MY LESSONS

I thought I would share the presentations from my first couple of lessons with you:
I know they've probably got a few mistakes and also there were usually games / comments that accompanied the presentations.

Self Introduction

UK (places)

Appearance

SCHOOL & CO-TEACHERS

I've been a teacher now for almost 3 weeks now and I'm really enjoying it! I'm surprised at how much I enjoy teaching the Kids, I also thought it would be more difficult but the teachers and the kids have made me feel very welcome.

I had a meal this week with my co-teachers at a lovely chinese restaurant. It was a good chance to get to know them better, I feel very grateful for having been placed in such a great school with great teachers!

I'd heard lots of scare stories about having a 회식 (hwae-shik - work meal) and how the teachers can drink lots and it can be impolite to not drink yourself. So I, not being much of an alcohol drinker, was pretty worried but it turned out that no one drank anything but jasmine tea and we enjoyed a lovely meal together.

TEACHER DANNY

So i've had my first week of teaching! It's been crazy. Education is taken very seriously in Korea, and as such teachers have to work pretty hard.
My school is brilliant, my co-teachers are all really nice and the principal is really great too.

Here's a list of interesting things that I have discovered or observed in my first week:

1. We have to wear slippers in the school - It keeps it clean, and it's pretty comfy. But it does feel a bit weird and mine keep slipping off

2. You have to learn who is who pretty fast since the teacher hierarchy is very important in Korea, it also affects the way I communicate to teachers - E.g I must use formal honorific langugae to my Principal, vice principal and Head teacher. On the other hand it is awkward for me to use such formal language to my co-teachers since we are of the same rank (age also comes in to it).

3. Kids have to bow to me when they see me in the corridor (lots of bowing)

4. Korean students can memorise 300 words in a few weeks no problem, but they can't form or experiment with conversation very well.

5. Students can say 2 things very well: "Hello-nice-to-meet-you-i'm-fine-thanks" and "Handsome guy"

6. Organisation is not a priority - I've had a lot of classes shuffle around and last minute rooms changes, it's very difficult for the foreign teacher to keep up at times.

7. I have offered to plan a lesson using the 35 iPads that are available, which has made me very popular with my principal since he loves technology and most of the teachers don't know how to use them.

8. My iPad lesson failed since the iPads suddenly weren't working...

9. Some students study at school until 10pm!

10. When does a teacher have time to plan lessons!!! I find myself planning lessons in the evenings which really takes it out of me, I'm sure I'll get better at it though.

I've also enjoyed showing my kids transition videos if there is time at the end of the lesson.

CHU-SEOK

Chu-seok (추석) is Korean thanksgiving. We celebrated with the family by eating together and then giving the house a thorough clean. It also meant that we had 2 days off, and then there was another korean national holiday straight after so 3 days off!
We did a whole bunch of interesting things over the holiday, one of which was playing a traditional Korean game called yut-no-li (윷노리), it's a bit like that game frustration, but instead of a die you throw 4 sticks of which there can be 6 outcomes. We then proceeded to play a life size version using humans and pillows which was good fun.

 On the last day we went for an early morning hike with some of the youth group from church which was a morning well spent! we had a full panoramic view of Busan at the top, I took a 360 photo to prove it.