How do you teach children the meaning of words like “about”, “except” and “would” when they don’t understand the words used to define them?

You draw comics about hamburgers and hope that the repetition of the words somehow implants meaning into their brains.

When teaching verbs, draw big information sheets and make them rewrite the definitions. That way, they at least know what to say if someone asks them what a verb is. We’re still working on the comprehension part of the learning process ;)

Oh, and since the last post I’ve been given 15 brand new students (ranging from age 3-9). FIFTEEN! Oh, and my core and support classes were combined to form one awesome class of eight. Welcome to my class Rachel, Kelly and Will.

Here they are: The Kiddies :)

Well, I’ve had a CRAZY few weeks! Since my last real post: the internet was lost and then regained a week and some later, I’ve been through exams, report cards and lesson plan making for the kids, I’ve created my portion of a unit test, corrected countless homework pages, made a multitude of paper caterpillars, flowers, bumble bees and trees, and have been had one of my fave afternoon classes canceled… and replaced with 7 new kindergarteners teaching the most intro of English courses availible. Oh, and I’ve lost two kids from my IK support class. But I’ll talk more about that later :) For now, here they are~ My Intensive Kindergarten ‘homeroom’:

(Left to right: Sue, Alan, Michelle, Me, Harry P. and Harry L. is the kid doing the peace sign :)

For our August fieldtrip we went to the Coex Aquarium in Seoul. I’m convinced that I didn’t even look at a single fish – with five kids to keep track of and the inconvienent truth that all Asian children look alike from behind, I prayed constantly I wouldn’t lose one of them in the mass that was *seven* kindergarten schools combined into one fish museum. Yes, it seemed to be national fieldtrip day… and it didn’t help that most of the schools seemed to have the white and blue uniforms in abundance. We made it out alive, with the kids enjoying themselves and the teachers trying not to panic.

These are the typical looks of Harry L. and Harry P. Their characters are accurately reflected in this shot. Harry L. is the serious, contemplative thinker of the group. He is going through the lovely “why?!” phase, and uses this favourite word at least 10034 times per class. Harry P. loves attention and spends his time trying to look cute. When he’s not looking cute and being brilliant he’s usually crying because someone wants him to share 2 of his 23 blocks. These boys weren’t getting along on this day, and it’s awesome that they calmed down enough for this picture… thank goodness for the girls:

Sue and Michelle. Just wonderful kids. Sue wants to be a doctor when she grows up and spends class time being the mother for everyone else. Getting the boys tissues when they cry (Harry P. and Harry L. are both still growing into their manhood), and patching up Alan after his latest collision with ____insert any object that’s sharp here____. Michelle wants to be an artist. She is a true perfectionist when it comes to arts and crafts, spending a record hour and twenty minutes making one paper bumblebee. Sue made three bees in less than half the time. They welcome me each day with smiles and “KATIE TEACHER!!!!” enthusiasm :) Looooove them.

The next shot was taken between “teeeaaachhhheeer. we’re hunnnnnngrrrryy / I doooonnn’t waaaannntt toooo waiiiiiiit” whines. As much as I sympathized with the little dudes, I found their looks of total dispair to be at least slightly amusing, and proceeded to photograph them. In all their anxiety, Harry L. at least managed to pull himself together enough to form his traditional “peace” sign. Classy.

And then there was Alan. He rarely complains. He’s a huge cuddler and is always asking for/giving hugs. In the midst of his classmates whining, he took the opportunity to poke me and say “teacher, picture.” What a good kid. This was his chosen pose:

Once I got them all fed and watered, the boys calmed down and my entire class was willing to offer me happy smiles :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well… except for Harry P. He was trying so hard not to grin it was great :)

Then, in the midst of all the complaining children, and exhausted teachers, you have moments where the kids just win your heart:

and there is no place in the world you would rather be than sitting next to them and smiling so much your cheeks hurt for hours afterwards :)

 

Next to my homeroom kids (who are called my ‘core’ class), there is another homeroom class (Anthony’s) who serves as my ‘support’ class. While I teach both my kids and Anthony’s kids Language arts five times a week, Anthony will teach his class and my class a combination of Math, Science and Social studies. Essentially, I see these kids quite a bit as well:

The tallest guy is obviously Anthony. He’s a great partner teacher :) The smiling boy next to him is Justin. He’s a brilliant, hyper kid. Then we have Draco. He was my star student, acing anything that was thrown at him in record time. Below Draco is Will. Will is insane. He’s fully capable of mass manipulation and he’s a true leader in every sense of the word. Luckily, Anthony and I seem to have gotten on his good side (another teacher alegedly got on his bad side and ended up quitting after a month due to stress). and in general he’s managable. Then we have Rachel sporting the stylish glasses and hair bow and Kelly. 

  For complicated reasons Justin and Draco ended up dropping out of GDA and heading off to another place. They will be missed!

