First few days of school…

So I decided not to post the entry I had written after my first day of school because my first day was terrible! The first day I pretty much sat all alone all day with no idea what was going on around me. I was given the only room in the school that has no air conditioning, and of course, the computer and TV and any other electronic equipment doesn’t work or just isn’t even there. I was surprised when I was thrown up on stage at an assembly and had to do a little speech, but thankfully, no one at my school speaks a word of English and they had no idea how bad my speech really was. I also have to wear these stupid “slippers” around school – no street shoes, or even shoes in general even if they are kept solely for use indoors. Nope, must wear slippers. So I’m walking around in $2 knockoff Adidas sandals that look ridiculous with the professional attire I’m required to wear (pinstripe suits and dresses) and because they are so bulky and floppy and whatever I fell not once, but twice on my first day! –Great start!


I only saw my co-teacher briefly when she came to sit with me, during the time we should have been eating lunch, to translate my three degrees and my certificate of qualifications from English into Korean so that the VP would understand it. Can you imagine how fun it is to explain who the Dean and Registrar are and why their signatures are on the degree?! The only thing my co-teacher could understand was Principal and Vice Principal of university so that’s what the Dean and Registrar have been translated as. On my Brock degree I had to convince her to just leave a blank beside Chancellor b/c I didn’t have the patience to tackle that one and had run out of comparisons. I think the hardest was trying to explain my certificate of qualifications from the Ontario College of Teachers. She couldn’t understand that OCT wasn’t actually a college, and that the page I was showing her was a summary of all my degrees.


So that was the day in brief, but things are getting a bit better and I’d rather write about that! So when I signed my contract back in Canada I was told I would be teaching elementary school, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that would entail. Most foreign teachers teach 4-6 when placed in elementary schools. Not I! I have been given the job of teaching English to every class in the school from kindergarten to grade 6. I have one class of each grade, and two grade six classes. So the only lesson plan I can repeat in a week is the Grade six plan. I’ve also got no training or experience with kids younger than grade 4. So Monday we didn’t have a schedule yet for this semester, things are very unorganized in the schools here, but I was told when I showed up Tuesday morning that we were following last semester’s schedule. That meant I had to teach a kindergarten English class first period, which was only 15 minutes away! OMG! 15 minutes to plan a 40 minute lesson and THERE ARE NO RESOURCES for anything lower than grade 3. So I’m running around my classroom looking for anything I can use, thinking the last teacher must have left me something or at least I would find out what he tough them during first semester – no luck! So I see some fuzzy, coloured dice and I grab a few of those and some flash cards, and figure we will review colours, classroom commands, numbers, and the alphabet. I show up and there are only 6 kids in the class! I was picturing 20, so right away my game of roll the dice, call out the number, and make kids run and get into groups of that number, has pretty much been thrown out the window. Also, time goes by a lot faster with only six kids to call on for everything, so I very quickly ran out of things to do with them. Their teacher also abandoned me, which they aren’t supposed to do. So here I am all alone, no ideas left in head, staring at these tiny little kids who don’t understand a word I’m saying and that are answering back in words that I don’t understand either! What a gong show. I pulled it off with a few rounds of ring around the rosie and a game of “what colour is this? Now run and find me something else that is that colour”. So that was kindergarten, and I’m so glad I only have to teach it once a week.

Later in the day while cleaning my class (there is no school janitor at our school and so I’m responsible for my class or I have to punish the kids and get them to do it), I found a cd with English songs on it. I never thought I would ever hear the Sharon, Lois and Bram song “Chooga Chooga” after Vicky and Laura (the kids I used to babysit) grew out of it, but I will likely come in handy for at least one lesson with the kindergarten kids to teach up, down and side!

In my grade 5 and 6 classes, I decided that we would do English names. So I typed up and printed 20 names for girls and 20 names for boys, using names of friends and family. Well, it didn’t work out as well as I thought it would. The girls all wanted boy names and the boys wanted girl’s names. So in one class I have a male Emma, Elissa and Carolyn and Alan and Frank were taken by girls! Don’t worry Mom, Dad, Jeff and Scott – your names were taken gender appropriately. Some kids picked their own names like Hulk and Chucky.

So today is Wednesday and I show up thinking I’m starting to get the hang of things around here. I’ve got my schedule and my lesson plans already to teach Grade 3, 4 and 1, but after the grade 4 lesson, grade 6 shows up followed by grade 4! When 6 showed up I was thrown but knew I had my lesson from yesterday’s grade 6 class to fall back on, and when 4 showed up a period late I had the plan but was expecting grade 1, so the blackboard was covered with magnets of the alphabet and numbers and flash cards of colours to review with the little kids! At lunch when I asked my teacher why no one was following the schedule, she said the other teachers don’t know the schedule yet. WHAT?! Can they look at in the teacher’s lounge maybe instead of showing up for English whenever they want to? I’ve now been told that next week we will follow the schedule, so I’m not sure how I will plan for the rest of this week.

Another delicate situation has been the lunch arrangement. Normally, all the teachers eat in the lunchroom kind of like when you eat at camp. You don’t pick and pay like at a cafeteria in Canada, you are served and eat whatever they cook. This is a major problem for me! The first day I had the choice between fish in chili sauce, octopus in chili sauce, or fish and mushroom soup –my stomach turns just thinking about it! So I ate white rice and a fresh fig. I had already told my co-teacher that I don’t eat any seafood so I knew there would be a problem. We were told it isn’t very well accepted that we bring our own lunch because Koreans are very proud of their food and are easily insulted if you don’t eat it. So I told my teacher I would pack a lunch everyday because I am on a “special diet” because I have a very sensitive stomach and get sick a lot (we were told white lies is the best way to go in Korea!). So I bring my own lunch and everyone stares at me and wants to see what I’m eating. Today the cook came put to see my lunch and boy did she look angry! I keep telling my co-teacher to explain to them that I can’t eat seafood or spicy sauce (the only seasoning they have here is chili sauce, hot chili sauce, or blazing hot chili sauce). Oh well, a few Koreans hate me, but I’m not starving!

Tonight we have our first staff dinner. It is quite typical for Korean coworkers to have a work dinner almost weekly. This is where they all get drunk and then bring up any issue that they have with each other – crazy but that’s how they solve problems: drink and fight. So I can’t even imagine what I’ll be faced with on my plate, and then in regards to how this week is going with my teaching and my not eating in the lunch that is served. I hope no one hits me tonight :S (in Korea it is OK to hit people, as I learned my first week here when the lady hit me to get off the phone!)

So I’m off to dinner soon, and maybe there will be a good story on my blog after tonight!