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Published: February 11th 2010
Johnny and Jason
Johnny nabbed my rainboots at the back of the classroom and decided to model them. Johnny is the one we call 준포 (after the BoF char with the perm). Jason, to his right, is the one who luuurves me. hahaKeen observation, Eric. It's probably because you crazy kids make me.
Winter Intensives are officially over, and I'm actually kind of sad about it. While it's nice not having to get up at 9 AM every morning, I miss my students. They really were a sweet bunch of kids, and my intensive classes allowed me a bit more freedom than my usual rounds.
I should talk about the new penalty system that my branch introduced on January 25th. It doesn't have a name, but I will try and explain.
We've had a lot of problems in the past with students who do not behave. Unfortunately, our branch doesn't really do the whole "RMA" thing like the rest of Chungdahm, so we've had a difficult time determining just how "bad" (I don't like calling them bad, because they aren't) certain students are. It's really just a way to enforce rules about behavior.
In the past, we only worked on a point system. "Points" are certificates that look like fake money. They come in the following increments: 5, 10, 30, 100. I usually give 10 points for storytelling participate, 10 points for an A+ on a test, 5 points
Jasmin
Jasmin, with her umbrella open inside. She's pretty bright, but much prefers doodling pictures with English captions to hang on my wall rather than actually doing classwork! for a A on the test, and random points depending on how much I need to motivate students or how tired they are that day. It used to be that at the end of the semester, students would be able to use these points in a "market" to "buy" prizes, but this went away with the swine flu scare. SO to encourage my kids to do well, I've resorted to buying HUGE things of candy (right now, I have about a bajillion mini Tootsie Pops) that kids can buy with their points. For 50 points, kids can buy a single lollipop and suck on it in class. I think next, I'll get a huge pack of pencils and see if that can keep them motivated-- I am tired of giving out my pencils and never getting them back.
It's worth it to drop ten bucks at Costco on a huge bag of candy and have kids behave for a few weeks. Trust me on this one. Candy is a great bribe. Candy is leverage.
When students are bad, you have to take points from them. Unfortunately, most kids won't just hand you their points back. "Oh, teacher, my
Stacy
I love Stacy. She always gets A+s on her spelling tests, she's always happy to volunteer in class, and she always is in a cheerful mood. No wonder I picked her as December's Best Student for my 2:30 MWR Sprout 2 class! points are at home." "No, teacher." "Opsoyo." "Aniyo." UGH. SO, while the reward/participation aspect of the system worked well, the actual punishment aspect of it failed miserably.
SO now we have Happy Cards and Yellow Cards. Happy Cards are given to exceptional students. Each happy card is worth 5 points, and their name gets to go up on my board as students who are good examples. You can get a Happy Card for speaking only English in the hallway, speaking only English in class, helping the teacher, volunteering for questions, etc.
Yellow Cards, just like in the sports world, are not so good. You get a Yellow Card if you are talking Korean in the hallway, talking Korean through class, not listening to teacher, fighting, etc. One Yellow Card is okay, two Yellow Cards is a warning, three Yellow Cards sends you to Jake (our Boss Man) and you get 50 points taken away, four Yellow Cards and Jake calls your parents and takes 100 points away, and if you get five Yellow Cards, you can be expelled. Amen.
So far, the fear factor seems to be working. I've given out five Yellow Cards in the past
Letter from Ally
A letter/note written by Ally, another 2:30 MWR Sprout 2 student. She didn't want me to read it until I got home! :) How cute is this?! two weeks, but only twice to the same student. I've given out about a dozen Happy Cards. I guess I'm a little soft, but you can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar. Most of my kids love me
, so they know that if they're good to me, I'll be good to them.
Achievement tests were Monday and Tuesday of last week. From what I've heard from my students, a lot of them levelled up. I know I've only been here for two months, but I'm kind of proud. I have two new students in my Seed 1 class MWR, and I can tell that their conversational English is not nearly as good as the kids that I've had since day one. I don't know if I can attribute that to me, but I know I tend to use language that is a little more advanced than each level needs to know. Of course, I usually accompany everything I say with crazy charades, hand gestures, google image searches, and drawings on the board, but a small part of me hopes that I taught them Card from Yu-ny
Yu-ny is one of my Seed 2 students. She gave me this card before Christmas, and I forgot to share! This week, we nicknamed her Yummy! something none-the-less.
Wishful thinking.
I would partially like to know what Jake and Jin would say if they actually watched some of my CCTV in great detail. Kaelynn, my Korean "partner teacher," who is awesome, has watched several. She told me that while my classes were always a little crazy, my kids seemed to have the most fun, and genuinely enjoyed learning. I chalk it up to the fact that when they do their "storytelling" I literally act the whole story out for them at the front of the class. Zombie!Katie, Fighter!Katie, Robber!Katie, Dinosaur!Katie. You name it, I've acted it out.
