2:30 PM Saturday class was great! I was covering for another teacher so I wasn't even supposed to teach today, but it was loooovely.
Last month I was kind of awful. I had a movie for the kids but it was too linguistically complex and too devoid of action. Teaching the 1st-graders was an exercise in boredom and teaching the 2nd-graders was better, but only because the class consisted of 3 girls with high-level English and 4 of my favorite boys.
Last night, I went to Homeplus for supplies. I got plain cookies, chocolate spread, chocolate chips, jellybeans, 4 packs of rainbow sprinkles, pecans, raisins, and chocolate drawing pens. I was going to be ready.
So today I had the 1st graders for two class periods, then the 2nd graders for two class periods. I repeated the same lesson, which was not really a lesson--we divided into teams and played Scattergories, then played Guess The Compound Word, followed by and Rorshach Test, where the kids made lists of what they thought a certain picture looked like, getting points for unique answers.
For the 1st-grade class, it worked really well. They were all up in it, earning points and shouting answers. The group of 4 too-cool-for-school boys were terribly interested in getting the right answers, and they actually won and got the right to decorate their cookies first. And the kids had a ball decorating, too. It was a great time.
The Spread.
Some of the 1st-grade girls have excellent English, and I'm really close with Jeongin, Choongeun, Yoonyeong, and Dabin, who I helped practice their English skit. Jeongin and I have the same taste in music and we make each other laugh, so we get along well.
Inbetween class periods, I played my English-Korean word game with the one girl who seemed to have no friends. Saturday Jeongmin also joined in and kept writing really complex English words, insisting in an overly innocent voice that "this is a common Korean word. It's not so hard." Brat. Showing off his superior knowledge again. During the spelling game, he also tried to convince me that another team's point should be discounted because Congo was spelled with a K, not a C. Nice try, Saturday Jeongmin.
The 2nd-graders were great. There were so many kids there I didn't know, and it turns out we had some boys from a different middle school. I thought we were the only boys middle school in the area! The other boys had really good English, too.
But when I walked in, I saw....Jiwoong.
Oy vey at the Jiwoong. "Whyyyy?", I thought to myself. It's bad enough I'm teaching on a Saturday, and teaching a class I didn't do well with last time, and to top it all off I've got to deal with Grumpmaster Jiwoong? He didn't raise his head once in our last afterschool, and yesterday when I greeted him on the walk to school, he ignored me. I said hello again and he didn't respond, even though he was 2 feet away.
I thought there's no use trying with this boy. Just no use. I feel like I'm cracking the shell, then beneath it there is just more shell. I didn't want to bother even saying hi to him anymore. Why reach out to a student who doesn't care in the slightest?
But. Today during our Scattergories games, Jiwoong was responsible for about 1/4th of his team's points, because he had such good answers. He played his phone for most of the class, but he'd drag himself away from the screen when there was a chance to prove he was wittier and cleverer than the other kids. When we were passing out cookie supplies, he walked up to the front of the room and patted my shoulder to ask for a paper towel.
That is huge. Yesterday, he was treating me like the living embodiment of chicken pox, but today he was enjoying himself, asking permission nicely, and making art out of his cookies. I also made the mistake of leaving him alone with the chocolate chip bag. He finished off the bag, and he must have eaten an entire half-cup on his own.
HH was smart and amazing as always, as were Big-Guy-Geon and Sparkly-Daehoon. Daehoon and HH would loudly protest every time I gave the girls' team points they didn't think were deserved. During break, I played the English-Korean word game with Daehoon, HH, one of the girls, and a boy from the other school. The kids who didn't know me were impressed that I was trying to learn Korean, but Daehoon couldn't resist picking tough words like "index," which I definitely didn't know.
Geon's Cookie Tower.
Haneul's Heart Cookie, Which She Gave to Me.
Then I left class and worked with the four 1st-grade girls who wanted help with their skit. One of their moms ordered lunch for us, which was so nice. Rather than practicing, we spent a huge chunk of time bonding and chatting. The girls' skits were great and their pronunciation was really good, too, so they didn't need much help.
So I braided their hair.
Jeongin's Hair.
Yoonyeong's Hair.
Choongeun's Hair, Which I Could Not Get Straight.
Dabin's Hair.
Next time, I'll get it done more smoothly. I was out of practice! The five of us took pictures together, sang songs, and the girls told me that I was friendly, like an older sister. They said if they had a big sister, they'd pick me. Soooo sweet. Makes me miss my own sisters quite a lot. In short, Saturday was beautiful!
