One of the older male teachers sent me an instant message last week (over the new office-messenger network), reminding me to smile more. I took the hint and this morning I made sure to smile and feel joy at as many people as I could.
Went to the special-needs room. Gave Chanyeong his Coca-Cola (which he loves), and gave Byeongsu a birthday present of unopened UNO cards since it was his birthday yesterday. Talked to Dohyun about the weather and showed sympathy for Seongwon's still-broken arm.
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12 AM: Second class of 2nd-graders went well! I still think my methods of eliciting responses from the kids have improved greatly-greatly, but NG thinks I should play the kids the audio with the script first.
He's right. But. He's supposed to tell me what a great idea I had and how much better it is for the kidlets' education, because it is obviously better than what I was doing just last month, and I had more clear responses and more interest from the lot of them. Some of the boys--Yeonghan, Soowoo, Hyunho, Hwanhyuk and Sangpil to name a few, could follow the entire thing medium-well.
But some can't. Minsu can barely read English at all, even word-by-word. So tomorrow I'll play the boys the audio along with the written script instead of hoping they can get it just from listening on the first go. I can learn from advice and from correction but sometimes I wish NG would just do what everyone else does and tell me I did good. Aw, Wendy...
On Friday, I explained to my Hyunho that I had been so worried about his fighting with Jeongmin, and his sadness and his headache. He looked me in the eyes and said, "I'm sorry for worry you." My heart nearly broke. For my boy to care what I felt about his situation, it was so moving.
And speaking of GIFs (animated pictures), my best female friend and I use this one for shorthand all the time. It's a picture of an octopus hurriedly moving away from something, with the "nope nope nope" caption. When we don't want to do something, we move our hands like a scurrying octopus in imitation of this.
Student wants you to smell something unidentifiable?
You have to teach a double afterschool?
It's going to be 99 degrees with 80% humidity tomorrow?
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