Kids in Korea

This is going to be a kick ass year. I had my first day of work today and it couldn't have been easier. I was a bit nervous going in, though I was more nervous to meet my co-workers than to teach really. My co-teachers are all really cool and I think we'll get along great.

And the classes were awesome. I started at 8:30 and taught taught six classes, observed three. I teach kids from kinder to elementary and all of them are insane. I was kinda hoping for the stereotypical model Asian student. Quiet, polite, well behaved these students were not. Half of my classes were pretty good, though I think they were pretty excitable due to the fact they had a new teacher. The other half spent a good portion of their class out of their seats, screaming and running around. One kid spent a good twenty minutes running up to the front of the class to hit my butt. Between classes I would chase kids around the corridors and under their desks with them howling with laughter the whole time. It was a riot.

So I learned pretty quickly any lesson plans I might have are out the window and I'll have to switch to a rapid fire technique: quick excercises and games to keep them entertained before they take matters into their own hands. I've been told that the emphasis is more on fun and entertainment than on actual learning which makes sense if you understand the school system here. My school isn't a state school at all and is more of an afterschool program. This is EXTRA school. For 4-5 hours a day. Even more impressive is the fact that it's now winter break for these kids and they are still going to school. Learning English here is like what playing a music instrument is in the states. You do it for a few years while you're a kid then drop it after you grow up. This leads to a much more lax system at the English agencies (called Hagwons) around the country. That's not to say that I won't be doing real teaching, it will just be a lot different from the Czech businessmen that I was teaching before. I mean, none of them ever made a game out of hitting my butt...