10:00-- Hahahaha! Things in my first period class were not awful! They were, in fact, kinda nice!
I prayed and prayed on the walk to school that I would love the kids today and do what's best for them, and I still have bunches of them to teach, but I did the loving thing at least once today. My dad reminded me over the phone that my teaching is not about how cool/smooth/knowledgeable I look while doing it, but about serving the kids and putting them first. I realized that I was trying to be "Cool Foreign Teacher" yesterday. Today I am going for "I'm-Super-Disorganized-But-I-Really-Care-About-You" Teacher.
I got here early to prepare--my school computer won't print, so I have to wait for B-Teacher to get here because he lets me print off his computer. And I must have hand-outs, because the computers are a classroom variable that usually goes wonky. I just barely had time to print and make copies of a crossword I put together this morning, but I got it!
I got the keys to the English Room (a room used only for A-class students and for afterschool students), and sure enough, the computer was not working. I told KBR-Teacher and she said the repairman will be at school tomorrow.
So me and the boys of 2-7, 2-8 A-class just made nametags and did "Human Bingo" boards and wrote lists of our 10 favorite things. They were totally distracted and off-task, of course, but I really got the chance to show them that I cared about them by kneeling by each table to help them fill out their lists. After I sat with them and asked them questions, each team would usually keep writing on their own.
And I learned some cool things, like how one of the boys has been to Indonesia, one has been to Singapore, one wants to go to England to watch Manchester United play ball, and one kid (Taehoon) was smart enough to lie and say he had been to Jamaica.
I like Taehoon, because he is a spritely elf with a streak of brattiness. I can relate to this. He was in my afterschool class yesterday, the one where the kids did nothing at all, so I knew it would be hard to convince him to give a care in this class. But we had some good bits of conversation, even though I could tell he was trying not to smile, not to engage. I'm on your side, kiddo. I'm working to make this better.
There's another favorite kid in this class; Daehoon, who is an entirely different child than Peter-Pan-Taehoon. I met Daehoon at the Saturday English competition, where he was on a presentation team with another much-liked student, HH. I remembered Daehoon because of his connection with HH, but he's brilliant in his own right. He told me that he and his desk partner made up there own rules for bingo because, "You didn't say the rules." Oh, Daehoon, only you would want for-real rules and guidlelines in a class that has trouble writing single words. But I love you for your dedication to orderliness.
Daehoon is good enough at English to translate for his friend Jihyuk, and I like Jihyuk too--he's a darling kid, and very willing to learn. I think this is how I will learn many of the boys--by their association with someone I already know. I learned Jihyuk through Daehoon and Daehoon through HH. And HH's not in my afterschool class, but he's actually part of the reason I prepared wrongly for it--I assumed the afterschool kids' level was much higher than it is, because I spent Saturday morning talking to HH, who can write thoughtful essays about historical landmarks in English!
KBR-Teacher said she was proud of me in class. That meant a lot. She can tell I'm trying, that I want to do good things for the boys. Well, I'm off to figure out how to print off my zombie powerpoint for afterschool, since it won't project. Technical glitches abound, but we shall overcome!
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12:50: Second class went well, too! This was first grade (age 12), 2-5, 2-6 B-class and they were hyper and low-English, but I really felt like we connected. We only made nametags and did Bingo instead of trying to write "My Favorite Things," because I felt like that would be too much, plus the rules of Bingo are really unclear, mainly because I don't have rules. The first day, Have-You-Ever Bingo was supposed to be a mixer activity, where you go around the room and ask everyone questions, but that bombed because the boys are very clique-y. Some of them simply won't approach others of them. Getting everyone in a single class mingling and chatting is a non-starter, so I made it a partner activity.
As a result, nobody really knows how to play Bingo, and nobody wins, but I do get to walk around to every kid and ask them questions. THIS is successful. I ask them if they've ever broken a bone or ever been to another country, and we make jokes. I take their pencil and I write down the answers myself--commandeering their property for a short time seems to register with them as a gesture of affection. If they say they've never played League of Legends (a super-popular online game in Korea), I tell them they are lying, and then they laugh until they hurt.
I learned four names for B-class 1-5, 1-6: Munsu is sunshiny and has a bandage on his knee from a bike wreck, Hyunshik is fun but throws his shoes at people, Jinho has high-level English and will follow me around the room, translating my sentences for his friends but he won't speak much to me, and Jeongmin wrestles and hits people, but he glows like a lantern when given attention. (I am also discovering that "Jeongmin" is for Korea what "Justin"is for America--there are a lot of them. There's a brainy Jeongmin in my afterschool, one bombastic teacher's-pet Jeongmin in 3-5, 3-6B,and one fighty Jeongmin in 1-5, 1-6B, and that's just the ones I remember).
Munsu says that Hyunshik's nickname is Pig, and the boys laughed when I knew the Korean word for pig. Munsu's nickname is Octopus, and Jinho's is Puppy. One other boy asked to put on my softball glove, which I brought into class, and he told me in English that he belonged to a junior baseball club. I foresee playing baseball with some students in the future.
This class was a lesson to me: The lesson plan can fall to a thousand splintered bits and nothing can go as it "should," but if you take an interest in the students and meet them one on one, you will gain allies and get them to use English at the same time.
