Bittersweet goodbyes. Wangsan Middle School is my smallest school with 20 students. I only go to the school once a week to teach classes and I don’t always see my students every week. There was a two month hiatus after my coteacher was in an accident and a substitute teacher took his place. I had learned to recognize most of my students names but unfortunately with the absence of not going I forgot almost all of them. Though if I…
A year ago today I boarded a plane at JFK Airport and met new EPIK friends in San Francisco before boarding our plane to Incheon International Airport in South Korea. Thinking back on the past year it is interesting to see how far I have come and how much my life has changed. A year ago, I went through orientation and upon completion was ushered by bus to a city in my province. I remember meeting my co-teacher the first…
I like to challenge my students. I like to make them think outside the box. When I teach alone this definitely fails on me. However, when I am able to teach with my co-teacher the meaning isn’t lost in context and I can talk about interesting subjects. I think the students can get to know more about me through these types of lessons.
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from students when I decide to leave. I received two lovely posters from my Grade 4 class. ( I will upload photos of it later once I remember where I tucked it away.) But nothing left an impression on me thus far like the letters I received from my Grade 6 Class 2 students. They all wrote me letters, most of them in Korean. I am so thankful that I can read them…
Our school does a lot of community service. Now most of the time I’m not aware of the community service as it happens on days or hours I am at another school. Which is a shame because I like participating with my students.
The perks of being a teacher is trying to find interesting lessons for your uninterested students. One morning my co-teacher says to me, can you think of something to do for our first class? I had a mini panic attack and went flicking away through facebook snatching photos of family members and making a mini power point where I explained relationships and how my family looks like.
I’m not known as the teacher that plays games. Although many ESL teachers play lots of games and incorporate them into the curriculum, I’m not one of them. I don’t like powerpoint games because I don’t like how everyone has to stare at the screen to be involved, which there are bound to be students who will not do anything but sit and talk to other students. Besides the fact, I have no idea how to work a lot of…
Teaching is a job that has moments of joy and fury. The moments of joy far out weigh the moments of fury. This is my first year as a teacher and guess what? I’m not perfect. I’m probably not even a great teacher yet, however that is not the point. The point of being a teacher is that you are meant to grow. What have I learned in the last four months of teaching?
2013/05/16 by Nina 5 Comments Back home we have Teacher Appreciation week and if you were to ask me when it was, I would stare at you and say, “Let me google that.” I don’t know the answer to the question and I still do not know. However, thinking back on it many people rarely mentioned it or did things for their teachers.
A recap of the week after my last post. I received a lot of feedback and I myself learned that it is a process. Thinking back on when I started teaching at the elementary school and had help I realize I was expected to teach right away. I had no idea what the kids names were and I had no way of managing the class . Each home room teacher that came had their own rules or classroom chants and I went…