I will always count myself fortunate for the students I have here. Some of the other English teachers I know are starting to experience behavior problems- the shiny new foreigner isn't that shiny now, or the behaviors are popping up for various reasons. Behavior management here is definitely different than what American schools are shifting to. Where I learned in the states to "manage" and "redirect" in positive ways, fellow English teachers have already seen the crap get beaten out of some of their students.
My school hallway. To the right is the teachers' room. Way down to the right takes to to staircases to classrooms, and also out a door to a walkway that connects to the second building, where the English classroom is.
I'm incredibly and infinitely thankful that it seems that the kids at my school don't exhibit these -or any- behavior problems. To boast, my students are sweet, if painfully timid sometimes- but I'm trying to string some kind of connection between our language barriers to make them less wary. I'm glad that the Korean word here and there excites them. (but how long will that last?) They've also been very generous- the random little gifts here and there stay with me. They'll be good memories to put in my box of "warm fuzzies" as a psych professor called it. Like today, 2 girls came in with grapes (concord grapes which I feel are too much work to bother eating, but so delicious!) to share with everyone.
Today's flare up of anger and frustration: I was adapting the material from those books I was given for teacher training when I was told to just start from the beginning and type out each chapter for the teachers who have visual impairments. I had skipped the first few chapters because they were basic, and I felt that everyone who's coming already has this knowledge. But "Koreans like to go straight through books." I was feeling "come on. Trust me. I know what I'm doing. I have your best interests in mind- seriously!", but moving forward I'm just going to do what I'm asked to do.
As for the 2 classes I'm now leading, the older group is much lower than the other one. Monday I used the same topic in both classes: music. For the more advanced class I moved on to talking about likes and dislikes, and the other one I stepped backwards and showed them different ways to say hi, bye, and how to ask how others' day, week, and weekend was. I need to learn how to say "easy" in Korean.
The more advanced class actually has a gaping rift between ability levels. The girls pretty much show up the boys every time. So since I can't rely on any visuals (vision impairments, you see), I'm using a lot of "repeat after me", and "what's ---- in Korean?". But you know, this is all good practice for them anyway.
I've got to stop posting twice a day.
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