Day 2 in Korea.
Yesterday I wrote up an account of my journey back here to the Land of the You Know What, and even burned it onto a disc, but as luck would have it, the computer in the PCbang I'm using has no CD player so you know, not much I can do about that. Hopefully I'll have access from my own computer in a day or two.
Yesterday I was taken out to see my school, and to meet some of the staff. My coworkers all seem very friendly. They are eager for my input and really anxious for this year to go well. They also seem to trust that I know what I'm doing and they've said (in effect) they want to give me a lot of lattitude to run my own show in the classroom.
Unfortunately, I also learned that I will only have one lesson per week with each class. Can't do much without more frequent access to them. I'll have 22 classes per week, with each class lasting 45 minutes, about 4-5 classes per day in other words. That will be nice. Actually it'll be about the lightest schedule I've ever had as a teacher. Hello preparation time! Let's see, in Moscow I taught an average of 33 academic hours per week, or 22 real hours in other words. My schedule here gives me 16.5 hours of actual time in the classroom. (Did I also mention I'm getting way more money for this too?) What'll be a challenge is doing a whole lesson in 45 minutes. I sort of got used to having more time to execute a lesson plan. Can I do a warmer, present new material, and have a practice activity in just 45 minutes? I doubt it. So what that means is I'll be spreading lessons over two or more weeks, (and having the co-teacher check the homework, hehehe)
Sorry for that, I was just sort of thinking out loud. Anyway, the school itself is not fantastic. I was horrified to see they have no whiteboards, only old-fashioned chalkboards. Skreeeeeech!! I don't mean to complain (and if you believe that....) but dry-erase marker is my medium. It's what I do. It'd be like taking Da Vinci's oils away and giving him a set of Crayola water colors. Oh the sacrifices we teachers make!
Today I'm going to Kyobo to see what kind of English teaching materials they have. The other teachers said I can pretty much choose what I want and the school will buy it. I assume that means they'll buy one copy of a book and maybe a teacher's manual. Knowing what I do about this place I doubt they'd be willing to spring for a couple of hundred student books, but you never know. Maybe I can convince them to have the students pay for them. When I'm done with Kyobo I plan to hit a sauna in the afternoon, and make it to the 6:30 meeting again. After that I won't be able to get to a meeting for a week since I'll be going to the training camp.
More about my adventures and some pictures just as soon as I get some access with my own PC.
Yesterday I wrote up an account of my journey back here to the Land of the You Know What, and even burned it onto a disc, but as luck would have it, the computer in the PCbang I'm using has no CD player so you know, not much I can do about that. Hopefully I'll have access from my own computer in a day or two.
Yesterday I was taken out to see my school, and to meet some of the staff. My coworkers all seem very friendly. They are eager for my input and really anxious for this year to go well. They also seem to trust that I know what I'm doing and they've said (in effect) they want to give me a lot of lattitude to run my own show in the classroom.
Unfortunately, I also learned that I will only have one lesson per week with each class. Can't do much without more frequent access to them. I'll have 22 classes per week, with each class lasting 45 minutes, about 4-5 classes per day in other words. That will be nice. Actually it'll be about the lightest schedule I've ever had as a teacher. Hello preparation time! Let's see, in Moscow I taught an average of 33 academic hours per week, or 22 real hours in other words. My schedule here gives me 16.5 hours of actual time in the classroom. (Did I also mention I'm getting way more money for this too?) What'll be a challenge is doing a whole lesson in 45 minutes. I sort of got used to having more time to execute a lesson plan. Can I do a warmer, present new material, and have a practice activity in just 45 minutes? I doubt it. So what that means is I'll be spreading lessons over two or more weeks, (and having the co-teacher check the homework, hehehe)
Sorry for that, I was just sort of thinking out loud. Anyway, the school itself is not fantastic. I was horrified to see they have no whiteboards, only old-fashioned chalkboards. Skreeeeeech!! I don't mean to complain (and if you believe that....) but dry-erase marker is my medium. It's what I do. It'd be like taking Da Vinci's oils away and giving him a set of Crayola water colors. Oh the sacrifices we teachers make!
Today I'm going to Kyobo to see what kind of English teaching materials they have. The other teachers said I can pretty much choose what I want and the school will buy it. I assume that means they'll buy one copy of a book and maybe a teacher's manual. Knowing what I do about this place I doubt they'd be willing to spring for a couple of hundred student books, but you never know. Maybe I can convince them to have the students pay for them. When I'm done with Kyobo I plan to hit a sauna in the afternoon, and make it to the 6:30 meeting again. After that I won't be able to get to a meeting for a week since I'll be going to the training camp.
More about my adventures and some pictures just as soon as I get some access with my own PC.
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