Monday, April 4 - Friday, April 8, 2011
After making it through our first "end of the month crunch" unscathed, if maybe a little worse for wear, I was finally able to get things done early! (I know what you're thinking: Sarah, getting things done EARLY!?!?!) But that's just the nature of the job, I guess, so yay me. And a good thing too, because I finally had to give my body a break and take a sick day on Tuesday. I felt really guilty because it means all the other teachers have to cover your classes instead of having a free period, but my throat, lungs and congested nasal cavities and head just couldn't be put on the back-burner any longer. Mike and I are just soooo sick and tired of being sick and tired! Anytime you start feeling the slightest bit better, you're full-blown sick again. Nyaaarrr! We're not too worried though; it's to be expected when you come to a foreign country (especially going from one of the cleanest cities in the world to, well, any city in Korea, really). Plus we got all the important shots before we left. And a lollipop for not crying =)
Nothing too exciting to report on the work front. Unless of course you count when my Washington Class broke out into song during the middle of a lesson on Wednesday. They were learning about how to talk about the weather ("It's cloudy! It's snowy! It's foggy!) and different ways to describe temperature ("It's mild! It's cool!), etc. I was showing them a flashcard for "rainy" and asked them to tell me what they saw in the picture. "Clouds!" shouted one of my students. "Raindrops!" shouted another. And then, as if on cue, they all started up a chorus of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head"! I felt like I should maybe try to get them to refocus on the lesson, but it was just so random and surreal that I just pulled out my chair, sat back and enjoyed the show. They were just singing away, beaming at me, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. After they got through the entire song, I laughed and clapped and then continued on with the lesson. I'm not sure why, but one of their previous teachers must have taught them the song. Regardless of how or why they learned it, it was amazing! So amazing in fact, that while they were doing Art the next day, I asked them to sing me the song again, and I took a video, which I encourage you to check out below. =)
My Beethoven Class cry total reached an all time high of 7 students on Thursday, and there could have been some repeat offenders in there, but honestly, I lost count by midday. So yep, 7 students had a little crying fit today. That's more than 50% of my class. In fact, that's about 65% of my class. Wow. That's all I have to say about that. Oh, and that nothing incredibly bad happened (they were just extremely whiny) and they were all fine and even happy by the time they got on the bus to go home, so yay for that.
On Friday, my supervisor observed one of my elementary classes (standard new teacher procedure), the students of which range in age from 9-11 years old. Today's lesson was "At the Food Court" where the kids would learn about different types of restaurants and how to order food and what not. Before starting, I was introducing the lesson's vocabulary words, which included things like "spaghetti", "hamburger" and "taco". To go along with the pictures I drew on the board, I offered explanations for the new words (usually there's a Korean equivalent for a word, and when I'm 3/4 of the way done drawing a picture of the word or acting it out, I get a collective "Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh" and some head nods from the students, which lets me know they understand/have stumbled upon the Korean equivalent...but I'm pretty sure there isn't one for "taco"). Anyway, some of the students who had previously eaten tacos were trying to describe them (in English) to the other students. Apparently one of the kids wasn't a fan, because she said "It taste like crap". I wasn't quite sure if I heard her correctly, but with the supervisor being there and all, I figured I should probably sort it out, just in case. So I asked her what she said, and one of the other student's piped up veeeeery loudly with "Teachaaa...what is crap?". I thought "Oh, crap", stared at the kid and blinked a couple of times, while my supervisor hid his face behind his clipboard. I wasn't really sure how to proceed, until I saw my supervisor's shoulders shaking with laughter, so I just said it's not a very nice word, and that we don't say it, and moved on to spaghetti. It was pretty hilarious, even though I was kinda embarrassed and not sure how to handle the situation with my supervisor being there and all, but he gets a kick out of telling the story to new teachers, and so do I, so it's all good.
Konglish of the Day
I feel like I haven't posted any Konglish in a while, so here you go. This is actually my favourite so far:
"Best friend. Love is thing which is pleased at subject that is not good receiving."
I found this at Daiso (dollar store). It was printed on a little memo/note pad with cartoon cat people on it (naturally). I didn't even know where to BEGIN interpreting it, so I gave the cashier a chunner (= one dollar) and brought it home.
0 comments:
Post a Comment