Speaking of welcoming, I have been busy welcoming another Iowan to this very lucky city. After playing recruiter these last few months it was fantastic to see the lovely Kat Lundberg finally on Korean turf and ready to tear up this place up with me. Living only a few minutes from each other we have shared many adventures and laughs already.
The next big change happened at the same time as one term (1 term=4 months) ended and the new began. The end of the term was a very busy time as I had to evaluate each of my students (which is a LOT of students mind you) speaking abilities with a designated speaking test for each level. Each student is taken outside the classroom one by one, asked a series of questions, and is graded on their comprehension, pronunciation, grammar, fluency, and use of vocabulary. It took almost a full week to get through all the students and let me tell you...after asking, "What day is it today?" and "Where does a firefighter work?" for what feels like the 250th time it's hard to act interested in the students' response. I had one of my Pre-Step (younger, very beginning level English) students snap at me when he noticed my eyes glazing over and my mind obviously spacing out as I asked him his list of questions...."Hey! Teacher!" It was too funny! But perhaps the biggest challenge (and NOT so funny part) of the speaking test time is keeping the students in the classroom quiet and controlled while you are outside giving the test. There are only so many worksheets you can hand out and only so many times you can pop your head in commanding them to sit down and be quiet before you just give up and pray they don't kill each other.
Halloween came at the perfect time this year, on the Friday at the end of the term, so we could truly observe it as a "fun" day filled only with snack parties and games. We teachers all dressed in costumes (I was a bunch of grapes...see pictures in last post) and had a runway show for the younger students earlier in the afternoon. After the second runway show I pulled off all my grapes and let the students fight over the balloons...it almost got messy! The older students played this game called chicken fight where they would sit in a circle with two players in the middle hopping on one leg trying to knock the other down with their other leg that is folded at the knee. It was pretty entertaining to watch (and slightly dangerous), especially when a few of the girls showed up the tough boys.
With the stress of the term ending and the Halloween holiday near, Kristen and I decided it was the perfect time to initiate some co-worker pranks. Jerome, our Korean friend and key player in our prankster team, has helped to translated ambiguous messages into Korean for us and other various tasks. No one was suspecting us but now I am afraid we have been discovered. After Simon (a part time worker) feverishly looked for his shoes (that Kristen and I had swiped and locked in a desk drawer) for two hours the other night, Jerome broke down and returned the shoes, admitting our prank. So sadly, we will have to wait a little bit before we can do more office pranks.
The new term brought a new schedule of classes to teach and a number of new faces in the classroom. I have kept many of the same students just moved up one level but have unfortunately lost my two favorite classes of the lower level English students. All in all I'm enjoying my new schedule, the change, and the fresh start so it looks to be a very good term ahead.
Much of my free time these days has been filled exchanging language lessons with Korean friends and I love every minute of it....oh how beautiful communication is! I have so many stories to tell, so ask me over Skype sometime!
Love and miss you all...
Some pictures from the latest hiking adventure:
