Bring it on second year!

The new semester has started and what a difference it is from the previous year. The first week of school started with the usual chaos and disorganization anticipated working in a Korean school system. Everyone has a temporary schedule including the students. There a number of ceremonies resulting in unplanned, but much appreciated “desk-warming”. My students are all bright-eyed and bushy tailed with a hint of curiosity and wonder toward me, the foreign teacher. That’s slightly relieved after I give a brief, but informative introductory presentation in which half the students “ooed” and “ahh’d” and the other half stared at me for the duration of it.

A letter from a student.

No matter. They soon got over their wonderment as I turned from ‘curious dark foreign person’ to ‘no-nonsense, you better recite every single class rule and I better not hear you talk otherwise’ English teacher. 

I was told by a hagwon (private school teacher) that the students from my school are the worst students at their school. This came a year after my co-teacher told me that the students at our school are some of the worst behaved. Oh did I learn my lesson last year! This year I made a change. I learned a lot, improved and became more comfortable in my role. One of the most important things I learned is organization, organization, organization is EVERYTHING! I’m usually fairly organized, but being a teacher, I feel your organization skills have to be top form. 

First day introductions and classroom posters

One of the major problems being a native English teacher is that a lot of times the students don’t offer the same respect to you that they do to their Korean teachers. You are seen as the “fun, games, and candy” teacher. Your class, most of the time, is not taken seriously depending on a number of factors. The involvement of your co-teacher, the use of a book, your class being graded, your competence, and other things greatly influence the success of your class. This year, my co-teacher has become a little more involved in my class. In return, I have become more organized and stricter. One of the rules I have been enforcing is the “no notebook, no pen/pencil= no chair”.  It’s funny to see my students come in and immediately stand knowing that they aren’t allowed to sit if they didn’t come prepared. After a week of enforcing this rule, I got maybe 10 or 15 students out of 16 classes of 30 students who didn’t come prepared. 

As a reward for all my efforts to make this class an effective learning environment, I got attentive and eager students. I honestly couldn’t have asked for more.  I’m so excited for what the rest of the year has to bring. All I want is for my students to walk away learning more than just English. With the freedom to create my own lessons, I’m going to strive to just that.

Here's a video of one of my 1st grade middle schoolers (7th gaders) singing "Let it go" at the conclusion of a Frozen lesson.