New England is cold, but Seoul is colder. I feel like I am living with the March of the Penguins. It's -14 C out right now. That's 7 degrees; the high today was 13. The side walks are not salted here, so you can imagine how many times I almost ate it to and from work today. Monday was Seoul's biggest snow storm in over 100 years. 25.2 centimeters of snow, the kids keep saying. So basically, like 10 inches. In MA, no problem. Here, mass chaos. There are no snow plows, which I guess makes sense since despite the frigidness, the city doesn't experience snow very often. But not being able to plow almost a foot of snow in a city of 11 million, basically caused the roads to shut down for 2 days. The kids couldn't come to school for a day and a half because the buses couldn't make it up the hill we are on. Which is funny because the kids were all on the bus and had to be brought home. Around 2 we got to go home as well, and don't have to make the day up because the school was technically open, just no kids, score!
Teaching is going really well. The kids are so freaking funny. They have questions about everything. "Alexandra Teacher! (that is what they call me) Do you live in Korea? Do you have a house? Do you have a phone? Do you eat kimchee? Are you married? Why do you have yellow hair? Do you a drive a car? Do you eat octopus? Do you play Nintendo Wii?" and on and on. And you never know what their answers could be. We talked about Abraham Lincoln today with my 1st graders. One girl says "Abraham Lincoln was shot with a gun for trying to help the black faced people." I said, uh ok. And all black people are Obama, of course.
My school is set up differently than a lot of other academies. The kids are pretty good in English, so we teach a curriculum that is identical to American schools, except with a lot more homework. I teach reading to preschoolers and an immersion class to kindergarteners, basically watch videos and test their comprehension. In the afternoon, I teach a variety of subjects to grades 1-5. Most of these kids have lived in the US before, or another English speaking country. I teach everything from grammar to debate. I had debate class tonight, the kids had to tell me how to teach it. It's crazy how honest they are compared to American kids. They will never lie about anything. They immediately fess up if they didn't do their homework or study for their lesson. They even remind me to check homework. Teaching 10 classes a day is definitely tiring. Luckily, some of them are repeats. Today I taught the same reading lesson to 3 preschool classes, they all hated it. "Alexandra Teacher! This story is boring! Nothing happens!" Even more boring when you have to listen to it 3 times in a row, kid.
On to weird food. I bought a package of cashews at the convenience store in the school building today. I ate one and thought, hmmm, tastes fishy. I open the bag, and there are little dried fish in there. Well, that would explain the taste. I should have taken a picture.
Teaching is going really well. The kids are so freaking funny. They have questions about everything. "Alexandra Teacher! (that is what they call me) Do you live in Korea? Do you have a house? Do you have a phone? Do you eat kimchee? Are you married? Why do you have yellow hair? Do you a drive a car? Do you eat octopus? Do you play Nintendo Wii?" and on and on. And you never know what their answers could be. We talked about Abraham Lincoln today with my 1st graders. One girl says "Abraham Lincoln was shot with a gun for trying to help the black faced people." I said, uh ok. And all black people are Obama, of course.
My school is set up differently than a lot of other academies. The kids are pretty good in English, so we teach a curriculum that is identical to American schools, except with a lot more homework. I teach reading to preschoolers and an immersion class to kindergarteners, basically watch videos and test their comprehension. In the afternoon, I teach a variety of subjects to grades 1-5. Most of these kids have lived in the US before, or another English speaking country. I teach everything from grammar to debate. I had debate class tonight, the kids had to tell me how to teach it. It's crazy how honest they are compared to American kids. They will never lie about anything. They immediately fess up if they didn't do their homework or study for their lesson. They even remind me to check homework. Teaching 10 classes a day is definitely tiring. Luckily, some of them are repeats. Today I taught the same reading lesson to 3 preschool classes, they all hated it. "Alexandra Teacher! This story is boring! Nothing happens!" Even more boring when you have to listen to it 3 times in a row, kid.
On to weird food. I bought a package of cashews at the convenience store in the school building today. I ate one and thought, hmmm, tastes fishy. I open the bag, and there are little dried fish in there. Well, that would explain the taste. I should have taken a picture.
O.M.G. You are teaching debate!
ReplyDeleteha! right?
ReplyDelete