1st class in the 5th Grade

I have a class of 5th graders who are the most wonderful class of students to have ever attended an Elementary school. 

 They walk into class and casually talk and the usual messing about while I greet them at the door, the bell rings and I walk back to the front of the class as I turn around they are all sat in their seats looking straight ahead in complete silence waiting for the lesson to start.

The result is that in the lesson we cover the book work, extend the language learning beyond that covered in the book, today we were studying about shopping and the book unit doesn't cover numbers but a couple of students asked about bigger numbers...

만 원 - 10 thousand, then 십 만 =100,000, 백만 원 = 1,000,000 and they asked what was next so I wrote them on the board I only went up to  10¹⁵ = Quadrillion, but for that they gave me a sincere round of applause, which I found highly amusing...  Anyway my point is we were able throughout the lesson to extend the learning from outside the boundaries of the textbook (and this is not the first time), have a bit of fun at the same time and still have time to play a game!

Be choir! And Bill Gates invented the internet!

Lunch 14-11-11

First here is a picture of my lunch - Awesome... LOL - this is published on our school website - 헐... -  daily...Today it was a radish (?) soup water kimchi Fried squid and a kind of  Bi Bim thing with of cours the Bap (rice). 



On Monday the Seongnam Metropolitan choir visited our school to give an hours performance, highlights for me were the School Mistress of Authority and Discipline Ajuma! (I don't know what her correct title is so I will call her that, MAD for short and a belting performance of  Nessun dorma by some guy who looked like the phantom of the opera without the mask...

After about 40 mins of rousing show songs and smiley dance routines the kids started to get a bit restless and started talking and playing with their smart phones... so MAD stopped the MC Mid introduction of a weak Solo number to take the mic and 'calm the crowd'. Now MAD does this by  picking on individual students and making them stand up and walk to the back of the room where they can sit down and carry on talking (This is OK because their sound is drowned out by all the teachers who are also stood at the back talking and playing with their smart phones.  As the performance resumed MAD weaved her way among the crowd to 'select' some more individuals for the comfort of the back of the room. Her selection methods ranged from a gentle shoulder tap,  a poke in the ear, a series of short sharp "HARD" taps on the head with a knuckle which was audible from across the auditorium and a kick in the spine that Messi would have been proud of. The kick launched the unsuspecting 6th grader into the adjacent row, Luckily the performance ended before there was more people at the back than in the crowd and before anyone was hospitalised.

The following day a grade 5 student asked me 

"Rob Teacher, yesterday... singing... enjoy?"

I replied "Oh, the Choir..."

He looked at me rather distraught and said "Be Quiet...  Oh Ok"

I apologised and explained that I had said 'The choir' and explained what a choir was... 

During a lesson this weeks the invention of the internet came up and students were guessing the year, They first thought it was around the year 2000 and they kept talking about Bill Gates. Bill Gates (see my recent post with another It was not Bill gates fact) didn't invent 'the internet' I said... "Really they replied" looking confused, I think one of them mentioned Steve Jobs... "No" I said it was a US university and it was then developed by the US military... 

They think I am mad, it has to be  either Bill or Steve they invented everything but bill won because Steve is dead!

New Books and basic skills lesson

 

New Books and basic skills

We have just had a set of 32 dictionaries delivered to my school at 30,000 Won each I thought we had better start using them. 

So, I did a dictionary skills class with 5th grade today, just to give them the basic skills practise. 


I gave them all a dictionary and after checking they had all used a dictionary before, I got them all to find the work dictionary, when they had found it I asked them what page it was on, then got them to tell me the Korean meaning of the word and I went through the examples of word usage in the dictionary.

The activity

I then split the class in to two teams and explained the activity.

1. I will call out a word
2. find it in the dictionary as fast as you can
3. raise your hand and shout out the page number
4. I will then ask you to tell me
1. the meaning
2. read out the 1st example sentence
5. Your team gets 1 point

I gave them the following words to find, selected (almost) at random:

1. impact
2. forgive
3. transform
4. wink
5. container
6. memory

Surprisingly engaging activity

They really enjoyed the activity far more than I expected. They wanted to continue playing, which really surprised me.  I was so proud of them, even my noisy classes (2 & 5) got on with the follow up 'individual' activity to find and write the definition of 12 key vocabulary words for Lesson 12 of the text book.

Never a dull moment

The dictionaries that we have also have a Ko -Eng supplement. One girl stayed behind to look up the word "Chubby" so that she could say "Rob teacher that is you..." 

Thanks a lot, she learnt a new word, at least!

Why I hate Waygook.org

I know I am not alone in this but this site is depressing, racist and most of the stuff on it with the exception of a couple of power point games is a bit rubbish.

This irritated me today.....  Where do you self centred people think you are living, adapt or move on despite the big US influence in Korea... this is not America!

A bit further down the page

I am also constantly irritated by the old women who push you on the subway, but this is their country. They are probably constantly irritated by us.

This is just typical of the mindless crap posted on Waygook.org.  And they recommend this site at GEPIK orientation...

I wish someone would create a similar site without all the bullshit...  Oh, you have - thanks Shane!  - ESLHERO.COM

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!