I'm getting carried away, off topic. So right from the beginning I had my favorite classes, and they were always the ones with the naughty students in. Normally the boys classes. I loved that they were making fun of each other(no one gets offended, its only a joke) in ridiculously bad English. I honestly don't care if you are talking during group work in my classes as long as it is in English.
I have had a second grade boy student tell me a story about his friends dad being a multi-millionaire Arab man who married a Korean woman, and they had a son, who came to live in Korea with his mom when his father was working on the oil ships. The story got unbelievable at one point and I knew he was lying and making fun of his friend for having a suntan. But both boys thought it was funny and it got them both speaking English. I loved it.
I have a girl in one of my first grade classes that tries to teach me a new Korean word every class. She is always so impressed when I remember her word and even more impressed when I remember her name. She is so enthusiastic. Her English isn't wonderful but she is always willing to try, always volunteering to go first or do something in the classroom. She is definitely one of my students who is improving the most.
As well as my 19 normal classes a week, I also have one teachers class every Monday morning, 5 or 6 teachers come to my classroom and sometimes I will have prepared a specific lesson and other times we will just chat. At the moment, we are swapping recipes and they are teaching me a Korean card game. Initially I hated having to teach them but since I have relaxed and let the class go more into conversations between equals than having a teacher-student relationship with them it has become really enjoyable for me as well as for them.
Other then that I take an essay club class once a week for two periods. I enjoy these students and I can really see the improvement in the English abilities in them. Their writing has improved tremendously since we started in March. Normally it takes them two weeks to write an essay, they take the steps in the essay writing process very seriously and obviously they enjoy having a chat with their friends every now and then. The essay topics are normally things they are interested in.
The weeks move past with much of the sameness, but occasionally there will be a class that I thoroughly enjoy or a student who just makes my day.
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