The only good thing about their departure is that Will will now have two less hyper children to lead in his classroom domination. He also no longer has to compete for the girls attention. Recently he decided that he’s Rachel’s man though… he wrote all about this decision in his journal for me. Poor Kelly is losing her Draco. It’s a tragic world really.

Finally, in honor of my ‘co-blogger’ (that’s right Jen, you’re getting the half quotes – this is my challenge for you to actually make a post ;) we have her lovely class of 10 – that’s right, TEN – 5 year olds. If you count them, there appears to only be nine children in this picture. I can assure you there are 10. Asian kids are just amazingly brilliant at camouflage. Aren’t they happy looking? :) So cute though!

   
Well, that’s all for now! I hope I’ve satisfied the requests for pictures of the kids :) I wish everybody a wonderful last week of summer, and a happy “back to school” for all!

~Katie

Travel Mugs, First Days, and Pink.

Hello everybody!

It’s been about a week and a half now that I’ve been in Korea… and I am loving it so far!

This is one of the many phrases that I’ve loved discovering in Korea. It is on my travel mug. :)

Friday was my first solo teaching day, and it went fabulously. These kids are just so cute that my jaw has been super sore lately due to over-using my smile muscles. I teach six different groups of students, and each and every one of these kids fascinate me. They all have such different personalities and they are so full of life! In Canadian ages they range from about 5 years old to around 10 years old (I think?!), and they are pretty much brilliant. Remember when we were in Kindergarten and learned the Alphabet and how to count and stuff? These kids learn about “blends” and “special titles” and “homophones” and “compound words” and how to tell time and describe nouns and use effective adjectives and properly capitalize all months, seasons, days of the week and holidays. They are spelling words like "minute” (note: the use of this word was intended as a descriptive of something ‘tiny’) and “triceratops” and so forth. They write in full sentences, sound out spellings like pros and are completely capable of describing how the phonetic long vowel sound will affect the spelling of their words. Communication barriers are practically non-existent with my kids as they are pretty crazy good with their English (well, as much as young kids could be)… and did I mention how insanely cute they are?

Yesterday completed my 1.5 week break from reliable internet. I am so thrilled to have access to the web once more. Being in a foreign land is quite complicated when you don’t have internet maps to rely on, or ways to look up information! My now stable source of internet was made available to me upon moving into my official apartment :) That’s right! I’m HOME! This little place is all mine for the next 355 days (ish).

Any of you who know me know that I’ve never been the girl who whole heartedly embraced the color pink. Well, out of necessity, this has now changed. My life has become a vast sea of pink-happiness. I never intended to have pink as my primary life color, but it appears to be fate. This is what I found when I entered my apartment:

Well, to be a bit more honest, it wasn’t quite organized like this… but all of the pink things you see here were left in the apartment for these purposes. Well, except the apron. That was given to me by my Nannie Austin (thanks Nannie!). It just conveniently matched everything. For those of you who are very interested in the apartment, I shall include some more photos (though, Danielle, I confess I did not take one from every possible angle as requested :).

This is my very pink couch… and blanket. It’s pretty cozy, and it seems to match the rest of the decor rather splendidly :)

To the right here is my table and chair set. I’m actually rather fond of them. The lamp and telephone are pretty sweet and leave the room feeling just a little bit Asian retro. Snazzy!



This is the other side of my apartment. It has a wonderful wardrobe, microwave, kitchen and rice-cooker. Please note the pink tiles. Let’s zoom in on these shall we?

This is my pink cooking area. Marvelous isn’t it? The pink dish sponge is a lovely touch don’t you think? Korean kitchens don’t tend to have stoves, so I’m going to be getting used to using a gas-range stove-top for all my cooking needs. The lack of counter space is made up for by the awesome sink nozzle. It’s almost as bendy as a pipe cleaner. Off-screen: pink garbage bags.

~*~

And what apartment would be complete without a pink tiled bathroom, with a pink sink, pink toilet, pink loofa and a pink toothpaste cup? Certainly not mine. Notice the mirror: 360 degrees of pink here people. Be amazed. I sure was.

~*~

The other side of the apartment is a bit less pink. Aside from the pink candle, the desk only hints of its surroundings. Oh, and behind the map there is a room with a washing-machine that plays a full piece of music when it completes its load. Everything here has nifty jingles.

There is really only one place in the room where pink is upstaged. With a lovely hand-me-down comforter and bedset from the former apartment owner, I have created a sort of sanctuary. Here it is folks. My orange and purple haven:

I am actually growing really fond of this place! There is a children’s play park right outside my window and I love being able to hear the children playing while I type :)

Well, there have been a whole ton of other interesting things that happened this weekend, but this blog has already reached epic length. I’ll update again soon! The next instalment will probably be entitled “Humerous English phrases written on greeting cards, Getting lost while trying to find a specific Church, and My experience with Korean Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

~Katie