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Asia » South Korea » Taejon
July 31st 2006
Published: July 31st 2006
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So the kids arrived today. We were told, over and over, that there would be few, if any, discipline problems with Korean children.... I didn't believe it then, and I sure don't believe it now!

When the buses started to arrive around lunchtime, we were assigned to greeting positions to help the students locate their rooms, and then shepherd them off to lunch. Many of the students understood little, if any, English and trying to explain the concept of "drop off your bag and follow me" was difficult! We had about 220 students show up here today, some by car, most by bus. After lunch they were sentenced to their rooms for about an hour. With nothing to do, they were restless and silly. They kept popping out of their rooms, wanting to wander around, and would ignore you when you told them to go back inside. It was hard to tell if they COULDN'T understand you or were faking it to get away with being silly. :P

My Korean CC (Camp Counselor) and I went to pick up our charges for the day, and discovered that one of them had already gone missing. He had decided to go visit a friend down another hallway! Lovely. We took the kids into the auditorium for the Opening Ceremony (WAY too long!) and then it was testing time. But, of course, we didn't have the tests! Maybe they were already delivered to our classroom? I was finding that more and more questions would arise as the day progressed with very few answers before it was already too late. And the information that we had already received had changed without any forewarning. Having 8 boys in a tiny room waiting for the tests was not fun. I decided we should play Hangman. That went fairly well. After a little while, my CC was told to go downstairs and pick up the tests, and they could start on the reading and writing sections. Then it was time for the oral portions. They had trouble following the listening section (no pause for them to turn the page so they fell behind) and then it was my turn to interview them. 8 simple questions to test their English language skills, such as "When is your birthday?" or "What part of Korea are you from?" -- not really levelling types of questions.

Then we had another 20 minutes to do nothing. We played some "Simon Says" and did another 3-4 rounds of Hangman. Wish I had known that there would be a lot of waiting around with nothing to do! Fortunately, Erika, my roommate, had photocopied some wordsearches for me earlier in the day! That at least kept them busy and quiet while I was doing the verbal testing and my CC was marking the written test.

Off we went to the auditorium to "Meet the Teachers". The students were given a grid with 10 questions on it and were told to interview the teachers in the room. Unfortunately, there were 10 times as many students as there were teachers, so I was constantly being yelled at to answer questions. Not fun for me!

Then we were off to dinner. Believe it or not, but some of my students had disappeared on me after the game and had taken off with other children or teachers. I corralled 7 of my 8 back outside before we went into the cafeteria, but apparently that was a lost cause, since I lost a couple more on the way to the dinner table. After dinner, I had no idea what was happening. That seemed to be the case most of the day. The CCs had an idea but only because they were told what was happening over their walkie-talkies that they carried. We, the teachers, didn't get those, so we were constantly feeling lost and unprepared.

Thank goodness that was the end of the day for us! A large group of us decided to head out to a large department store downtown (open 24h!) and check stuff out. Nothing great or special that I could see (and comprehend) but at least it got me out and about.

That's it for today. I'm off to find the paper I should have had days ago so I can figure out what I'm doing for welcome/ice breaker activities tomorrow morning!

Forethought, planning, organization, and communication do not seem to be held in high esteem here.....

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31st July 2006

This is so cool
I love your travel blog! What a great idea. I just got back to work today, and I saw you email. Reading through all your entries was a fun way to procrastinate on my first day back in the office. It sounds like you're having a few adventures and misadventures, just like you had hoped. Too bad about all the rain though. But the most important thing is that you're with a good group of people. That's the one thing that can really make or break a trip like this. Your Top Ten list reminded me of some of the things Kristina has told me about life in Taiwan. I guess there are a lot of similarities between the two countries. I've heard that in some parts of Asia you have to actually but your own toilet paper for use in public washrooms, and carry it around with you because it's not always provided. And the thing about squatting rather than sitting, has a lot to do with what you mentioned about people leaving their garbage everywhere. And also spitting, peeing and doing other unsanitary things all over. So people tend to squat, because it's usually not clean enough to sit on florrs or the ground. Just a bit of informative trivia. Talk to you later!

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