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2:30 For 2-5, 2-6 B, the only names I learned were Hyunwoo (quiet, artsy, polite),and Jeongho (tiny, but but brave...may or may not have been the kid who wrecked on his bike 2 days ago.) They were a good class. We had a great time with our one-on-one help. One kid mocked the way I laugh, and I gave him the side-eye, whereupon he gave an angelic smile back. I don't think he's mean--just needs attention and wants to prove he's cool.
Okay, so I forgot to mention a fourth Jeongmin--a cutie pie who I met at the Saturday English competition. He made me laugh during his presentation because he said that a certain roller coaster ride was not fun "due to motion sickness". He came by my office to say, "I remember you...Leigh" and to say that he looked forward to when I get to judge his Saturday competitions. I like Saturday-Jeongmin.
JY-Teacher was with me in 2-5, 2-6 B, and she's awesome. The kids like her, I like her...she has a 100% approval rating.
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6:00 THIS DAY WAS AWESOME, THEREFORE I WILL ABUSE THE CAPSLOCK BUTTON. Oh, my. Oh...I just barely have words. Yesterday was such a disaster, but today was a joy. My afterschool was grrrrreat. Last night, I scoured the foreign-teacher forums online, desperate for anything to interest these poor boys who I had given to do nothing yesterday.
What I found was a glorious lesson on zombies. Some teacher had painstakingly made a Powerpoint video, complete with text, effects, pictures, and creepy music, talking about the zombie apocalypse coming to Korea.
Zombies have overrun Seoul and Busan, and now they are coming for you. There are no trains. The roads are dangerous. Jeju Island is the only safe place. You have one small boat. You run to your boat, and 10 people are waiting for you. You can only take 4. Some of them could help you, some of them could hurt you. Who do you choose?
And once you choose your team from the list of characters, I tell you how many extra days of life you get, according to who you chose. Team with the most points wins. I added onto the lesson by saying that you get a bonus 5 days of life if you write me one sentence saying why I should choose you to come with me on the boat during the zombie apocalypse.
I planned for this all day. I typed out the Powerpoint story and taped it to the markerboard, because the computer and projector in the English room weren't working. When the boys walked in, I said nothing, but wrote the word "Zombies" in huge letters in red marker on the board. I turned down the lights and played the powerpoint video for the boys on my laptop, holding it up high and narrating. They were transfixed. Except for 3 in the back, all of my afterschool boys were hardcore invested in the outcome of this zombie story, and would shout "scary scary!" when I got to an especially creepy part. Then I went around from table to table as they played the game, talking with them and writing their ideas and spending time. I felt like I made friends with almost all the boys today.
The only boy who really doesn't seem to gel with me yet is Sanghwa. I don't know what to think of Sanghwa--he's a bit of a Cloud Cuckoolander, and I can't tell when he's serious or joking. When I told the boys to put their phones up, everyone but Sanghwa complied. I reminded him again, then the third time I saw him using his phone, I went over to get it. He planted the phone under himself and smirked, like "Yeah, I know you're not going to reach for this, so what are you going to do?" I grabbed his ankles with one hand, lifted him out of his seat, then got the phone when it fell. I didn't hurt him--I just got his phone. (And lest you think that lifting him up is an extreme action...my school is very corporal in its punishment, and most teachers carry wooden sticks.) And I let him have it back after another 10 minutes, because the child loves his phone games and not much else.
When I came around to Sanghwa's table at different times during class, he was glad to sit with me and talk to me about the zombies, so I assume there's no bad blood between us. I think I'm going to let him keep his phone from here on out, and just do cool things near him, see if any of it tempts him to leave his cyberworld. And if not, that's fine. I think I might catch this fly with honey, not vinegar, but in any case, I want to appreciate his presence.
Seongmo in afterschool is a genius, but that's to be expected since he's best friends with Byeonghyun the letter-writer. I asked the students for one sentence about why I should choose them for the boat, and Seongmo wrote 3 sentences. It won the game for his team.
A boy in the back, Hoon, was more invested today. The first awful day, he seemed really resentful of me, but today he was producing language on his own, asking me about the movie I promised to show them. One thing I've learned is that questions are pretty much the best possible thing your students can be producing. If they are generating English on their own, trying to engage with words, it's glorious. And I got a lot of questions today.
Seongyeol thinks I like violent things too much. :-) I made some joke about death, and he said "Teacher! That is very...! It is funny words, but bad!" He also said that his friend Myeongjong has "brain like chicken". Myeongjong told me in Korean that his mind had exploded and he could not use English today. Taehoon the Peter-Pan sat in the back, all unimpressed, but his eyes lit up when I came back to engage him in the game. He wants to play, but he doesn't want to be seen wanting to play. It's is the cool kid's eternal dilemma.
So I loved my afterschool class! I guess partly because I felt like a cool teacher again, like someone who was succeeding, but I hope I was enjoying it less for the personal/professional gratification and more for the students' enjoyment.
They were happy. I knew their names, I talked with them, and we survived an apocalypse together. Maybe every class from here on out will bomb, but I had one beautiful day, and I thank God for that.
