It's been entirely too long since I last blogged. SOOO much has happened since then that it's hard to even remember or summarize. However, two main holidays have passed since then and it was my first time in my life not spending them at home with my family. I enjoyed spending it here for many reasons but, overall it made me realize and appreciate my family and how special it is to spend holidays with them back home.
Thanksgiving came and went faster than it took to even eat the turkey. My friends and I, about 7 of us got together and we actually ordered turkey delivery here in Korea. Believe it or not, on Thanksgiving we had a turkey delivered right to our front door. We made do with everything we had and all brought something to the table and set up our own little Korean Thanksgiving right on the floor and ate Korean style. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry and all the works. We each brought wine and dessert and ate ourselves into a food coma. The only difference was since it is not a Korean holiday so we had to work the day of and after Thanksgiving! I was able to skype with my family the morning of Thanksgiving before school and it truly made me so thankful I have them in my life for so many different reasons. Thousands of miles away I felt lucky.
The day of Thanksgiving I also had my open class at school. Open class is when about 3 teachers from other schools and one Korean teacher come and observe your class. They took notes on the way I taught and could also reccommend if I needed more training or not afterwards so it was a bit stressful to say the least. The open class was with my favorite class of all though so I wasn't too worried. It was my first grade boys who honestly amaze me everytime I teach them with how good their English is and how excited they seem to learn. I literally look forward to teaching them every week and hate to admit it but definitely spoil them and favor some of them in class with candy or praise. Haha, how can I not?! They are just so cute and try so hard I can't help it.
Anyways, I knew they were going to do awesome because they seem to have fun in class too. My co-teacher must have warned them because not only were they on their best behavior but they tried even harder than usual. I literally wanted to cry because they knew how importnt this was and did their best. The lesson I taught was on "dreams for the future" and "occupations." I went over all different kinds of occupations and jobs and had them listen and repeat the names of them. They all participated and spoke very good english. They also had to write a postcard to a friend telling them what they want to be in the future. This is when the fun started....
The jobs they came up with literally sent me and the observing teachers dying laughing. Some wanted to be a robot scientist, one student said he wanted to be in a gang, one boy came up with the word surgeon and I had never even taught it to him. They were so good!
The feedback from the observing teachers was good as well, but at that point I didn't even care. I just was so happy how well my students did and the feeling I get from that is one I can't explain. It really makes my job feel so worthwhile. It's a feeling I can never repay them for that I get every time one of my students in class surprises me with something in English or anything they do. In the end I really feel like they were the ones who taught me.
RSS Feed