Unrelated: Korean car show

Recently I had a day out with my son - we visited a Korean palace in the centre of Seoul

and had a great time exploring, afterwards I bought him a Cola and I had a beer and we had a good old chat!  On the way to the subway station we stumbled across a Korea classic Hyundai car show.

... and some models

Hosting the School English Song Contest

My Script hastily prepared....

Seongsu English Song Contest Script

Good Morning and welcome to the 2^nd Annual Seongsu English Song Contest.  I am very happy to host this event.  I have heard the students practicing over the last few weeks and I am really excited to see the results of their hard work today. I would also like to thank the teachers for supporting their students and for making today possible.

Before we start please all stand for the National Salute.

I am pleased hand over to Seongsu Elementary schools’ principal who would like to say a few words before we start the competition. Students please bow to welcome your Principle.

One more thing before we start, I would like to tell you about the judging criteria for today’s competition.  The criteria are as follows…….

Please give a round of applause for our Judges today…

We will start the competition today with Grade 3 class 4 and they will perform 2 songs for us today; Happy birthday and I have a crayon.  Please give a big round of applause for Grade 3 Class 4.

Thank you Grade 3 class 4.

Next we have Grade 3 Class 2 who will be performing Jindo Arirang, please cheer for  class 2!

Thank you Grade 3 Class 2.

The next performance is by Grade 3 Class 3 who will perform 2 Songs Stand up, please and How many cats? Let’s have a round of applause for class 3.

Wow. Great! etc

The last performance from grade 3 will be class 1 who will also perform 2 songs for us today

firstly Hi, I'm Jina followed by Look at the elephant.  Please cheer for class 1!

Wow that concludes the performances from Grade 3 Lets cheer once again for Grade 3 who sang brilliantly for us today – well done to you all!

The first performance from grade 4 is class 4 who will be singing the People in my town, please cheer for class 4!

Thank you class 4 I will be singing that all day!

The second performance from grade 4 is class 3 with Don’t do that please clap for class 4!

Thank you class 3

I think there are some monkeys here…. please cheer for Grade 4 class 2 and 1,2,3,4… 5 little Monkeys.

The last performance from grade 4 is class 1 with If you are happy … so if your Happy and you know please show it and clap your hands for class 1!

Please cheer for all the performances from Grade 4…

We are now half way through the competition, all the performances have been great so far… but ‘ We are all in this together’ so let’s continue now with grade 5 class 3.

Please show your support for Class 3!

next up we have Grade 5 class 5 who will sing a song I am sure you all know and love from the Movie Grease please enjoy Summer nights!

That was fantastic, well done!

Next is Grade 5 class 2 and we are off to the Jungle, the quiet jungle where…  The Lion Sleeps tonight

Well done!

Next is grade 5 class 1.. It has been a wonderful competition so far…. and they will sing it’s a wonderful world!   

Forget about the New Kids on the block, there is definitely so new talent here… please cheer for Class 3 who will sing Step by Step.

Next is grade 6 class 4 to cheer you up with their performance…. HAPPY

As we approach the last 3 performances today I am pleased to introduce Grade 6 class 2 with a song that I remember from when I was young (so long ago)…  Uptown girl

The penultimate performance today is Class 5 with a favourite of mine

It’s sk8er boi.

The last student performance today before life goes on is Grade 6 class 1 with ObLaDi, ObLaDa

Wow – Lets give a special round of applause for all the performances today! 

Before we give you the results and tell you who the winners are I am pleased to tell you we have a special performance from the teachers and parents who will sing Heal the world..   Please all cheer for them.

Thank you

It is now time to reveal the winners…

In 3^rd place ……

In 2^nd place ……

And our winners today, I am pleased to announce are ……

Thank you very much for all our performers today – you all did really well each and every one of you are true stars! Thank you also to the parents and teachers for their wonderful performance and also to the teachers and staff at Seongsu Elementary school who made today’s even a success and finally thank you all for your coming today and sharing this special day with us.

Looking to 2013

I am now having to think hard about what to do in 2013... Obviously this involves staying in Korea and in the apartment but my contract runs out at the End of February.  I have albeit informally been offered the same position for next year but there are, as always pro's and cons to this.

For

• Comfortable
• Easy 
• Lessons already planned
• Know the students
• Know the school and it's policies
• Know the staff
• Know my place
• Relationships already established

Against

• Does it help further my career?
• Some personal relationships are not comfortable

Well there is probably more I could add but the main reasons I will focus on against staying at my school for another year is the one about furthering my career,
Does it? No.
Will it delay any development? Probably not?

There is a Job at a Christian International School (really close to my house) - this would be great to get my Kids into! Especially as usually the education of teachers children is normally free.  This job is teaching advanced placement English and History to 9 - 13 year olds following a , sounds like fun but do my qualifications hold up to this?

Well while writing this post I decided to bite the bullet and I applied anyway so we will see what happens.

I have a loose but rather ideal plan, 1 year working at Elementary, 1 year at middle and 1 year at high school before moving to a University position. This would involve gaining a Masters degree while working at the schools.

Exciting times.... maybe!

Grade 6 - the nice ones!

Tomorrow, due to a rehearsal of the English song contest, that I am hosting (but will not be attending the rehearsal of.(???)..) I will be teaching Grade 6 by myself, without my co-teacher...  I am very much looking forward to it as if all goes to plan I will teach classes 2, 3 and 4:;These are the best behaved, most fun and easiest to talk to students. Class one is always asleep and they NEVER, EVER, EVER want to talk and this makes them extremely hard work... and Class 5... they are just noisy and disruptive.

Should be fun - I am looking forward to it!


UPDATE

As  expected had a great day teaching grade 6 I taught classes 1 - 4 and even the quiet ones spoke... yey.
'on the fly' I implemented a discipline system.  Basically when they wouldn't listen or were talking to each other while I was talking I put 1 mark on the board and at the end of the lesson I they had to stay behind 1 min for each mark on the board.

Class 1 - 3 mins
Class 2 - 4 mins
Class 3 - 2 mins
Class 4 - 4 mins

So the most number of times I had to stop the lesson to tell them off was 4... result! As this usually eats away at about 10 mins of every co-taught lesson!

Anyway I enjoyed it, a lot so now thinking seriously about what to do next year.

Dance like a chicken... boys!

Getting  a whole class of 5th grade boys to dance like a chicken as a punishment - priceless

Family Time

I have had my parents come to stay for the last couple of weeks - It has been great and my Kids, especially have loved having their grandparents here...

Will write a new post soon - just far to busy at the moment!