my new job...

FIRST DAY:
It's Wednesday, my first day of work in my new world. This is why I came to Korea so I'm praying I will hopefully enjoy it, or atleast just survive it! My school, as I said, is located way out in a rural area, so it takes about 30 minutes in a car, or 40 minutes if you use the city bus. For my first day I rode with Mr. Jun. We arrive at school and he shows me my desk which is in a large room with about 30+ other teacher's desks. My desk is beside Mr. Bahn's and right in front of the heater. :) For the first day I assume I would observe in classrooms, but to my dismay, I was told to sit...SIT at a desk...the ENTIRE day. Atleast I had a computer! But, of course it makes a strange sound when I turn it on. What's with computer's beeping at me and making strange noises?! lol. Eventually another teacher comes over and takes my computer apart.

While that is getting fixed, a female teacher walks up and introduces herself. She tells me she is an English teacher & is in charge of giving me a tour of the school. She explains that I am the first American she has ever met and she is excited to work with me. She shows me where my classroom will be, but it is locked so we were unable to go into it. Shortly after returning to the office, the principal stands up to make annoucements and introductions. I was told to prepare a brief introduction about myself.

INTRODUCTIONS:
I walk up with a couple other teachers to be introduced. He says the first teacher's name, she bows. When he gets to me I realize he is telling the staff my name, where I'm from, etc. Then I bow and Mr. Bahn prompts me to give my introduction. Only problem is the principal told them everything already, lol. So I repeat what he said in English, then add that I am happy to be there and looking forward to working with all of the teachers. Not long afterwards I am prompted to go outside for the opening ceremony. Mind you, it is about -7 degrees celsius (19 degrees fahrenheit). We stand in line while the students do a "practice" ceremony. About ten minutes later the "real" ceremony begins. The students are lined up military style, doing alot of bowing, and the school administration is being introduced. A few speeches are given, students are presented with some sort of certificate. Once again, I am called to the front, but this time in front of all the students. Seeing as I have brown hair, I kind of mixed in with the line of Korean teachers. It wasn't until I got on stage that the students realized there was a foreigner. Atleast this time I didn't have to speak. The principal said my name, I bowed, he said "United States of America" and the students broke into a small cheer of giggles, ooohhs, and ahhhs!! lol. Rather entertaining on my part!

A PICTURE TOUR OF MY SCHOOL:

The rest of the day was spent, in the language of GET's, "deskwarming." Deskwarming basically means you sit at the desk and do not teach. By the end of the day I discovered I would be doing this for the next two days as well. That is when I figured I might as well make the best use of my time and work on lesson plan ideas. But, of course, I ended up on Facebook & Skype half of the time! I asked if I could observe a classroom but they said, "you don't need to." I don't think they understood that I WANTED to observe. Especially since when I asked who to turn my lesson plans into and they said, nobody. I then asked if there was a textbook to use for my lesson planning and they said, "you teach whatever you want...no book."

MY SCHEDULE:
So, in the words of my friend Edithe, "They give you enough rope to either swing with...or hang yourself!" I was happy to have the freedom, but nervous at the same time. I am still working on some "master plan" of what to teach each week. I am lucky in that I only have to prepare one lesson plan for the entire week. I see 4-6 different groups of students each day, once a week. As required by EPIK, we are a supposed to have a total of 22 classes per week. 16 of my classes are lectures. Out of those 16, three are middle school classes. The rest are various levels of high school. I also have 2 classes a week where I am required to "teach English to the other teachers." My co-teacher said at the beginning some teacher's may not have enough time to even come to my class, or they will be too nervous lol. I'm guessing it's not required for them to attend, they just wanted to make sure I was doing 22 classes of something. I also have 2 classes during the week, on Monday and Friday, where I have "conversation classes" with about 5-6 higher English level students. For the teacher classes and higher level student classes I do not have to prepare a lesson, just simply talk to them about whatever I choose. And finally, my last two classes are made up by "English Zone time." This is where I sit in my room for 20 minutes during lunch time every day and whoever feels like stopping by to work on their English is able to do so with me. Essentially, I am only "teaching" a lesson 16 times a week, which is awesome in my mind! I may have to "tweak" my weekly lesson a bit for the different language levels of my students, but I will figure that out as time progresses. Quick note, this schedule I speak of was not given to me until the hour before I left school on Friday! Korea is very last minute with many things!

At the end of the day I am informed that I will be able to leave at 4:15 every day to catch the city bus. This is awesome because Mr.Bahn said that the previous GET had to stay late every day. Maybe it's the advantage of being a girl, I dunno, but I was happy to hear that. But for the first day Mr. Bahn said I should wait until 5PM to leave so that I can ride with him and he will explain how the bus system works during the ride home.

DINNER WITH FRIENDS:
I return to my apartment and discover a message about meeting up for dinner/drinks to celebrate surviving our first day of work. I meet up with Paul and Ali and we discover another one of those restaurants that allow you to cook the meat yourself at your table. This time it was beef! IT WAS AMAZING! We tried three different types of meet, had a few drinks, and it was still fairly cheap for us. Alex met up with us after we got to the restaurant, so we split the cost 4 ways. After dinner we decide to check out a bar for a couple drinks. We end up at the bar called "Corona." Turns out this is the place where all English teachers or "english speaking people in Korea" hang out at. Being a Wednesday not many people were there, but we met a few of them and the boys played a few games of pool while Ali and I sat and drank. Around 11PM we decide we should call it a night.

XOXO,
Amanda