Monday, March 10, 2008

Back at it again


My school started up again last week. That would be monday the 3rd just in case if you happened to be thinking, "hmmm what was the date last week?" Glad I could be of service. Anyway, I'm still teaching the 5th and 6th grade classes. The semester is stacked like it was last semester except for my fridays. Every day I have 4 classes but on friday, what use to be the greatest day in the world, I now have 5 classes. So that is 4 before lunch and 1 after. It's not soo bad but oh well. It does mean that they can only give me 3 hours of extra classes to do instead of the possible 4 they could give me last year since I only have to work a max of 24 hrs a week in class time. They still make me sit at my desk for 4 hrs after my classes are finished. I'm suppose to be doing work, but I really, and still, don't have any. So what do I do? Well sometimes I read, sometimes I look stuff up, sometimes I bull shit with co-workers. But the rest of the time I play games or watch internet T.V. I use to try to hide it, the fact that I don't do anything...but now every single person in the whole school knows it so what's the point? I'm the resident foreigner, I DO WHAT I WANT! This is the same reason I have been riding my motorcycle around Korea without a license plate. If the cops pull me over i'll just speak English to them and they will get so frustrated that they will just tell me to leave. They are mostly little rich kids that are trying to dodge their military obligation. Their parents tell them to become cops and that takes the place of their service. It's so funny. You will see a platoon of police officers walking down the street two by two and any where from one pair to half of them will be holding hands. It's probably the funniest thing I have ever seen. How are you suppose to take them seriously? Although...with my luck i'll get the one cop who speaks fluent English. BUT WAIT! I'M PREPARED! I can just play stupid and say that the guy that sold me the bike told me that 125cc's and under don't need plates. OH GOD! A GENIUS I AM! Back to my school talk.

Last week started a new semester, so the 5th grade (that I hated to no end) are now my 6th graders, and the 4th graders from last year are my new 5th graders. I can't tell you how much I love the 5th graders. They are all so small and cute and soooo eager to learn. And if they aren't eager to learn they sure do a good job of faking it. Unfortunately I still hate my 6th graders. Even the first day of class for them they still do the old "talk while Jake is talking, he doesn't care" thing. Guess what, I CARE. I basically decided to tell them that if they behaved and listened and stayed quite they would have more fun, because I would be willing to make more interesting and fun lessons for them. Otherwise we could just work out of the book and it can be boring. I really hope they took that under consideration because my 6th grade co-teacher is sooo much better at English and we can make it so much more fun for them. I heard from other teachers at the end of last year that the 4th grade is so pleasant to work with, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. That description is right on. I just hope it lasts and they aren't behaving just because it's the first week. For this year I'm giving all of them English names. Side note: My co-teacher put Elf as one of the names on the list, for some reason the girls love it. When they ask me if they can have that name I try not to laugh. But it's always the cutest and smallest girl that asks so it's kinda fitting.....Back: one of the girls was trying to ask me how to say a name that was on the list so she looks at me, holds the paper up, and says to me in a Korean accent and under a cute little face, "teacher speak English." I started laughing. I always say that to them. This was the first time a student said it to me. I knew what she meant but I found it incredibly funny. After I gave them all names I told them we would work on pronunciation.

I now now longer let them call me Jay-Kuh (even though I have kinda grown fond of it. That rule might give out soon.) I told them to resist the urge to put a vowel sound on the end of everything they say. I began to tell them, "It's not Jay-kuh anymore, it's Jake. This is not English-e class anymore, it's English. This is not a desk-uh anymore it's a desk. Do you understand??" They all agreed. I then asked them, "so what is my name?" One 5th grade, was incredibly excited and yelled out "DESK!" He realized he said desk instead of Jake and immediately slammed his head down on the desk as everybody erupted in laughter. Basically, I love my 5th graders and I hate my 6th graders. I'm buying a BB gun and I am going to shoot everyone who talks. I'VE HAD ENOUGH and it's only the 2nd week of school. The funny thing is that I won't get in trouble for doing that...still might be a bad idea though.

No comments: