This last week marked our first month living in Korea. So far it's been a very up and down journey with a broken bathroom, spicy food, a fun volunteer experience at the orphanage, a fixed bathroom, good students and not so good students. We look forward to the many more experiences and adventures in the coming eleven months. But enough of that; on to this last week's highlights.
Last Sunday, we went to a foreign church service at Simin International Church in Ulsan. It was good to worship with other believers together after more than a month of not attending a church. Unfortunately the main pastor was out of town so a member from the congregation preached a sermon about names and their significance. It was okay but we want to go again to hear the main pastor give a sermon. Also, apparently, in summertime church attendance drops as many people leave to go on vacation, so there were even less young foreign teachers there than we expected. Nevertheless we were able to go out to lunch with a group of foreign English teachers in attendance that Sunday. In celebration of July 4th we decided to go and get the traditional American food, burgers and fries, at a burger place pretty close to where we live. The food, although a little pricy, was not bad and it was good to connect with other Christian English teachers.
The work week was fairly uneventful for both Scott and Amy with a few exceptions. On Monday, Scott was informed of a kindergarten field trip to the Ulsan whale museum happening the following day at 9:30 am that he was required to go on. Despite the very short notice, he had a fun time with his students at the museum. There were dolphins, a small aquarium of many different fish, and a 4D movie with sharks, a giant squid, puffs of air and water, and, therefore, many crying children.
On Thursday evening after work, Amy and a fellow foreign teacher at her school, Rachel, were invited to their boss, Cathy's house for pizza and chicken. Amy had a nice time getting to know her boss more and the free pizza and chicken wasn't bad either. On Friday night, Scott attended a farewell dinner for fellow Korean teacher who was quitting. It was a great farewell dinner with delicious food. Yesterday, Scott and Amy cleaned the apartment in the morning and went to Ilsan beach with Rochelle and a couple other foreign English teachers in the afternoon. We had a relaxing time talking and laying on the beach. Finally, today was spent lounging around the apartment reading and relaxing. It has been raining since last night non-stop, which swayed us against going to the orphanage and in favor of having a lazy day at the apartment.
We are looking forward to several trips coming up, including an overnight trip to Seoul this coming weekend.
Well I need to get to bed now. We will write again soon.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Quite a few things have happened in the past several weeks, and we are finally feeling more settled in Korea. We got our bathroom fixed a few weeks ago, and we are starting to get used to the fact that the shower in Korea is merely a shower head attached to the wall.
We also finally got our alien cards (a form of Korean ID), so we were able to set up our bank accounts on Friday and get our cell phones yesterday (we are still trying to figure out how to make our phones work in English).
Last week's teaching was a bit more stressful than usual. On Tuesday Amy had a parent's meeting, where one of her classes performed memorized speeches and other English-speaking skills for their parents. It is a way for the hagwan to impress the parents with their child's English skills (although it is not really English skill, merely rote memorization). They feel that this will convince the parents to keep their child in our hagwan and not send them to another one. These meetings are stressful for both the foreign and English teachers because they are expected to put on a perfect performance for the parents. It falls on our shoulders to make sure the students know their speeches, as well as for us to memorize comments to say to the parents. Parent's meetings are probably the worst part of working at the hagwan. Luckily, neither of us have a parent's meeting coming up in the next few months.
On Thursday, we switched schools to get more "training" and to be observed by teachers at the other school (which of course was completely pointless as the two campuses do things very differently and we were already in the swing of things at our own schools). We were both observed by the school's directors as well as some of the teachers, and they gave us "comments" on our teaching. The one thing we learned from the experience is that Amy's campus is overall much better than Scott's--the schedule is better planned and everything is much more organized. There is also more collaboration between the Korean and foreign teachers, which helps the classes run smoother. It was also interesting for us to experience teaching each other's kids, as we have both heard so much from the other about them.
Last Sunday we went to the Ulsan orphanage. Scott had a great time playing soccer with the high schoolers, and Amy had fun playing with preschoolers and babies. The orphanage seems very well run and not over-crowded. The buildings seem fairly new, and the children have plenty of space both inside and out to run around. It honestly felt more like a day-care center than an orphanage. We also met quite a few foreigners--mostly Americans and Canadians. We plan to make the orphanage visit a bi-weekly event.
The next few weeks of teaching should be much less eventful than last week. Both of us our hoping that our worst classes will improve their behavior. Amy's worst class just changed from having 9 students to 13 which will be an added challenge to her days.
We are looking forward to celebrating Scott's birthday on the 19th, and to our summer vacation from July 29th to August 2nd. It is only a 5 day weekend, but we are taking a trip to Jeju Island (the Korean version of America's Hawaii).
We also finally got our alien cards (a form of Korean ID), so we were able to set up our bank accounts on Friday and get our cell phones yesterday (we are still trying to figure out how to make our phones work in English).
Last week's teaching was a bit more stressful than usual. On Tuesday Amy had a parent's meeting, where one of her classes performed memorized speeches and other English-speaking skills for their parents. It is a way for the hagwan to impress the parents with their child's English skills (although it is not really English skill, merely rote memorization). They feel that this will convince the parents to keep their child in our hagwan and not send them to another one. These meetings are stressful for both the foreign and English teachers because they are expected to put on a perfect performance for the parents. It falls on our shoulders to make sure the students know their speeches, as well as for us to memorize comments to say to the parents. Parent's meetings are probably the worst part of working at the hagwan. Luckily, neither of us have a parent's meeting coming up in the next few months.
On Thursday, we switched schools to get more "training" and to be observed by teachers at the other school (which of course was completely pointless as the two campuses do things very differently and we were already in the swing of things at our own schools). We were both observed by the school's directors as well as some of the teachers, and they gave us "comments" on our teaching. The one thing we learned from the experience is that Amy's campus is overall much better than Scott's--the schedule is better planned and everything is much more organized. There is also more collaboration between the Korean and foreign teachers, which helps the classes run smoother. It was also interesting for us to experience teaching each other's kids, as we have both heard so much from the other about them.
Last Sunday we went to the Ulsan orphanage. Scott had a great time playing soccer with the high schoolers, and Amy had fun playing with preschoolers and babies. The orphanage seems very well run and not over-crowded. The buildings seem fairly new, and the children have plenty of space both inside and out to run around. It honestly felt more like a day-care center than an orphanage. We also met quite a few foreigners--mostly Americans and Canadians. We plan to make the orphanage visit a bi-weekly event.
The next few weeks of teaching should be much less eventful than last week. Both of us our hoping that our worst classes will improve their behavior. Amy's worst class just changed from having 9 students to 13 which will be an added challenge to her days.
We are looking forward to celebrating Scott's birthday on the 19th, and to our summer vacation from July 29th to August 2nd. It is only a 5 day weekend, but we are taking a trip to Jeju Island (the Korean version of America's Hawaii).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)