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Published: August 31st 2008
It is more than a week since my arrival and already I am set in to a nice routine. My first week of teaching has been very enjoyable, if a little tiring. The first day was easy enough; I was just sitting in class all day, tipping back on my chair too much and not really listening to what was going on. It brought back some memories!
It wasn’t until I arrived last Friday that I discovered I will actually be teaching at two different schools. The director of my school runs three within about 20 minutes of each other. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I will be teaching at the main campus. This is purely a language school (or Hakwon) and has two other British teachers doing the same thing as me. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach at another school which is more like a normal middle school back home. There I am one of only three English teachers and the other two are Korean.
So Tuesday was my first real day of teaching and it was at the second school where I have no other foreigners for company. I was rather thrown in at the deep end and had back to back 45 minute classes between 3pm and 9pm, barring a 10 minute dinner break (!!!). Nonetheless, I managed to cope quite well (I think) and it was made a lot easier by the two Korean teachers in my department who have been extremely helpful and are quite adept at English banter. They were also kind enough to take me out for dinner after school and then drive me home.
On the whole the work is easy, it involves reading to the children, getting them to read to the class, marking their writing exercises as you go along etc. I’ve also lost count of how many games of hangman I’ve played. It’s quite strange having all the responsibilities and powers of a real teacher when that I certainly am not. The only other thing to get used to is the children’s absolute fascination with us Westerners. They all want to say hello in the corridor and they all stare at you a bit. It’s also a little weird when you go to mark their work and they start stroking your arm because they’ve never seen arm hair before!
There is a similar sense of celebrity amongst adults, and being stopped on the street for a photo or people randomly calling out to you or staring as you go by are all commonplace.
Besides the teaching, it has been a good first week. It is surprisingly as cheap to eat and probably cheaper to eat out than buy food for home so I tend to be out most evenings, although school provide a meal every day. Normally I meet up with other foreign teachers or go out with the Koreans from my school, as was the case on Thursday when we had a staff night out in aid of my arrival. We went to a special kind of bar where you order your food and drink and attendants bring it to your own private karaoke room. Karaoke is a big part of the going out culture here and my first Korean karaoke experience was an odd evening out but a very enjoyable one! In case you’re wondering, I did Barbie Girl by Aqua.
For now, thanks for reading.
All my love X
****A note on the running of my journal.
My intention is to update the page as much as I can without boring you when there is not much happening. There will inevitably be times when all I can really say is ‘got up, went to school, had dinner, went to bed’ (although I hope there won’t be too many of these!). When there are a few minor interesting points to tell you about I will put them in a ‘mini-post’….something I have just invented to save me typing more than I want or need to!
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kim hutt
non-member comment
loving the updates!
BF!...sounds like you're doing awesomely (if there is such a word). Totally enjoying reading the diary, please, please, PLEASE keep it coming. Wish I could see you being stopped by random strangers to have your pic taken! Next time the kids stroke your arm hair, I dare you to tell them that you have soft downy hair on your butt aswell, and see if they'd like to stroke that too!!! Then give them extra marks if they have understood! Kim (aka BF)