Thursday, March 24, 2011

Pursuit of Life

"Find life experiences and swallow them whole. Travel. Meet many people. Go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys. Try everything. Exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life" - Lawrence K. Fish
I found this great quote very true to my own life right now.
Go out and try something new...
Travel to new places...
Meet new people...
Open your eyes to novel experiences...
I wholeheartedly believe that your life will become richer by doing so.




P.S. I also KNOW I need to make some more time for my blogging. I promise (for the billionth time) more updates are on their way. I have just been busy with getting used to my schedule for the new school year. I told you all at the beginning that I am bad at this blogging thing :)

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

2011 School Year: Week One

Thursday and Friday were my first few days of classes this year. I've been basically just doing name tags with them and playing some games. I figured I would start off my first full week of teaching (this week) with rules and all of that boring stuff!

A few observations, thoughts, and rants:
- I sometimes forget how incredibly creative, funny, and intelligent my students are... even the lower level English students. Given the opportunity, kids will shine :)
- I was a little nervous to be teaching after over 2 months out of the classroom. It was almost as if I was teaching again for the first time. Seeing those cute, familiar faces looking back at me made all of that go away. (And they still yell out "SANTA BAR-BA-RAAAA" and "CAL-I-FORNEYA" every chance they get, from my first introduction back in October)

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

How to Handle your New Native English Teacher

Happy first day of school! And welcome to the new spring Native English Teacher bunch.
I found this little article on waygook.org and found it pretty amusing if you are an English teacher like myself.
If you are not, each native English teacher is given a Korean co-teacher to help them with any needs inside and outside of school. It is done to help the native teacher adjust to their surroundings and understand what is going on at school.... basically, I can't speak Korean and have no idea how Korea works so I need a Korean's help. Also, it helps to have someone at school who you (hopefully) trust and can talk to about anything going on.
Enjoy :)


Foreign Teacher Operating Instructions

These are my fantasy instructions for dealing with native English teachers like myself.  Tact is very important in Korea, so while I tried to bring these things up gently when necessary, I couldn't hand out a booklet of operating instructions.  It was so tempting though, that I'm posting them here for your enjoyment instead.  This is meant to be funny, and not an indictment of Korean teachers: most of the teachers I worked with were very accommodating.  For the few that need all of this advice, though:
Congratulations!  You are now the lucky handler of a genuine Native English Teacher, specially imported from one of the Six Major English Speaking Nations.  Please follow these instructions carefully in order to assure optimum performance.
   1. Remember that your foreign teacher is a human being, and not actually an English practice robot.  Generally, when you speak to her, she will assume that you are attempting to have a conversation, and as such, upon being asked for the fifteenth time whether she knows what kimchi is, will assume that you think she is stupid, and possibly give you a public telling-off.  If you feel you need practice with the phrase "Have you tried kimchi?," please attend her free conversation class.