English Festival

So the last week in April and the 1st few days of May have proved to be rather exciting at Jangdang Elementary School. It all started when Hanna asked me to host an English festival because a lot of the parents were upset that their children were not being taught by the "native" English teacher. Now, please keep in mind that I teach mostly 5th and 6th grade students. I have six 5th grade classes which have 25 students in each class and I teach six 6th grade classes that have the same amount of children in those classes. You do not have to be a math wiz to figure out that I see about 300 kids a week a there are 1500 children that attend Jangdang Elementary School. Silly me what was I thinking? I actually thought I was teaching a lot of students, the parents would say other wise I guess lol.

Some may ask, what exactly does an English festival consist of well apparently, it has games, songs, candy and 75 CHILDREN at once in class that is meant to hold 50 people max! Over all the English festival was a success, the parents were happy and children were thrilled. I started the festival out by teaching the children the song, "The Wheels on the Bus". Next we played a game called the "Golden Bell Game" where each child got a dry erase board, dry erase marker and an eraser. The students were asked question via a PowerPoint presentation and had to put the correct answer on the board, those with the incorrect answer where "out" of the game. Korean children are EXTREMELY competitive and do not, and I repeat DO NOT like to lose. Kids were crying and acting a fool because the winners got gift cards. After the game we made fake Easter eggs, the original plan was to have the children decorate Easter eggs, but one of the parents said that the dye would get into the egg because the shell of an egg is living and would poison the children! I did not have the patience to explain that the children would be fine so we just decorated paper eggs and gave the kids hard-boiled non decorated eggs. We decorated the eggs with sentences about Easter and spring in order to integrate writing into the festival. After the festival I was exhausted but over all it was a huge success! My bosses and more importantly the parents where impressed.
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