Monday, July 5th

My day is almost finished! My last class was at 2pm today, but I had to collect paperwork from the hospital for my ID card (I had to get a health exam the other day). Also I needed another photo for the documents I need to turn in at the Korean Immigration Office. We went right after my last class to collect the paperwork and to get my picture taken.

My classes went great! I had 5 classes, all of them were 5th grade. We started each class with me introducing myself and they asked questions. It is common here to ask some personal questions, like how old are you, how tall are you. They even asked how old and tall Ian was. :-P One class asked about my best friends' names (yup, that's you Jan and Jill!!^^).

After introducing myself, we got right into the lesson (each class is only 40minutes). Today, the lesson was called: Let's Go Swimming. The phrase "let's go __." was taught with pictures and examples (such as swimming, shopping, hiking, skating, etc.) and the students had to repeat together. We also did some games to practice the phrase. They also learned responses to it, such as "Sorry, I can't." or "Sounds good!" Another activity was fill-in-the-blanks while listening to a video.

I already started teaching! In some classes, I reviewed the phrase "let's go_." and the picture cards of the words (swimming, shopping, etc). I helped check on them while they were playing a kind of tic-tac-toe game to practice all of the phrases. Also, I reviewed with the whole class the answers to the fill-in-the-blank worksheet to check their answers. If they got the answer right they get 1pt (or 1dollar). Their reward system, from what I observed, is used for winning an activity and getting answers right. I'm not sure yet what they can do with the "dollars" they get. But, I like it! I will probably try to use it for activities and such when I teach in AZ next year.

Everyone here is sooo nice!! ^.^ The kids all seem to love me, mostly cuz I'm the new teacher and because I'm American. One kid stared at my face until he noticed I had blue eyes~ :) It was cute. I also surprised some younger students by saying hello in Korean. They are all very impressed when I use Korean, even if it's just one word. :)

The school is very nice, and very big! It's a relaxed school, there are no uniforms. They do need to wear different shoes for indoors than outdoors (I have to do the same thing!). I am allowed to wear any shoes, but I do have a pair of shoes that I haven't worn yet, so I will use them for now. The teachers also seem to wear semi-casual, as well. I can even wear jeans, from what I observed.

Well, there is about 1hour left in my day. I am being introduced at the assembly today! I am very nervous, but I think it will be okay. I wrote down what I will say. :) Wish me luck!

I'll tell you about the rest of the week soon! I also think that this week there will be a dinner/party for me. They had one for the other Eng teacher (she's been here 2months). Hope you all have a great week!! Love and miss you~~~