English Village

Saturday Hanna and I took 26 of the students on a field trip. Now, this was the 1st field trip I would be going on, and I must admit I was a little worried about how the kids would behave. We had a 2 hour bus ride to the English Village, the bus driver put on a movie so the ride went pretty quick. We only had one student get car, well "bus" sick. During the ride I kept worrying about if the kids were going to show out!

We get to the English Village and the students are in 2 lines, I looked down the line and counted heads before we went to the "airport". That is when it hit me, I am the adult here, I am responsible for these little 26 lives for the day. I see my students everyday but I have never taken them outside of the school before. The kids then got their passports, and could now proceed to the "immigration" line at the airport, and then they started showing their little a$%es! There are about 50 other kids in the other 4 lines and I look over and 2 of my students Tom and Brian were running around flipping the bird! I was so mad! I pulled them aside and had to give the "please do NOT test me in public speech", after that the kids were pretty good.

We then separated into 2 groups, I lucked out because I had only 6 kids in my group and Hanna had 20 in hers lol. We went to a class called "World Discovery" and the kids learned about adaptation. I was so proud my kids were answering a lot of questions and really doing well in the game. Now, I know I should teach the kids good sportsmanship and such, but we were giving high fives, doing dances and all! I think I one point I said " YEAH, that's right Jangdang! GET SOME!" LOL. My kids won the game and got candy so they were really happy.

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MudFest!

Played for Pizza

The school year is coming to an end soon and after school classes are ending early. The students came rushing in my class and Judy one of my 4th graders (who speaks really good English) says "Teacher, today is our last day of class" I really was unsure, part of teaching in Korea, there is a huge lack of communication or you are informed at the very last minute. I called the head English teacher to find out, I called her 3 times but she did not pick up. I started to feel really bad that it was our last meeting and I did not have anything special planned. So I rushed and called and ordered pizza and coke for the kids and had it delivered to the school. We joked around and just ate pizza and had a really fun day. After class Hanna calls me back and says "Oh the children told you a lies" I wanted to say first of all its told a lie not lies and second why didn't you tell me this ummmmmm 2 and a half hours ago when I called you! I can't believe those little ninjas! They gamed me up with goodbye letters and messages on the chalk board and all. So yes I got played for pizza!
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English Speaking Contest

So after returning from orientation I was informed that I had to be one of the judges of the English speaking contest. Now this sounds all fun and dandy BUT it was 3 hours long! The students ranged from 1st grade to 6th grade. I felt bad for some of the kids because their parents were there and they wanted their babies to be the BEST! Ok, I am talking costume changes, music accompaniment, gifts for the judges and cheering sections. Korean parents do not play when it comes to their children in a contest. Which resulted in some of the kids running off stage crying, parents requesting the children be allowed to perform again because they were unhappy with what they did and all other types of foolishness.

Some of the children did REALLY well, and others...well they looked so cute! To be honest, some of them were rather painful to watch and listen to but, I clapped and put on my happy face. Sujin (my co teacher) said "I can not understand their English" I said "Me either" and we both cracked up. We were all thrilled when it was over, to say the least.
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Orientation

Ok, so first and foremost I want to apologize because I have defiantly been slacking on the blogging tip. Sadly my life has been rather uneventful these days lol. Just living for the weekends mostly, but over all, all is good. So after teaching here for four months I was sent to teachers orientation, which seemed a little backwards to me since I have already been working for a while, but hey it was 4 days away from school lol.

I must admit it was really strange seeing 270 foreigners all in the same space but it was comforting also. On my way while riding the subway I met some really cool people from South Africa that were headed to the training also. We ended up being in the same group for the training. One really cool aspect of training was they broke us up into groups based on our location, so everyone in your group live near each other.

My freshman year "My 1st dorm" feelings were returned because we had assigned rooms with assigned roommates that we did not know. All I kept saying was I hope she does not smell bad, and I hope she is not a thief. I really did not want to bring the "Pittsburgher" to Korea but.... lol. I arrived to a bit early so I got to the room first, YAY first pickings of beds and such. I got to my room and picked out a bed and did a little bit of video chatting , placed my stuff on my bed and then went to the 1st session.

After the 1st session we had a bit of extra time so I went back to my room in hopes of meeting my roomie for 4 days. She was not in the room however her stuff was in the room, and not only in the room but on MY bed. YES, you read correctly, she moved my stuff from my bed to the other bed. Now the other bed was cool BUT less appealing, it was not by the window where you could get the cool night breeze if needed, lacked the great view of the tv AND was not near the bathroom, perfect for the middle of the night have to go moments. I was a little bit hot, I can not lie, she came to the room about 10 minutes later and apologized and offered me the bed back. She ended up being a really sweet girl and we got along great for the 4 days we were there.

Over all orientation was helpful the sessions were a bit too long at times but over all pretty good. It would have been even better if I had training when I 1st got here but hey what can you do? They had sessions about conflict resolution as far as your school in concerned, Korea survival class, lesson planning and a history Korean education lesson. I did get a lot of cool ideas for class and how to keep the attention of the students so that was defiantly helpful.
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I want to learn how to fry chicken :)

Sujin (my co teacher) asked me to make her some "American" food, I asked her what she wanted and she said "I want fried chicken". So we went to E mart and got the everything we needed for dinner. I made fried chicken, mashed sweet potatoes, and corn. Sujin said she really liked it and asked me to teach her how to cook fried chicken lol. Here are the pictures!

Jandang School Olympics

May 1st was a day that most elementary public schools here in South Korea held a sports day. This was a day at Jangdang Elementary school where the whole school is divided into 2 teams the white team and the blue team and they compete in a number of games and races all day. The 1st half of the day the children from kindergarten to 3rd grade competed, they were so cute and so serious! The parents are just as excited as the students! There was parent competition also, the parents split up into two teams, one team representing the white team the other team representing the blue team, and they ran races and played tug of war. The sports day got really real really fast lol. The parents were yelling at each other and all, it was too funny.

The second half of the day had the 4th grade to 6th grade students competing. I thought I was in store for another parent face off because I rather enjoyed the 1st one I saw but oh, I was in store for a rude awaking. It was time for the TEACHERS to face off! All the other teachers knew of this as they came dressed in there jogging suites and sweats ready to go, they were warming up well before I even knew what was going on. I had on jeans, sneakers, a scarf and a jacket, I was not dresses to be doing anything physical. Now, yes I did have on sneakers, but they were look cute not really running sneakers! We were divided into 2 teams with about 15 teachers per team , with the men on one side of the track and the women on the other side. We were running a 400 meter relay race, and my co workers were SO serious! So of course when it was time for me to run my leg of the race we where losing, when I finally got the baton my co worker was a good 8 seconds in front of me. I remember thinking "Lord please just don't let me get embarrassed out her in front of all my students" well the Lord was listening because my co worker was SUPER slow, I passed her. My students were so excited, one of my 5th grade kids said "Tasha! You are the fastest runner in the world" I was cracking up, like noooo I am not fast she was just really slow, but I cant lie I did feel special lol.
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