Friday, August 21, 2009

In which Daniel and Leslie collapse from exhaustion

Hi family and friends! We're sorry it's been a while since our last update. We survived our first week of school! It seemed like today would never come. :) Overall, I think our experiences have been very positive. We spent twelve hours at school, and some more time at home, last Saturday and Sunday trying to get ready. I filled out a week-long lesson plan for each of my classes to turn in to the Secondary School Principal on Monday, which was helpful the rest of the week for reminding me what I wanted to do each day. I have the first two periods free every morning, which has been useful preparation time. Third period, I teach 9th and 10th Creative Writing every day. I only have five kids in the class and they all seem to be good students. They're pretty quiet, though; I have to work to get them to participate most of the time. There are no standards or requirements for creative writing, since it's a new class this year, which all secondary students are required to take, unless they're ESL (in which case they go to ESL class). This means that I have a lot of freedom and almost no guidance, which can be good and bad. I had my students write a narrative about one of their earliest memories of school this week, and they worked on it in class and at home, while we talked about creating vivid openings, using transition words, peer-editing, and proofreading. They're turning in final drafts to me on Monday, so I look forward to seeing what their writing is like.

This year, the school is using a block schedule (A and B days). On A days, I teach 3rd through 8th period straight, with a break for lunch between the 4th and 5th periods--it's pretty brutal. I teach Modern World History to the two ninth grade sections in a row. I like the students in both classes, but I noticed from the first day how different their class dynamics are. The first group (with 12 kids) has a bunch of bright students in it and, as a whole, the class is quite talkative. The second group (with ten kids) has a few students who obviously have more trouble with English, but they're calmer than the first class and still participate when I ask them to. We covered the legacy of the Greeks and Romans and the monotheistic religions this week. The hardest part so far has been trying to fill an hour and a half block for each class whenever I see them. I've tried to vary the class time by doing different activities--bellwork (work for the students to do when they come into class), partner activities, and lectures--and I think I'm starting to get the hang of figuring out how long it will take them to do something. I've also learned that I have to wait a few minutes after discussing a slide on powerpoint, so the students have enough time to write them down (especially the ESL kids). I hadn't made a powerpoint since middle school, but I've gotten used to it again, and have made one (short or long) for each class every day of the week. I love the smartboard! It can save whatever I write on the board into the powerpoint itself, and I can easily move between showing them a video on the internet and back to a slide. My sixth graders especially love the smartboard, because I let them take turns writing words on the board during our grammar exercises. To return to the ninth graders, I also have one section of them for my homeroom, so I've had to discuss some homeroom business with them each time I've seen them. I only have three boys in each class, so I think that makes my job easier; the girls on the whole seem like they're good students and a couple of them smile at me while I'm teaching. :)

Every day during the last period, I see my sixth grade creative writing class. I enjoy having them at the end of the day, but because they're funny and troublesome, it takes a little more energy for me to keep them in line. I have five kids (as of today); I had four the rest of the week. Three of them are boys--they all have different temperaments, but one is more troublesome than the others. The girl I've had in my class the rest of the week is very sweet, smart, and pretty quiet. I read her description of her family today (their homework assignment for yesterday), and it was very well written. She spent three and a half years in America (kindergarten through third grade), so her English is quite good. She apparently loves to write, so I hope I can encourage that love (she told me she wants to be a kindergarten teacher and a famous writer like William Shakespeare or Mark Twain when she grows up). A couple of the boys don't seem to have much interest in writing, but the other one seems to like it. I've been showing them the School House Rock videos (a favorite from my childhood) for the parts of speech that we've discussed. We started with adjectives and that's their favorite video so far. They asked me yesterday if we can keep watching them. :) We also did a Harry Potter writing activity that I borrowed from my mom yesterday--they really enjoyed it (the boys especially).

On B days, I only teach 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 8th periods and supervise a study hall during 4th period. During 5th and 6th period, I see my U.S. History students (fifteen of them, six of whom are boys). I have a few students who seem to know quite a bit about U.S. history, and some who know almost nothing. I'm having them memorize the states and capitals (test next Friday), because a few of them couldn't identify a single state, and I think it will be helpful when we start discussing places in the U.S. (One of the boys has already memorized all of the states and capitals, only one day after I assigned it--I'm impressed.) I love U.S. history and feel more comfortable teaching it, but it's harder to get my students in this class to participate. I read the paragraphs that they wrote yesterday, and almost all of them had major grammatical issues (a couple didn't), and I can tell that a few of them need more time to write down notes during the lecture. I'm hoping we'll have fun eventually!

Daniel and I have been at school for at least nine hours every day. We usually arrive around 7:40 am and leave some time after five. We come home exhausted, take a short break, then I have usually made dinner (salmon fillets, tuna melts, ravioli...) and Daniel has done the dishes. Then we rest for a little while before preparing for the following day (doing the reading, making powerpoints, etc.), and we're usually in bed between 10:30 and 11 pm (which feels like an hour too late) and wake up at 6:30 am (which feels way too early). Yesterday, we had our first Korean lesson with one of the Korean teachers. It was fun and a bit frustrating, since we have a bunch of rules to learn while trying to figure out the alphabet. I learned how to spell my name! I have to add an "uh" sound after the "s" because you have to have a consonant and then a vowel in order to make up a letter. We got our visas and alien registration cards this week, so we could set up our bank accounts today and will soon be able to get cell phones. We're still enjoying getting to know the other teachers! They're really nice, and I feel supported, even if I only see them briefly in the morning and at lunch. Daniel and I are leaving in twenty minutes to get dinner and go see the Seoul Philharmonic with the band teacher (who's very sweet and from the Bay area). Her husband is a trumpeter in the orchestra (from Illinois originally), and he got us tickets half-off (25,000 won--a little less than $25). We're really excited (they're playing Ravel, Debussy, and Bartok), but we're a little afraid that we'll fall asleep during the concert, since we're so exhausted. :) We love and miss you!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Leslie and Daniel,
    I'm realy enjoying reading about your new life in Korea. The school sounds wonderful and you seem to be having so much fun (even if you're probably exhausted/still adjusting). Teaching relatively well behaved kids is really nice, isn't it? :)
    Love from Boston (soon to -> Geneva)!
    ~Quinnie

    ReplyDelete