I also lipsync "The Voice" that reads the articles. I usually accompany with hand gestures. I sometimes use a student as a prop. Kids seem to LOOOOVE that. A tip to all teachers: if you can ever use a student as a prop, do it. Kids love being involved, especially if you are pretending to beat them up or steal from them.
Today for the Sprout 2 Thinking Project, kids had to invent a clock. Teacher always does an example first, so I decided I would make a clock to stop time. It looks like
Inside of Yu-ny
"Teacher. Teacher hello. My name is Yu-ny teacher thank you for teaching. Teacher is very good (nice). I like teacher. Teacher today is Christmas Eve. Teacher marry Christmas and January 1th is New Year. Happy New Year. When is teacher's birthday? My birthday is August 27th. Teacher~ merry Christmas and happy new year. I love you ~<3 -Yu-ny-" an ordinary alarm clock, but when you push "SNOOZE" on the top, it actually freezes time for everyone but the person who pressed the button. I made several students "freeze" for me, and did all sorts of mischief. I took Stacy's glasses off and put them back on her upside down, I repositioned students, I flipped hoods up on coats. At the end, I went back up to the board and "re-pressed" the button. Students "unfroze" and giggled madly. I told them, "Imagine if you didn't know I was moving all of your things around, and one moment your glasses were on your face, and the next, they are upside down!"
Certainly got the ball rolling on some creative clocks, anyway!
All-in-all, today was a pretty decent day. Though I did end up giving out a Yellow Card this morning (after over a week of not giving out any), I woke up to find out I had, in fact, been paid last night. I was a little late to work, but I got a Mocha Latte and a donut at Morning Donuts this morning. It was well worth it.
I swapped classrooms with Dorrie for two sections
Line 2 Subway Car
Morning commute = appx 7 minutes total! today; she doesn't have any good April Report backgrounds on her computer, and I do. She was recording two of the "winning" contestant groups for the ChungDahm April video competition that is going on right now. We submitted miscellaneous students to Jin, our HI, and went over a bunch of videos in a meeting the other day. The "best groups" re-recorded a new lesson today, and their videos will be submitted to ChungDahm HQ for judging. There are miscellaneous prizes involved. All I can say for our branch is: Daegu Beomeo FIGHTING!
About that Sprout 2 class I just mentioned three paragraphs ago, it pretty much is one of the funniest classes I've had. I'm also like 99.9% sure that my one boy has a serious crush on me. Students will tease, "Oh, Katie teacher, you look terrible today," and valiantly, Jason will leap to my defense. "No! Katie teacher is so cute! She's beautiful!" hahahahaha. I just grin like the Cheshire cat, and say, "Oh, Jason, they're only joking!"
It's totally adorable. Kids can be so flattering, sometimes. "Oh, Katie teacher, I like your flower!" "Katie teacher is pretty today!" Seriously, if that's not enough to get
Work Ediface
The building I work in! you to come into work crappy morning after crappy morning, I don't know what is!
This weekend is the Lunar New Year. Most kids will not have school tomorrow (today technically?) Friday, February 12th. Lunar New Year falls on Valentine's Day this year, and as a result, I have off on Monday. Hurray! As usual, I am heading into Seoul to celebrate the hols with my training buddies. I was going to go skiing with friends from work (shocking, I know), but it seems like everyone is sick except for me.
Michiko, my coworker, was going to arrange the whole thing. I really like Michiko; she's super cool. I think we've bonded a lot more in the past three weeks than we did for the entire first month-and-a-half I was here. Of course, she's leaving for the states at the end of the month. Figures. Fortunately, she's most likely coming back for another year in a few months. We were trying to get the trip in for before she heads stateside again. We'll try again next weekend.
Before I wrap this entry up, I took a few pictures to walk you through my way to work. Let
Banners
Oh hey! ChungDahm and April are in this building! :) me explain 'em. I take the subway from the Kyungpook Nat'l University Hospital stop (Line 2) three stops down to Suseong-gu Office. I venture out of the innards of the subway station and up for air. I walk down the street to the building decked out in wood. There's a new Samsung Fashion downstairs, and I'm glad the construction is done (What it is with me being in a school with constant construction? First Bayshore, then South, then Pitt, and now here?). When you approach the doors, you can see the banner sign for ChungDahm and ChungDahm April. I walk in, and head to the elevator. Fourth floor is my stop! 😊
There are also some chronicling part of the ride home. 😊 Enjoy!
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Julia
non-member comment
Jeal!
Oh. My kids just call me Shawty and tell me I'm a Paris Hilton-wannabe with baby doll shoes. Exact quotation. Or I get, "MS. Z. YOU LOOK LIKE YOU BEEN CRYING. ARE YOU CRYING? MAN, YOU DON'T DO ANYTHING HERE." Why aren't you thinking about education, again?