Things are changing here in Korealand and i'm hoping for the better. While I always tend to reject change immediately as invalid and useless, this time the change is something I yearned for at the beginning of my teacher term so I suppose there's no use bitching about it...isn't this what I wanted?
It all started yesterday, my friend Emily who works at a middle school about a 30 minutes walk from here held an open class. An open class is quite simple, you teach your class and any number of people are invited or allowed to attend. This allows for other teachers (like clueless muah) to observe and gain insight, principles can come to compare their native teachers to other teachers, as well as an opportunity for parents and relatives to come in and see how their children are being educated. Three of my co-teachers and I, along with our principle went into Emily's class and observed.
The first noticeable difference (and the biggest) is that Emily has a beautiufl classroom filled with life size pictures of cities, a TV space for kids to come in and watch movies, a stage, microphone, sliding chalk and white boards and circle tables that enable the group mentality. While I taught with Emily during summer camp I definintely saw her classroom but now i've been here for four months, and every day I traipse about my school carrying whatever materials I need for class. EVERY. DAY. up stairs, down stairs, through cold corridors, amongst the masses of sweating and swearing students, oi it's tiring! The second noticeable thing is that Emily and her co-teacher worked like a team, each of them had a speaking part in the lesson and each of them worked off one another like a dream team. There are few things with Emily's situation that will not be applicable to me, like she only has 1 co-teacher (I think) whereas I have 8, and they have been teaching together for the last 8 months. So that won't be applicable but some people will try anything to maintain perfection.
SO today my principal called a meeting with the English teachers (I wasn't invited, i'm slightly bitter but I wouldn't have understood anyway so oh well I guess). During this meeting he informed them that he wanted us to read more and that he wanted my co-teachers to become more involved in my lessons. I wasn't there but i'm sure I heard a great sigh of depression emit from each of them. These teachers work their butts off every single day and one day a week all they had to do was translate the trickier parts of my lecture. Now they have yet another class to plan with someone that they don't really understand. Oi vey. Not only this, but i've not been teaching from a text book, instead i've been making up as I go, week by week. So now I also have to change how i'm teaching, what i'm teaching, and how I approach the kids.
So, while i'm actually pretty excited to work more closely with them (now maybe i'll be able to approach them and politely ask them to STOP SPEAKING KOREAN IN MY ENGLISH CLASS) and the fact that i'll actually be using a book like a normal teacher and not just some funky city-wide celebrity teacher with blonde sparkly hair from America; I'm also a little bit nervous and a lot bit apprehensive. They each have a different teaching style and a different idea about how and what I should teach. While I try to cater to each of them generally I just end up with a general lesson plan that I hope they can help mold to their own teaching styles; but now that I must teach with each of them i'm going to have to create 8 versions of my 1 lesson plan for 25 classes, 3 grades, and 2,700 students. holy jesus.
This is what I initally wanted...right? Cooperation and assistance...? eeep.
Anyeong!
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