Teacher! Your fur!

Anyeong! Cindy here.

Well I thought I should maybe write a blog about teaching in Korea, afterall it is what we came here to do! Although, so far only one of us can do it!

I work at a hagwan, which is an after school academy for learning English. Since my hours are from 4-10pm, you can imagine that some of these kids have been at school since 8am and that presents some new challenges on top of the regular challenges of teaching. Working 4-10 took some adjusting for me! During the first week, I wondered if I would ever stop falling asleep at 9:00! But now I am adjusted and really enjoy having the days to myself and working the evenings.

My first couple of weeks have been full of learning (FOR ME) and getting to know the kids. I was surprised to find that children here have to pick an English name. Since I cannot remember their Korean names, and when I try to pronounce them it results in a lot of pointing and humiliation for the child whose name I am attempting to say, picking an English name just may be a good idea. However, the students are allowed to pick their own name....and it can be anything. Some pick normal English names. However, I have taught a Marvelous, Mr.Wonderful, Duck, Goose, and today I have my favourite.......Doughnut. Doughnut is a small grade 4 who has braces. He is adorable. Since the class is over full, he shares a desk with me. Last week was my first week with him. As I sat at "our" desk, he smiled a big metal smile and said in a litte squeeky voice "Hello, my name is Doughnut." My heart melted.

The weirdest things have caused problems in my classroom. MANY times the children have errupted into laughter as I say an English word that somehow resembles a bad word in Korean. While reading with some grade 5s, I stopped to explain what the word "shiver" means. Well, apparently in Korean it is equivalant to the f-word, and this caused extreme chaos and children falling off their chairs.

Last week, I was helping a grade 6 correct her writing mistakes. As I pointed to a spelling error on her page, she yelled "Teacher! Your fur!". I looked at her with a blank stare. Huh? "Your fur!" she continued "Why is it so white?" She then rubbed the hair on her arm and said "Black". This lead to me having to explain to the whole grade six class that some people have body hair that is a colour other than black, and usually it matches their hair. HAIR. NOT FUR.

Yesterday I had my most energetic class. Some classes have no energy at all. Some have too much. This class has way way too much. They are grade fives, and I really love teaching them. I was asked by the head teacher to keep an eye on one particular boy, Tom, who seems to be struggling with English and may need to be moved to an easier class. The class went as it usually does. Lots of shouting out answers, rolling of wheely chairs, playfully teasing each other, making fun of the teacher. I called on Tom as much as possible, to try to assess his understanding of English. When I asked him how his weekend was, he explained with a HUGE grin that he had a good weekend because he got a errrrrrrr.....ummmmmmmm.......hamster! A big deal for Tom. We all asked him questions about his new furry friend, and then we moved onto our reading assignment. It took my best teaching skills to get the class to remain still and quiet so that we could read. I picked Tom to give it a go. As he was stumbling through his second sentence, a boy at the back of the room jumped out of his chair and began yelling something in Korean. I started to tell him to sit down, but was overpowered by three other boy at the back who also jumped up and started screaming something in Korean. They were all pointing at the fire extinguisher which is on the floor in the corner of the room. I was at the front......saying "what? WHAT?". The girls then jumped up and screamed. They were not saying anything in Korean, just screaming. Finally I heard one student say "A mouse-uh, a mouse-uh!". Tom calmly put down his book and walked to the back. He moved the fire extinguisher and pulled out a small box from behind it. The box had a hole chewed in the side. He then picked up his jailbird hamster and plopped it back in the box. After a conversation about not bringing your pets to English school, we then used my stickers to patch up the hole. This did not work very well. The hamster escaped again a half hour later. Tom spent the entire class watching the hamster box to make sure the cute little guy stayed in there, and I had to explain to the head teacher why I had not had a chance to assess Tom's English skills.

I wonder what will happen today.