Wow, it's been quite a while since I last updated. I guess the winter blues got to me, and I didn't have much motivation to write something. That's so jealous of me! Anyways, I've seen many changes in the past week at my school. Not very good changes, though.
First of all, March is the start of the new school year in Korea. Don't ask me why. Actually, it's a bit strange. The kids have a huge break from public school from December until February. They go back to school for a couple of weeks, have a couple of weeks off, and then go back to move up to the next grade. Keep in mind that I work at an afterschool academy so I don't get that time off...sadly. With kids moving to different grades, that means that their schedule changes because some go to school later now. That means our school's schedule has to change. Kids are all mixed up, and most of the teachers are moved around.
On top of this, 3 of the 4 foreigners (westerns) left the school at the end of February because their contracts expired. The school hired 4 more foreigners to replace those 3. Two came from the UK, one from Ireland, the other from Cali. These teachers have never taught before and have never been to Korea before. Luckily, all of them are really nice and easy to work with (so far). Understandably, it's just been a tad confusing for them starting at an already confusing time of the year.
My schedule totally changed. Before March, I came to school at about 12 (noon); now, I have to come in at 9am to prep and teach 4 kindergarten (kindy) classes in the morning. I usually enjoy teaching kindy, but not now. My kids in the past were awesome. They only spoke English, and we had a good time together. However, my kids now can only speak Korean and don't really want to be there. I try to act crazy and get them laughing, but it is such a struggle. They even have difficulty repeating me. I can't even play games with them because they don't understand my instructions. Oh, I don't want to go to work in the mornings. I have one class of 5-year-olds (4 in US age); they can't do anything. There is one kid in there that is deathly afraid of me. She always cries when I come in and wants her mommy. However, I'm starting to think that she just hates English. She will hug me and play around with me, but she hates it when we do English work. She runs out of the classroom for a Korean. The help teacher has to sit with her out in the hallway so she can listen to us. My kindy class from before was awesome (as I mentioned); all of them are still here so they still run up to me and hug me and try to tickle me. It's sort of taunt; it just reminds me of how good I used to have it.
My afternoon/elementary classes have gone pretty good. Most of them are pretty excited and energetic, which I like. They're having fun so far so that makes me happy. Actually, I would be totally satisfied if I came in and just did afternoon classes that would be so much better. Even though it requires more planning, it's not as frustrating as kindy. I just hope it stays that way once they are all comfortable in their new classes.
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