Droppin Knowledge

A couple people have asked what age the kids are that I'm teaching.  In all honesty, I'm not exactly sure of their ages but most of them are elementary school students but I do have 11 kids who are in middle school.  I've discovered over here when a person says they are a certain age, it's not in the sense we as Westerners think of it but rather, they consider the time spent in the womb as part of their lives....which I suppose leads to the whole Chinese gymnast conspiracy at the Olympics a few years ago (when they were supposedly too young).

Most of my classes are early to mid elementary school aged kids who vary greatly in their grasp & understanding of the language.  It's kind of funny because you don't realize how complicated & confusing English is until you are put in a position of explaining the difference between where & wear or having to help the kids understand why we change spellings of words based on the tense it's in (sweep, swept).  The most intriguing aspect so far has been the questions from the Korean teachers (who all seem fairly fluent in their understanding of the language) about the intricacies of proper grammar as opposed to the slang, which seems to make up quite a vast percentage of what is spoken on a regular basis.

I found myself explaining how it is possible to 'ride the bus' or get a 'ride in a car' when they have been taught to 'take the bus' or 'take the car.' They seemed completely baffled that someone could ride a bus as their thought was to ride something along the lines of a bike or horse.

Most of my kids are really funny and like to have a good time with their learning.  They are, I suppose, like kids anywhere throughout the world who simply want to have fun, make friends, learn a little something & see how much joking around they can get away with.  Having never really taught the elementary age before, I'm really having a blast with it but not sure if it's something I'd consider back in the States.

I say that simply because education is a priority over here & these kids spend most all of their school days doing something academic.  Even with these kids on winter break for a month, they are still coming to the academy every day for a few hours to work on their English.

I'm teaching a 'special discussion class' during the month of January for seven of my 11 & 12 year olds.  The intended purpose of the class is to have the kids work on discussing their feeling, opinions and knowledge of specific topics but it's wild thinking about the basic, simple conversations we have nearly every day that need to be simplified even more when talking to a new learner of the English language!  Even the vocabulary words and terms have to be basic....luckily, these kids all have cellphones with a Korean to English translator installed, which helps get through some of the issues.

We've spent time talking about jobs, careers, what dreams or goals they might have and only one said he wanted to be a professional athlete (and it was soccer, so that's a whole different beast altogether).  These kids have dreams of being doctors, judges & teachers along with a high number who want to be a chef, baker or 'food stylist.'

Although, I guess that makes sense since there are little restaurants all over the place.  Literally, I think there are at least 20 within just a couple blocks of my apartment & it's like that all over the place.  I don't think anybody actually cooks dinners, they either eat out or have something delivered by the crazy delivery guys (all of which are on scooters or mopeds for the Iowegians reading this one) who are apparently exempt from obeying any traffic laws, lights, signs or warnings - those guys drive all over the place & never stop for anything.....must be some delivery guarantee or it's free type of thing!

My days are pretty crazy as it's basically jump in with both feet, starting with the young-ens, who are probably kindergarten aged & ending with my middle school & high school aged kids who do alright but I actually expected them to be much better than they are.  It's hilarious with the young ones cause they really don't know any English at all besides 'Hi Teacher, how are you?' and 'I'm very good/bad/so-so or the occasional happy/terrible.'  They just assume I speak Korean, at least enough to communicate on a minimal scale but I just kinda laugh at myself & say yes or no, having no idea what they're asking me.

I do have one kid who speaks unbelievable English for his age (prob nine or 10) but is goofy as shit.  I have him in two classes and one of them is just me working with him to continue to help him improve.  Apparently the school director has decided to enter him in some 'big deal' English speaking competition & has me tutoring him specifically for that purpose the next month or two....kinda seems like I'm back in the FLA teaching to the test!

I don't think I've mentioned this but they don't really have heating systems here, rather they use space heaters.  The school I'm at on Tues & Thurs is so flippin cold....I think it's been warmer outside than inside on most days.  One day we were talking about fat, thin, short & tall when a kid said I was fat.  My guess was because I was wearing long underwear, and a thin base fleece under a sweater with a thicker fleece & my heavy duty Mountain Hardwear Windstopper jacket so I'm sure I looked like the stay puff marshmallow man (actually caught the jacket sleeve on fire the other day as it was hanging on my chair, which got pushed too close to the gas heater & within a couple minutes the room wreaked of charred/melted fleece & we were sending some great little smoke signals from the jacket)!

Anyway, I'm enjoying the classes & the kids so far.  I took some video of a few different classes the other day but haven't up-loaded them yet.  Stay tuned for some funny Korean kids, initially camera shy then hammin it up....good times!

Be well, people.  I'm hittin the sack, it's almost 3 in the morning.

mista A