An Alright Week

Friday, June 20, 2008

Sorry it has taken me a while to write again. I am just so tired when I get home from work that I would rather not sit in front of a computer. Also, it is so hot and humid in Wonju right now, that the second I sit down, I immediately start sweating. Gross.

So, what has happened this past week? Monday... nothing special, it was my short day and my classes all seemed to go very well. I was really tired though because I couldn't sleep on Sunday night. Probably due to a few factors; restless legs, humidity, my mind running nonstop. It was bad. Not a way you want to start off a week working with kids. Tuesday was good and so was Wednesday. Nothing special again. The same classes were good and the same ones were bad. Although, 3-A is starting to get a bit better as long as I keep them on a tight leash in the classroom. Actually, on Wednesday one of the students in my youngest class complained to the director that I don't pay attention to her in class. That's funny because she yells out every single answer and I have to say the other kids names to get them to answer because she intimidates them. She is about 3 levels higher than the other kids in the class (like the young kids don't know the alphabet yet and this kid is sounding out words very quickly and very well). She is also always eating when not yelling out answers even though she is not supposed to eat in class and she doesn't pay attention to the lesson unless she wants to. She is rather difficult. Not to mention, always leaving the classroom and throwing things and yelling. I am pretty sure she is spoiled rotten at home and since not everything in my classroom is about her she gets mad. The day in question, she was 30 minutes late for a 40 minute class. So, I was 90% through my lesson and we were just doing a wordsearch for the words we learned that day. I gave her the wordsearch and they just worked on it. Well, I guess I didn't give her the attention she needed in those 10 minutes. I was really upset about the complaint because the director had to talk to me and did so in front of students who could understand and they (meaning the other staff) were talking about me in Korea when I was right there and then not translating. So, I was really upset by the whole thing. So, I told my director what was going on in the classroom and invited her to sit in on Thursday. She did so (of course the kids were on their best behaviour) and she saw the student eating, playing, yelling out answers and not letting the lower learners try at all. So I was happy. Now, I have been told though, that I should start trying to teach this class (the one who doesn't know the alphabet or any sounds that the letters make) full phrases and answers. This is fine if the class knows the alphabet, but they don't, so I have a difficult time ahead of me with this one. I just don't even know where to begin because they don't understand me and they don't know the letters or the sounds, but because I am a foreigner they need to learn phrases from me. Like slangs and idioms. How in the world do you do that?? So, I am very frustrated about it. Gah. The students who overheard the conversation to me about the complaint told me they do not understand what the girl is talking about because I give them all the same attention. I appreciated that.

Today was good, game day. Loud. I have a headache. But it was a lot of fun. This week... one of my students told me that she eats dog. I was not very happy about it and told her she cannot talk about that in my class (not in a mean way, but in a "that breaks my heart"way) and if she does she needs to do it in Korean so I do not understand. She thinks it is funny. So she talks about it all the time. Makes me sick to my stomach.

Okay I am too warm to be sitting here on the computer, so we shall chat again soon. We are having our friend Laura over tomorrow for the whole day and night. So, we should have plenty to write about this weekend and probably some new pictures.