Saturday English Competition 8-31-13

5 PM: Went to school to practice my PowerPoint stuff and get a feel for the rooms I'll be teaching in. It was a good thing I went, too, because a lot of little elements of the room run differently than I thought they would.

For example; the students mostly stay in their homerooms and the subject teachers come in to see them. I think this may be more American elementary school-style, but in American high school, you're usually moving around from room to room, mixing with a different group of students each time. In Korea, you and your 25 or 30 classmates are together most of the day, which sets up a somewhat different class dynamic.

The lights and fans in the homerooms are also controlled by switches outside the classroom, so if I want the air turned on, I'll need to reach outside the door. And sometimes the PowerPoint doesn't work in the rooms, so I'll have to have constant back-up plans.

But being at the competition today was grand. Some of our boys were working in the computer room, and so were some girls from a nearby middle school. I sat in the back and worked on my lesson plans, just so I could get a feel for what Saturday competitions are like, since I'll be judging about one per month. The kids sat at computers and worked on essays and Powerpoint slides, and they also worked on poems which will be judged later.

One of my boys was really brave and walked all the way to the back of the computer room to ask me to edit his poem and his essay. He's the kid who noticed yesterday that I could understand some Korean, and his name is HH. His English is really good, and his poem was not far from being native-speaker quality--pretty impressive for a student working in his second language. I thought he might have lived in the States, like Byungyoon, but he said he hadn't.

And I met a beautiful first-grade boy named Deukhee. A teacher had him carry me a sandwich and a dixie cup with a banana milkshake in it, for lunch. I swear, the first-graders are made of stardust and unicorn tears--these children are too adorable.

Byunghyun the nice letter-writer was there today, but he was helping the other kids, not competing.

One girl named Yejin also had me help with her poem, and I loved it because she was rhyming in English. In an AAB, CCB, DDB rhyme scheme, no less. After the presentations, I left the school and one of the girls, Haneul, met me outside to say hi. I told her that I liked her presentation, and we exchanged a few sentences, enough to tell that we really get along. She said she'd see me at the competition next month, and she squeezed my hand. So sweet! In Korea, girls hold hands with their friends and even their teachers a lot, so I felt like Haneul was adopting me.

I have my 1st-grade lesson plan set, but still have to iron out the 2nd-graders' plan, and one activity for the 3rd-graders, and a theme for my 2 hours of afterschool class. ARGGHH. I've bought a week's supply of fruit and Coke Zero, so I'm staying in tonight and planning like the madness.