Long Time, No See!

Hey guys:

Its been a while, I know. Not my fault. Again, its those dumb Incheon Metro Educational Board Overlords: they blocked this blogsite at work...again. I guess they seriously don't want me to spread "information" about their school system to ya'll...very sensitive information indeed. Ya know, they don't want to hear how good and how smart their Korean students are...yeah.

I love writing this blog, its a creative avenue for me to express some things that words cannot express, and its a shame that these fools blocked this site at work, because I could write my experiences as they happen, but now I am stuck in this smoke filled PC Cafe in the middle of Yeonsu. Anyhow, what's been going in my life lately?

Final exams. This time not for me, ha ha ha...I remember them days...no more. Well at least, not for now. (Graduate school anyone?)

But teaching has been challenging this week, and not just for me, but for about every other native English teacher here in South Korea. This kids have final exams, adding to the factor that my class is taught for no grades on their records, what incentive is there for them to learn from my class? Zilch. I'm a glorified tape recorder for once a week, but I kid. My job is important.

Last Monday, I had one of the most toughest classes up to date. Long story short, I wanted to continue to do an activity from last week (each homeroom class has my class once a week), because we could not finish in time last week. Basically the activity was having the kids to split up into groups of four and create their own English dialog and act it out. Not that hard. I simply told this one class, class 1-9, "bring your dialogs back next week, because we will finish them and act them out, competition-style, the best team wins a prize." The co-teacher, Mrs. Elizabeth, even translated that order into Korean. Keep in mind, the other freshmen classes all remembered to bring their dialogs back to finish the class. Except this one black egg class I have.

Guess what? Class 1-9, about half of the kids, which is about 20, forgot to bring them. The result? Half of the kids are just sitting down and working, while the other half are sitting there talking in Korean. Suddenly, Mrs. Elizabeth blows up on them and made this "bad" half sit in the back, on the bare floor, hands raised, and knees on the ground. Its a form of Korean punishment for laziness in the classroom.

She was ticked.

"No materials, no interest, and no preparation, I am angry at the situation," she told me. "Mark, it'll be a good idea to start a new lesson every week because these kids will easily forget what they did the last week."

So, half of the kids are sitting in the back while she is giving them a Korean verbal bashing of a lifetime.

I never felt so awkward during my teaching tenure here: half of the class is getting punished (and keep in mind, Korean student punishment is ten times worse than in the United States), and me working with the other half on their dialogs...it was weird.

During lunch, Mrs. Elizabeth and I got into a heated discussion, but not an arguement, about the proper teaching philosophy of the class. We both were getting into it, but again, keep in mind, it was just a discussion, not an arguement. But it still raised the attention of the other teachers who were eating, who were looking at us, probably thinking we were going at it. We were discussing how we can improve the class and what are the best methods to motivate this particular class.

However, the issue at hand was that these kids came into class today, unprepared, not caring, and certainly not ready to do any English speaking today. I already blew up on the class once, with Mrs. Elizabeth putting her foot down with me, because class 1-9 is a tough class to teach sometimes. What's more tough is that there are good students in the class, those who speak English pretty well, but I feel bad because these kids can't really speak in a class that's full of misfits. Remember, Korea is a group mentality nation: deviate from the group, you get made fun of.

But other than that, it was a great week! The rest of the classes were on top of the game, despite this one black egg of a class. Well, I exaggerate, 1-9 are a decent class, but its frustrating when these kids think your class is not that important. Well, that's a discussion for another day. The other classes brought their dialogs, and alot of the classes were hilarious in acting out their dialogs, speaking with funny accents and acting out their parts really well...so the lesson was well worth it.

Yet life goes on, I'm loving my job, my experience in Korea, and each day makes me stronger. My life is sacred, and only the Lord empowers those who love Him, and we are heirs of God through Jesus Christ (Check Romans chapter 8). Next week is finals, so I can have a few days off to get prepared for the next stage of my teaching for the summer: summer camps...mwa ha ha ha ha!