Post Two (February 16th-25th)

We have now begun our 9-5 jobs and this is the first time I have ever had one of those. It is going to take time to get used to but I don't think I will have any problems adjusting. We have not started teaching alone but have been observing the other English teachers to get the gist of things and see how they do things. We also observed the Korean teachers to get other ideas and they were both helpful. The schedule at school goes a little like this: 10-10:40 (class) 10:50-1130 (class) 11:40-12:20 (class) 12:20-1 (lunch) 1-1:40 (activity class) 2-2:40 (class) 2:40-3:20 (class) 4-4:40 (afternoon class). There is a reasonable amount of downtime with breaks and during lunch, it is the teacher’s jobs to serve the children. The days go by relatively fast and that's a great thing. Each day some of the classes are different. Some days we will teach math, science, art, watch movies and things like that. We also follow a routine from a book and it usually is showing the kids what certain things are in English and how they are spelt. Some kids are bad and always causing trouble. Just like any kids, there is always the one or two that try to be the class clown. We are only observing now but I will lay the law when I get my own class. Ha-ha

The school year at our English school is March-March so we are nearing graduation and this graduation is taking place on Wednesday (Feb. 25th). The kids have been preparing for this for a while now and work very hard. I could not imagine working that hard at that age. They needed to memorize stories, speeches, skits, performances and things like that and perform it for their parents at graduation. It is an accumulation of things they have done over the course of the year. To my surprise, I was nominated to be the MC for the whole event. I have never spoke in front of a large group of people with a microphone and they say it is people's biggest fears. I was definitely nervous because it was my job to come up with the opening and closing statements which to me were very important because of the children’s accomplishments. So during the next week on Monday and Tuesday, we were getting everything ready and preparing for the graduation.

Wednesday was finally here. Today the kids were graduating and all of their hard work was finally paying off. There was probably anywhere from 80-90 parents there to watch and I was actually really nervous. I did not think I was going to be able to do it. My opening was not good at all and I started to be so nervous for the whole ceremony. But as time went on, I settled in well and actually enjoyed myself. Maybe a lot of it was because I kept telling myself that most people in the crowd could not understand me or anything I was saying. A funny story that happened, the 6 year olds did a performance and after they finished, the parents clapped and the curtain shut. Once they were done clapping, I said "Wow, what a performance by the 6 year olds. Let’s please give them another round of applause". I began clapping by myself to give them a hint and the parents just stared at me like I was an idiot. Other than that, it went really well and the children did a great job and the parents were pleased to say the least. The ceremony lasted about 3 1/2 hours. I was given a lot of compliments and people told me they were surprised that it was my first time being an MC. It was good to hear that and hopefully I conquered a big fear of mine.

I was so relieved when we finished. For the rest of the day we cleaned everything up and the school took all of us out to dinner at The Outback. I had a fat steak and devoured it. We still have to work on Thursday and Friday but it will just be cleaning and preparing for the new kids who start school Monday, March 2nd. This is when I will start teaching by myself. Along with this post, I will post pictures with captions that go with this couple of weeks. I hope you all enjoy them. I will post again soon about the weekend ahead of us.