My Kindergartners Are HOW Old?!?!

The first week of work in Korea has come to an end and it was exhausting! I was slated to start my training days on Wednesday, but after having dinner Monday night with the couple from our schools, I decided to go in Tuesday to get a feel for the school. Turns out, this was a very wise choice! Monday marks the beginning of the new school year here, so Wednesday is when the new kindergarten students get to come to school for orientation. Wednesday-Friday the new students come in from 10-12 and get adjusted to the school. Had I not come in on Tuesday, I literally would have come in at 9:40 on Wednesday morning and had 11 “5” year-olds to teach 20 minutes later! The reason for the quotes is that my kids are only 5 according to Korean rules. Technically, they have birthdays ranging from 2004-2006 so they are basically 3 and 4. Koreans are all considered one year-old at birth and gain a year on the New Year, not their actual birthday. So anyway, I have the “babies” as we refer to them at CIS for part of my day.

The babies will be a big challenge. About 2 of my students know any English and this is very limited to basic words such as ‘hi’ or ‘yes’. The rest stare at me blankly when I talk and speak to me in Korean. They also don’t understand things such as ‘repeat’ or ‘your turn’, so it is very difficult to get them to say anything. Many of them pick English names, and most of them can say and recognize these. My favorite English name picked by one of my students is Shine. There are some other creative ones throughout the school as well such as Mint and Berry Berry. My lessons this week have consisted of lots of hand motions and speaking to them as much as possible. Like I said, it is really just an adjustment period; Monday is when the real learning will start. Friday we made cupcakes, which is apparently a universally fun activity! Parents will also be interesting. The parents here can be very picky about their children’s’ teachers. Most don’t care about your qualifications or how you teach; they are more interested in if you are tiny and pretty. One of my baby’s mom’s commented to my Korean supervisor that I looked like a Barbie doll. I thought this might be a negative thing (especially because Barbie doesn’t have the best rep in America) but I was told by members of the staff that this is a good sign.

Normally I will teach the babies from 10-2:30 and then have afternoon classes. This week, the old afternoon classes were finishing up, so I was free to decorate my classroom and attempt to lesson plan in the afternoon. I also received my afternoon schedule. Monday through Friday I will teach an ESL starter class from 3-4:20. These kids (who I have 7 of) are about equivalent age wise to first graders, but their English level is similar to my babies. I have been told that this is one of the most frustrating and challenging classes to teach, mostly because parents treat it as an after-school daycare option and are not extremely interested in their kids actually learning English. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I will teach BC grade 3 from 4:30-7:20. These kids (who I have 5 of) are equivalent to third graders in age and should be pretty good English speakers. BC just stands for the curriculum that we use with them. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be very long, intense days.

On Thursday, my Korean supervisor (each class has a Korean staff member who is in charge of talking with the parents, translating at conferences, and helping out in difficult situations) took me and one of the other new girls to our required health checks. It was an interesting process that consisted of your basic health things (such as hearing/eye test, height/weight, blood pressure) and some interesting things like a chest x-ray and drawing 3 vials of blood. I am assuming I passed, although it is hard to tell since everything on the form was in Korean! This is the first step in obtaining my alien registration card which will then allow me to get a Korean bank account.

My biggest frustration with teaching right now has been the lack of training by the school. Almost no guidance is giving. I have had to gather all my information from when staff meetings are held to how much math we teach per week from the other foreign teachers (we have about 12 on staff). The teacher I am replacing has been a HUGE help and I am sooo grateful for her! The Koreans do everything very last minute, which will probably be my biggest hurdle to overcome since I do not operate in that manner. For example, I still don’t have half of my textbooks for the classes that start on Monday, which makes lesson planning very hard.

Friday night, Meg met me up by my school, which is 5 subway stops away from our apartment. We went out for drinks with most of my co-workers and then to dinner with a group of them. We had a really tasty Korean dish with chicken, glass noodles, peppers and some sauce. For the life of me, I can’t remember what it is called. Meg and I have discovered that a lot of the food is really tasty but we have no clue what we are eating! We recently discovered that one of the more common side dishes is radishes, and I actually really enjoy these! We had a side dish of fruit in fruit dip the other night which was also delicious! The fruit dish was the first sweet thing we had discovered at meals. The Koreans have very little food that is sweet; they mainly stick to the spicy. We also had our first taste of Soju on Friday night, which is a traditional Korean liquor that the Koreans drink like water here. Honestly, 2 people will go through 2 or 3 bottles at dinner alone.

The traffic is another thing here that takes some getting used to. Koreans tend to drive where ever they feel like. The sidewalk is not off limits for vehicles of any kind. Also, pedestrian right-away does not exist – not even on the sidewalks. I have tuned out a couple of times walking to work only to discover a car is almost backing into me on the sidewalk. Mopeds are very common here – especially as delivery vehicles since everything (and I do mean everything. Even McDonalds) delivers. The moped drivers weave in and out of traffic like you wouldn’t believe. Some other rules are that running red lights is fine and car horns should be used as much as possible.

More to come on this later, but apparently teacher gifts are outlandish here, especially if you teach in the rich areas. For example, one of the teachers in my school received an 8gig i-pod nano today as a last day of school gift. Also common is money and gift cards to department stores in amounts such as w200, 000. Yikes. Meg and I will report on any gifts we may receive throughout the year.

More will be coming soon. Our next post will be focusing on such fascinating topics as rice cakes, noraebong, cell phones, our new-found furnishings and teaching Koreans the proper use for air quotes!