World Cup Stadium

I don't have too much to say but wanted to go ahead and blog about a cool experience from the weekend so I did not forget to include it in the next one. Sunday a big group from school went to the FC Seoul soccer game at World Cup Stadium. I have never been a big fan of soccer but I will have to say that it was a fun experience and awesome to go visit World Cup Stadium. Molly and I have planned out the rest of April with outings to do on the weekends so I have a lot to look forward to including LMFAO concert, Cherry Blossom Festival and a weekend temple stay. Stay tuned for stories from all these exciting excursions!

School and such

Well once again it has been awhile since I updated my blog. I'm sure you can tell I am getting out more often and enjoying myself by the lack of updating! To catch you up my preschoolers are still doing awesome! They think I'm hilarious and I often feel like my job is being a clown. I teach 2 different preschool classrooms. I teach my homeroom class for 3 periods of the day and a co-class for 2 periods of the day. I LOVE my homeroom class. They are so well behaved and quiet but talk when you ask them to. They have recently picked up a new name for me and I'm not quite sure where it came from but it is definitely sticking with them and they crack themselves up calling me it. I walk in and they should HAMBURGER TEACHER!!!!! I love those little rascals so they can call me whatever they like. My co-class on the other hand are a bunch of wild hooligans! They jump out of their seat, constantly talk Korean (which scares me because I have no clue what they are saying) and they just don't listen. I did cut them a little slack with it being the first two weeks but strict Lisa Teacher is coming out next week. Also one thing that I have had to adjust to is I'm not called Miss. Schwenk or Miss. Lisa. In Korea they call you by your first name and then teacher so as you could probably figure out on your own I am Lisa Teacher or a lot of the time it is TTTEEEEEAAAACCCCHHHHAAAAAA as they would say. A lot of their speaking is drawn out and ends with and -uh sound. Today we went on a field trip to a Children's museum, which was awesome for the kids and for me! We watched a video and then went on 2 floors of what I called organized chaos. They kids just got to run around and do crazy things like play with water build little houses shoot plastic balls at each other and a lot of other stuff (hard to explain but I will be posting pictures). We all had a blast but it was a very tiring day! I could go on forever about my little munchkins but now I will move onto the elementary kids. They also crack me up but in different ways. I know it is bad to make fun of them because they are trying really hard to learn English but every week we do vocabulary sheets with the stories we read in class and the sentences they make with the words are quite humorous to say the least. The word was plastered last week and I had one sentence that said my dad plastered my mom. I had another that said my dad was plastered. These are just 2 of them but I literally laugh out loud grading these papers! Also we have what are called writing topic books where they have a topic to write about and I correct their paragraphs then they write their final draft. Long story short this girl was writing about how she liked to go swimming but she preferred "deep pool" because in the little pool there were too many people babies (as opposed to monkey babies of course)! Sometimes I don't even know where to begin on grading these because if I graded like back home I would completely butcher their work and leave them feeling humiliated. Well I got observed by my supervisor in my Pre-k class and my elementary classes. The observation as a whole went really well and he was impressed. The biggest thing I need to work on is slowing down my talking and dumbing down my vocabulary, which I knew I did, but he also said I need to work on cutting yall out of my vocabulary. I guess I do have a southern drawl after all. I told him this would probably be the toughest thing to try and change because it is so common in my speaking, so I'm trying to speak PROPER English so I do not teach these kids SOUTHERN English. Wow, here I go writing a book and this is only about school! I guess this really shows how long it has been since updating. Well last weekend was St. Patrick's day so Molly and I decided we had to be Irish for the day and celebrate. We got a group together and went to an Irish festival (who knew there would be one in Korea) but there was Irish music and the most "foreigners" I have seen since I have been here. Well anyway this is enough for now I'm sure I'm rambling on now! Until next time peace from the far east!

Teaching so far

Sorry I realized I had not posted on here in awhile. My pre-k teaching is going much better. I think the kids have realized that this is permanent so I don't have tears anymore. It is crazy to see how fast these kids are picking up English. In my Elementary classes writing is still a struggle for them but I hear this is on all levels of students. This past weekend I went to the Seoul Tower, which was amazing. I forgot my camera but I will defiantly go again so I can get pictures. At the top of the tower it is tradition to add a lock onto the fence so next time I will also bring a lock to add the the millions already up there. This week I also went for the first time to a restaurant with no pictures on the menu and was able to order by myself without the help of someone who has been to the restaurant before, which felt awesome! I am finally settled in at my apartment and all I can say is it was worth the wait in the hotel. My room is much bigger than the ones I have seen of other people that work with me. I also am still able to get Internet, which I am stealing from someone in the building but I blame it on the other person for not locking their Internet. This will definitely cut down on monthly bills and I just pray that they never notice my thieving ways. I'm sure I am leaving out some things but feel free to post any questions you have in a comment and I will answer them. It is definitely a whole new world over here but I am certainly enjoying it!

