Really What I'm Doing

Now that I’ve been here for a little while I suppose I should clarify what it is I actually do. I work at an after school academy. They are very popular here. There’s some for math or music, etc… so mine is English of course. Many kids go to ours two days a week and to another one the other days. There are some kids who attend ours from 4-7pm and then go straight to another one and don’t get home until around midnight. It’s just the thing kids do here. Oftentimes I feel bad for them sitting in regular school all day and then sitting in academies on top of that. It’s a known fact that academies give more homework than regular school. I’ve heard that this has increased in the last decade and so day schools have been giving less homework these days. I still feel bad for them.
Many of you asked before I left “If you don’t know Korean, how will you teach them English?” I had no idea at the time, but I wasn’t worried about it. The one thing I did know is that you’re supposed to “feed them English”. Now I can clarify. When you were in middle school first learning French or Spanish, did you have a person from France/Spain who knew no English teaching you? No, you had an American who was fluent in the language who spoke mostly in English, but taught you the basics of the language. Then as you progressed, they didn’t want you speaking English in the class, right? And your teacher started using more of the language with you in class. And if you were to go really far with it, you’d enter a class where there’s no English speaking whatsoever, not from you or the teacher. Next you’d work on true fluency.
These kids start English really young in school with their Korean teachers. They learn the basics from them and by the time they are in middle school, many of them are ready for foreign teachers (me). For some of my lower level classes I try to speak a little slower and I simplify my language for all classes, but on the whole they understand me. So what I work on with them is increasing their vocab and refining their grammar. Some of them will write or say “he go to store” and forget about “s” to match with he, and forget “the” because it doesn’t work that way in Korean. Some kids know and so as soon as they say it, they’ll fix it. But I have a couple who really can’t put sentences together for the life of them. Another major thing I teach them is transitions. They have trouble seeing that there’s a relationship between sentences next to each other, so I teach them how words like “However, because, also, after” etc. work and then they have to give me their own examples.
Through this I’ve noticed just how many words have multiple meanings. I really feel bad for the kids because I’m sure it confuses them. I’ve also noticed that girls are better than boys at handwriting (their Korean writing too). That makes me laugh.
I had no idea how difficult it is to write on the board. It’s more difficult than it looks, especially as a lefty. First of all you have to write vertically with no place to rest your arm. You can’t stand right in front or you’ll block the view, so you have to write at a weird angle off to the side. And you’re not supposed to face the board, but continue facing the kids. Plus I’m a lefty which makes the hard, impossible. I definitely don’t have it down.
I have to say that on the whole I’m liking this and I’m glad I did this. I have my moments and I have things I don’t like of course, but thus is life, right? I have a couple of kids that frustrate me and I don’t know what to do with them sometimes. I really don’t like preparing lessons. Sometimes after one of my longer days with my biggest classes, I can feel my throat starting to hurt from having to talk so loud and so long. But I really like it when the kids are eating candy and they offer me some during break. I like it when the shy kids raise their hand to answer. I like it when I can see the wheels turning inside a kid’s head and they get a concept. I like it when they teach me something about Korea.