Monday, March 28 - Friday, April 1, 2011
Another busy week (I think I'm noticing a theme here...), but by the time Friday rolls around, it always feels like the week has flown by. Things were extra hectic because it was the end of the month, meaning there were tests to give and correct, report cards/evaluations to write and send out, and some prep to do for next month. On Monday, I walked home by myself for the first time and cooked our first dinner...spaghetti! Back home, I'd whip up my own sauce, but my spice cupboard here is seriously lacking (actually, it's pretty much non-existent; it consists of a salt shaker that was left by the teacher who lived in this apartment before us). So, I opted for a jar of sauce from Lotte-Mart, and let's just say that the Korean version of spaghetti sauce is quite different from back home, and my pallet did not appreciate said difference.
We really started getting ready for our "Market Play" day at school. Essentially, the kids (and their parents) will rotate between different classrooms where they'll learn about going to the bank, grocery store, restaurant, etc. After a short Powerpoint presentation containing some vocab and some Q&A, the kids will showcase their English speaking skills via a one-on-one scripted "talk" they'll go through with a teacher, where the student will pretend to be a customer at the bank or grocery store or wherever. Oh, I forgot to mention that aside from learning the scripts, the kids have to do a song/chant, complete with actions, for each room (of which there are four). It's quite a bit for the kids to learn and remember, especially the younger kindies who have trouble asking me for an eraser, let alone if they can withdraw money from an ATM machine. Anyway, the kids are doing pretty well with the chants. Below you'll find some videos of my Beethoven class practicing their chants. NB: they're still a work in progress...
"Shopping Chant"
(I have nooo idea what possessed them to all fall down at the end; it's definitely not part of the chant lol)
"Food Chant"
"Bank Chant"
My Washington class had all three chants and most of the scripts memorized after only two days of practicing (watch out world, these little geniuses are going to be taking over one day!). They got to make pan flutes during this week's Science lesson and it made me think of Jenn, Emily and Sandra (Oh, how I miss you girls!) =( Actually, there was a whole lot of missing going on this week; I taught one of my elementary classes more about Amazing Animals, and one of the eight animals they got to learn about was a dolphin (not of the pacific-white-sided variety, but amazing none-the-less)! I made sure to bring in some photos of the Aquarium, and JEEPERS it made me miss being there sooooo freakin' much...ugh! I got all nostalgic again later during the week when we went downtown for some ice cream. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and we got a-talking about summer, and someone told a funny story about tan-lines, and I noticed I still had my Keen tan. Then I got thinking about how I wouldn't be getting one this summer, and it made me sad. Yep, NOT having a ridiculous looking, stripy-pattern on my feet made me sad. Siiiiigggghhh...
In other news, we officially became aliens on Wednesday! Turns out we didn't have any infectious diseases after all, so we got our passports back, picked up some cell phones and can be fully reconnected to the world once we get the internet hooked up! Hooraaaay! We celebrated by going for dak galbi on Friday (this may very well become a weekly tradition) and then went out with the gang for some much needed, and deserved (if I do say so myself...), beers.
Student Quotes of the Week
"My favourite food is iguana."
-Andrew (Washington Class)
Now, if one of my Beethoven kids had said this, I would've laughed and dismissed it as them simply practicing their English because they learned the letter "i" in their phonics lesson, and that "iguana starts with the letter i". Since Andrew is a fluent English speaker however, and this IS Korea, he could've honestly been telling me what his favourite meal is.
"I need to do my stork."
-One of my elementary students' answers to a fill in the blank question on the phonics portion of their test (Words with "or")
Options were "chores, stork or fork"...they clearly didn't know that "chores" is a type of work, and "stork" is a type of bird...Not to worry, I did a vocabulary review with them after, so they're good to go now. =)
0 comments:
Post a Comment