Louise's Seoul

A big adjustment for all of us.

This is the third week of Kindergarden at Junglang SLP, the first few days of which were spent working without any kind of break (plus overtime) until helper teachers were hired. Another Korean English teacher started last week, but we are still awaiting the immanent arrival of a male foreign teacher plus Korean English teacher before things settle down properly. My kindergarden class (international age 5 years old) have mostly adjusted to their new environment, with the exception of Peter, who throws random punches the moment my back is turned, and Daniel who still does not understand anything and wanders around the classroom.

It is my class' first experience in an English hagwon, so they arrived only knowing the 'Alphabet song'. At least they now know 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' and 'Incy Wincy Spider' song. I am shocked at how quickly they are picking up the English, especially the girls. For two weeks we sang Incy Wincy Spider with just the actions (no pictures drawn on the board)....Then I printed off an Incy Wincy Spider colouring page from the internet. I pointed to the spider and asked "What's this?" and they immediately shouted "spider!". Amazing. At that age they have a high level of intuition, which I assume results in a rapid learning speed.

I also teach another Kindergarden class (international age 6) who have had previous English hagwon experience, and thus understand almost everything I say. The director moved his 6 year old son from Gwanak SLP (where I trained, on the other side of the city), and placed him in my class (just to add to the pressure). The director's son has the best conversational English in the class, and is always asking me lots of questions eg "where do you go after teaching me?" and "do you like pizza?" The "do you like...." question inspired a bombardment of questions from the other 9 students in the class: "do you chocolate?" "do you like candy?" "do you like butterflies?" " do you like ME?".

Next week we are taking the kindergarden to the fire station for a field trip, and I fear the behaviour of my 5 year old class. I don't think they are ready to go on a trip anywhere yet, they need another month, but unfortunately it is not my decision.

posted by Louise @ 12:27 pm