After School Classes

This year I am teaching three after school club classes each week. One of them is a 4th grade club class in which I teach a rotation of the six 4th grade classes at my school each week. I teach the 4th graders alone during my regular English class so I have developed a raport with them and enjoy teaching them. The second class is a club class for 4th, 5th and 6th grade students. I teach them every Friday and have 20 students in the class. Most of them are students that spend a lot of time in my office everyday getting to know me so they love to participate and learn. That class is a lot of fun even thought their level is pretty low. The 3rd class is for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students and meets on Wednesdays. This class is an absolute disaster! I originally had 20 students sign up which is a lot of kids for that age group for one person to control, much less a person who doesn't speak Korean. Then, I show up for our second class and all of a sudden I have 35 little ones! I figured there must have been a mistake made and that some of them were in the wrong place but to my amazement my class had grown by 15 students in a week! So now I have 35 snot nosed, screaming kids to teach, or babysit, however you want to look at it. I tried to teach them stand up and sit down the other day and once they finally grasped the idea of standing up, half of them stood up on their desks or chairs. I had to physically remove them one by one and place them on the floor. It was pretty chaotic the first two classes but today I think I made some headway. I figured out that the little ones love stickers and stamps, so I started stamping their hands whenever they did something well or were just being quiet and paying attention. Pretty soon I had a class full of kids covered in purple Hello Kitty stamps. One kid had stamps on his nose, cheeks, forehead and chin, but I was happy to dish them out if they were being good. The silver lining to these classes is that I get paid 10,000 won per student, so I say bring em on. I hope to take some video next class so you can witness the craziness!

Football...in Korea!

As you might imagine, American football isn't very poplar in Korea. The most well known player around these parts is Hines Ward, and not because Koreans like ketchup. Hines is half Korean so everyone here is a big fan. This morning I decided to bring my football to school with me so I could give the kids a little cultural lesson. There is a 30 minute break everyday after lunch so the kids can run around and be crazy before class starts back so I brought the football and my camera out to the field to document their virgin football experience. When they saw the ball, the all said "Oh, rugby ball." The former native English teacher at my school was from Scotland so I think he may have brought a rugby ball to school. After a short demonstration of how to throw and kick, I let them run wild with it. I'll have to admit, some of them had pretty good arms and could throw a decent spiral despite the fact that it's an NFL size football and they have tiny hands.

A few 3rd graders posing with the "rugby ball."

The first lesson was how to throw. Some of them had pretty good arms and could throw a decent spiral even though the ball was way too big for their tiny hands.



This is Paul. He spent a few months studying English in New York and is basically fluent. He starts off every sentence with "So, like..." On the first day of school this year I let the kids ask me questions. I was getting the typical, "Whats your favorite color" and "Whats your favorite animal" questions until Paul stood up and asked "So, like what airline did you take when you came to Korea?"



After we threw for a bit I taught them how to punt. They were big fans and all wanted their picture taken while the kicked the ball.




Then it was my turn to show my punting skills. They would all stand at the other end of the field and try to catch the ball but most of them were afraid of it and would just run away when it came down.



A few of them had obviously seen a game before and were running around with the ball eluding tacklers. This kid had some pretty good moves.



Until the kid in the blue tackled him. He was a good sport and helped his friend up.

I think the first day of football was a success. I am definitely going to bring the ball back for a second round of action.

Blogitis

To say that I have been slack about keeping up with my blog is an understatement. I really believe that I've become so comfortable here that most everyday occurences seem normal to me now. I don't think Korea has lost it's luster by any means but the cultural differences that used to baffle me have become familiar and don't leave me with my jaw hanging open very often. I guess thats normal once you live in a place for long enough. I am very blessed to be able to wake up every morning in a country that is only 50 years removed from being one giant rice paddy, and go to a job that provides me so much joy. I am making it a goal to do a better job of keeping my blog udpdated with my life here in Korea. I won't make any outlandish guarantees like I did before about updating my blog everyday, because let's be honest, it ain't gonna happen, but I will do better. I'd like to thank Mammy for calling me out on my lack of blog updates...you inspired me! Until next post...