1st day of Pre-K

Today we got our Pre-K kids. I was so nervous and hardly slept last night thinking about what my day would end up like. I had people telling me be prepared for tears, confusion and kids that don't speak any English and well I sure got that today! We started by going to a church for our opening ceremonies, which included the parents and it was a welcoming of the staff, singing songs and so forth. After that we rode a bus back to our school. As we were leaving 2 kids parents had to ride the bus back to school with us because their kids were hysterically crying and would not get on alone. We made it back to the school and into our classroom. I have 12 absolutely adorable children. One surprisingly speaks English really well. The others had a BASIC concept and mostly just repeated after me. I felt like I was playing charades all day acting out my words. We sang some songs, played some name games and colored a sticker chart for our class. One of the criers got it together and was completely fine when she joined our class and I got them dancing and having fun. The other little boy, bless his heart, did not. Luckily I have the sweetest KT (Korean Teacher) that helped me out throughout the day. Every time she would attempt to leave he would grab his pants and "pretend" he needed to go to bathroom so that she would have to come back. Needless to say he did not spend too much time in our class today. The pre-k kids only stay until 2:30 and we didn't get back from the ceremonies until about 11:00 so the day kind of flew by and was quite hectic but a lot of fun. I feel more prepared for tomorrow. I hope my one kid can actually make it in our class tomorrow because he literally cried from 11:00-2:30. I felt so helpless because nothing I could say or do would comfort him, only the Korean teacher could. I hear that this can last a whole month but I'm hoping I can get him to warm up before then. Here's to wishful thinking! After the kids went home I had a large prep block time before I met with my 2nd graders again. Today I felt so much better and not as rushed like I felt on Friday. I was actually able to have some conversations with them, make them laugh quite a few times and really have a great time with them, where as Friday we just had TOO much to cover to really get to know them. One of the little girls told me "Lisa teacher, I have a fever today so I have to drink water in class and I can not read too much because my throat hurts". I felt her head and she was not lying, but I guess in Korea they just suck it up so they do not miss one day of their education. All I can say is I'm staying away from her... I don't have time to get sick! Overall it was a great day and I am truly enjoying my experience. Tomorrow is round 2 with pre-k and I get to meet my 3rd graders in the evening!

1st day of teaching

Today we did not have our Pre-k kids in the morning but we did have our Elementary kids in the afternoon so I got to jump into half of my schedule today. We trained and planned most of the day and I did not have class until 4:30. This was my 2nd grade class and I would be teaching them Grammar and Writing for the day. The only tough part about this schedule is there are things you need to accomplish for them to be able to do their homework and you only have 40 min. per period. We started by doing some icebreakers to get to know each other, which was a lot of fun. I got to find out how talented my 9 little kiddos were including an artist, pianist, violinist and some soccer and basketball players. We then had to get into the actual teaching part due to limited time. In grammar I was teaching the difference between sentences and fragments. My kids did really well with this and enjoyed the game I prepared for them. Then we have a 5 minute break and continue on into Writing. One child thought we had Reading so did not bring her book, which is like a workbook so this was quite a challenge to make sure she understood it all so that she would be able to do homework. I had 40 min. to go over how to write a paragraph appropriately and introduce their writing topic since their first draft is due next week. May sound easy but as I quickly found out they have not even been introduced to paragraphs much less an introduction sentence, details and conclusion sentence. I did the best I could to get that across in the short amount of time and told them how to do their rough draft. I feel like I blew through it and I really hope they all understood it. They seemed to but I guess we will see when they turn in their rough drafts. With about 5 min. left of class one girl asked me, "Teacher, why you don't turn lights on"? I had turned them off at the beginning of the first class so they could see the projection of their homework to write down and realized I had never turned them back on... minor details! These poor kids had been writing in the dark (well there is a window in our room but still) for the whole class. Also another funny story... Our writing topic was your favorite holiday. One of the kids chose Christmas so in the details section one of the questions was why is this a holiday... the girl turned to me and said, "Teacher why is Christmas a holiday"? I said to her, "Do you know Jesus"? She of course said no and I said well just skip that detail and pick one of the other questions to answer for your details. I did not have enough time teach about Christmas and Jesus I barely had enough time to teach a paragraph. I'm sure I will have plenty more stories Monday when our Pre-K kids come and I have a full day of teaching. All I have heard is get ready for the tears in pre-k. It's a lot of these kids first time in school, don't speak English, and don't understand why we look "funny". Let the good times roll!

Shopping in Myeongdong

I had today off of work for Korean Movement Day. This marks the day that Korea started to resist the occupation of Japan in the Korean Empire. Molly and I both did a horrible job of packing with too many work clothes and not enough going out clothes so we decided shopping was a must. Luckily a girl from school, Ashlee, needed to go as well so she was kind enough to act as our tour guide for the experience. We went to Myeongdong, which is like the area for foreigners to go shopping including some American stores that we would actually fit into the clothes. We spent the bulk of the day in H&M and Forever 21. Both of these stores were 4 to 5 stories of clothes so it was a bit overwhelming. Also in Korea a lot of the clothes run small, which was not a good thing. I went in a shoe store and found out the hard way that not only do the clothes run small but so do the shoes. The whole store did not even have a shoe that would be big enough for me. It made me feel like a giant but I mean I just wear a size 8 1/2. I didn't even think I wouldn't be able to find shoes. Luckily H&M did carry bigger shoes so I bought two pairs because not only did I do a bad job of packing clothes but also did not bring the most comfortable shoes, which is not a good thing with all the walking I do here. It was good that we got clothes, but this experience was not for me. This area is like 2 main streets with multiple side streets of stores, so pretty much an outdoor mall. There were SO many people and you were literally shoulder to shoulder walking down the streets with people constantly pushing and bumping into you. I am a big fan of some personal space and this just doesn't exist in a lot of the areas here. We did have a wonderful lunch. It is very Korean style to share everything at your table so the 3 of us all got different things and we split them all. We had chicken tenders and chips, a pork cutlet with orange sauce, a crab omelet (the omelet was filled with rice) and mushroom walnut soup. This restaurant was very Americanized with menus in English, our waiter speaking English and even FORKS... yes I said it I used a fork for the first time in 2 weeks. So the food experience of today was wonderful but the shopping experience.... not so much. Ashlee informed us the time to go is around 10:00 am which is when the traffic is not so bad. Now I am back at home and exhausted from a full day of shopping. Tomorrow we go back to school and have training for the final time in the morning and our elementary students come in the afternoon so I will start teaching tomorrow afternoon. I am so excited and I'm sure I will update tomorrow and let you know how the first day of teaching went!