First Time Teacher

Monday, October 4th was my first day of officially teaching. How this school works is there is regular school in the morning and then I teach "after school" English in the afternoon. In the morning classes, we use text books and CD-ROMs probably provided by the government (since public schools are gov't run) that have lessons. I co-teach with Eun Mee, which basically means I say everything that is in English a bunch of times and the students repeat it a bunch of times. Listening and repeating is how teaching them Eng works here. I say something and they repeat it...repeat, repeat, repeat...

So students come to English class with me and Eun Mee teaching 2 times a week, at other times, they are in basically their homeroom or science class etc... I only co-teach grades 3-6 in the morning. Grades 1 and 2 do not have English class. They don't really learn English, unless they listen during after school with me. After lunch is "after school". I am pretty sure kids will have random classes (music etc...) or sometimes just get to go home. OR they have after school English class, which I teach all by myself.

I was told that I am to teach gr. 1 and 2 and songs, chants, games and phonics. Grades 3-6 is all of the previous things as well as writing (and I have been incorporating the lessons into after school). It takes some time to prepare but I have time in between classes which I use to do so. All classes are 40 mins long with a 10 min break in between. Grades 4, 5 and 6 have back to back after school so a total of 80 mins, but we use all the time up no problem. I give them a 10 min break in between.

My English Room

(Which is temporary, I will have a totally remodeled English Centre in Nov.)

view from my desk

kinda crowded and hard to get around the tables

My desk at the far left-hand corner :)

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The huge TV they see the CD-ROM stuff on/Power Point

So Monday I had 5th Eng, 1st period which is easy breezy...co-teaching is really simple and Eun Mee is there to keep them under control. My first after school class that day was 1st grade, which was quite the experience. Their teacher brought them to my class then left. I started with "head and shoulders..." and they liked that so I thought I was off to a good start. But then one by one they just started to not care or listen and do their own thing. This involved walking around going into drawers, taking out puppets and playing with them (more like banging the puppets together), climbing our makeshift puppet stage, walking across the tables and running around after each other and hitting etc... Absolute madness is what I would call it! And because they do not understand a word of English (except "hello" and "goodbye") they do NOT listen at all!!
In the other classes I teach with Eun Mee, you can say "attention!" and they clap their hands "clap, clap clap, clap" and they quiet down. I tried that and it DID NOT work! ha

Grade 1 artwork, for those who listened!

we were learning parts of the body...

so I told them to draw a person

They draw better than me, and they are only 8!

All the other after school classes have been ok, thank goodness the 2nd grade teacher stayed with her class in my class so they didn't get unruly. I think I like Grade 3 the best. Most of them listen and if you play games they like it. Grade 5 is really good too. Grade 6 is ok to teach...some of them act like they are too "cool for school" but they are listening cause they answer random questions that the class is struggling to answer. Kids are hilarious, especially the older ones. Eun Mee tells me who has a crush on who etc...and I almost blew her cover. I was like "so do you like him too?" and Eun Mee was like shhhh, it's a secret...I guess she didn't want the student to know that she told me! CUTE!


I always heard that when you teach in Asia you got to give the kids English names. After a week this didn't happen so I thought to myself, I have a very hard task to remember all 133 kids names and most of them have 2 first names! Although I will get most of them by the end of the year, I was sort of bummed I didn't get to name them. But then, at the end of my first gr 6 after school class they asked for Eng names! yipee!! I asked each student if they wanted me to choose or they could choose. Most wanted me to choose but I would always have to name a bunch of names because they are very picky!! One girl changed her name twice! The funniest are Obama, Potter (and his friend is Harry), and one girl chose her own name, Sky, which is pretty :) I am so happy about this and I think it will help me remember their real names too (I made a spreadsheet!).


Things I love about teaching: 
-one student came out of nowhere, just knocked on my door and came in and asked for help! It felt so great :) 
-when they understand me! I have to make lots of gestures but it is so great when they actually get what you are saying
-when they say HI in the hallway and work so hard to have a response to "how are you?"
-I will love it when halfway through my contract they speak better English...surprisingly they don't  really understand when I say simple things to them (maybe too much drilling) so I hope to get them really speaking English and understanding...this is my goal
-just their cute little faces and quirky personalities, some have BIG personalities and some small but the quiet ones equally amazing


I love teaching and I am actually really excited I am finally doing what I have always wanted to do. I am also excited to go back to school and learn about teaching. 


Haha, and it has only been basically 2 days...