Where do I begin? My first day was March 2. I got off at a bus stop too early because I thought that was the bus stop for school, thankfully it's not too far to walk from that bus stop to my school. When I got into the school the school, a teacher met me and took me up to my teachers room. A teachers room is different in every school. Mine is made up of a resource room, conference table and 4 desks. The teacher placed me at a desk and then left. I didn't have a computer... in fact I didn't get a computer until the next Monday. Then on Tuesday it broke for a good portion of the afternoon. On the first day, I thankfully had taken my own computer with me. By 10:00, I had probably played 50 games of of solitaire. Lunch was good, but even by noon, I had no idea what I would be teaching, who I would be teaching and with whom I would be teaching. I had met the principle, and vice principles but didn't know it until after they had left. I was told by some guy (who ended up being my head teacher) that I would meet him after lunch. The meeting consisted of exchanging cell phone numbers and being told that he didn't have my schedule ready because he didn't know how many hours I had been contracted for. After that, I sat some more and sat some more. No one talked to me. No one came and told me what I would be or even could be doing. I asked the 2 other women in the teachers room what I should be doing and they said take a nap. So I went down to my head teachers office and asked him. First he asked if I had looked at the curriculum and I said I don't know what I am teaching, no one has told me. He said ummmm, read a book. I have never had any job tell me to read a book unless it was pertinent to my job. I told him that I had read my book. He said ok, shooed me out of my room and ran down stairs. Later he came up and told me I would be teaching 5th and 6th grade and that in lessons I needed to make up American games. I left my first day very frustrated and very bored.
Now I haven't told you that, the 2 women in the office as well as my head teacher can't really speak English. Also, my head teacher teachers 4th grade, so unless he needs something, I really have little contact with him. On Thursday, I found out that one of the two women in the office is my co-teacher. Her English is the better of the 2 but the other one still teaches English. When I tried to ask questions, I would either have to skip words (making my English horrible) or repeat 3 times. Communication continues to be very difficult, like yesterday, I think my co-teacher was saying that we do different stories on different weeks but she was using the word partition. I informed her after I got the jist (not the understand) of what she was saying that partition was used to describe something that separates a room. I know that the word partition can also mean to separate different items too but in the context she was saying it in, I could not figure out what she was saying.
So far, teaching in the classroom hasn't been too bad but it's not easy going from classroom to classroom since I don't have my own room. After my 4-5 classes a day, I am pretty bored. I work on my lesson plans but can only do so much. If I do lesson plans till the end of the month things could change and then I would have to do it all over again. Korea is pretty good about changing things last minute with out much notice.
Hopefully, as the weeks progress, things will get better. However, I am realizing that even though I say I would give up being an American if I was asked to, I am a product of my environment and the American thinking that has brought me up. Even though I don't want to lose my own culture, I need to set it aside or things here will make me so mad.
Things here don't always make sense.
Until later,
Lisa
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