First Day of Teaching!

I need to write about this before I forget everything.

I moved into my apartment on the first day in Changwon too, but I guess I didn't talk about that in my last post. I think everyone has seen my apartment pictures now so I don't need to explain too much. My landlord and his wife are extremely friendly and kind. They got me bedding and were fixing and cleaning my place when I got there. I think they like having me visit because they like practicing their English. The husband's English is pretty good, but the wife speaks very little English. She just gets the husband to translate everything for me, besides very basic things.

The houses are very different here, as you saw from you facebook posts. Many of the houses are made of brick and have these beautiful details around the roofs and fences. They have like two stories, but the second story is only on the back part of the house. My landlord told me that poorer people live in houses and richer people live in apartments. I'm not sure how true this is for all over South Korea, but I thought it was interesting.

My landlords also keep feeding me. I think it's a Korean thing, they are obsessed with food here, there are a million different restaurants just in my neighbourhood. The first day of work the wife invited me over for breakfast, which you can imagine was awkward due to the language barrier. Still, I enjoyed it. She is sooo friendly and kind. She had steamed chestnuts, a potato, kimchi and an egg. She kept cutting chestnuts in half for me to until I finally had to say that I was full or I was going to be late for work!

Still, despite leaving half an hour early for work (I had to be there at 8:40) I still ended up being about 10 minutes late. It's not my fault though, I got lost walking to work. The main landmark to look for when heading to my school is a Catholic Church, which is brick, of course. So I was walking along in the direction of school and I saw a church further up the road to my left, the side of the street the school is on. I assumed it was the same church and headed towards it. Unfortunately when I got over there I couldn't figure out where the school was! I attempted to go up a different street near the church, but still no school! I was starting to panic at this point and began attempting to google it, which is very hard in Korea because usually the name's are all in Korean.

Finally, I noticed a few kids heading in the direction of school, I didn't know that but it was as good a bet as any that they were heading towards my elementary school so I followed and there it was another block down, by a different red brick church! As soon as I saw the church I realized my mistake and felt pretty silly. I went to the office where my desk was (I knew where to go because I visited the day before) and met up with my co-English teacher (not the same as my co teacher). She was very nice and helpful.

We started class around 9:10 am and the students were all so excited to have me there. They had a million questions. I introduced myself and talked about where I was from. Unfortunately, although everyone speaks fairly good English, students usually ask more complicated or difficult questions in Korean. I spent a lot of time the first day just smiling at them and waiting patiently for my co-english teacher to translate stuff.

It's not absolutely necessary, but it would definitely make my life easier if I knew some Korean. The rest of the day was classes, then lunch then another class. In the middle of my last class I had to leave early to go get another blood test, which was lame because I finally felt like I was getting the hang of it!

I teach two different grades right now grades 5 and 6, but I will change to teaching different grades later in a the year. The week after next I will teach at a different elementary school. So I will have lots of students. Did I mention how cute they all are? And friendly? My favourite moment was when a boy in the 6th grade class came up with a riddle he had translated from Korean to English and he wanted me to answer it. He also showed me his cursive (which was very good) and asked if I could write in cursive. My co-english teacher said that he was very good at English. He was so smart and friendly!

In one of the grade 5 classes the students wanted to dance for me. Their lesson had a video clip with dance children who sing in English and the students repeat after them. Four Korean boys did the dance and I had to chose the best dancer. I felt bad choosing just one student so my co-English teacher said to chose the cutest dancer. I finally chose the most enthusiastic dancer and he was very excited.

Oh, and yes the students think I'm very pretty and they all love my hair. They also asked if I had a boyfriend and how tall I was, as well as my age. These all seem to be common questions for the students. The other teachers seemed to worry that these questions would offend me, but I said it was fine and everyone relaxed a little. The students also stop you in the halls to say hi all the time. They love practicing their English.