My Job as a Native Guest English Teacher (GET)

So I figured I should let you in on what my job actually entails here. I work at Young Nam Elementary School four days a week. Then I work at Pung Cheun Elementary School (pronounced Poong Chuhn) on Tuesdays.

Young Nam is a large elementary school located at the top of a huge hill. It's only a 15 minute walk from my apartment, which is GREAT. They have Kindergarten through sixth grade and I teach 4th and 6th grade English. All together I have a total of about 190-200 students there. Each class has an average of 28 students. The sixth graders have English class 3x a week and the 4th graders 2x a week. My co-teacher (saen-sang nim means teacher) or KT (Korean teacher) is great. She can speak English well, of course sometimes things need to be repeated or worded differently on both ends. She is a genuinely sweet, soft-spoken woman and we get along very well. When I first sat down with her to lesson plan, she told me from the beginning that she wanted us to go by the textbook, which was fine with me, but of course I thought it meant not a lot of creativity. However, I have learned that she is okay f I slip in a bit of creative power points, videos, songs, etc. in there, just as long as we stick to most of what the textbook says. My sixth graders here are a bit hard to control. They get loud very fast and I have some students that do not care to learn English, which is difficult to deal with. My fourth graders are a different story. They are genuinely interested in learning and are always coming to see me and say hello during their free time during the day. Although difficult times, I love all my students, They surprise me every day with the English they do know and are all around very interesting people. I have one 6th grader who is always helping me to say their Korean names correctly. He's hysterical. He'll say the name, and then I'll repeat itm and this will go on for a full thirty seconds sometimes, and finally when I get it, he'll say, "okay okay okay okay." When Koreans say okay more than one time, it means that they fully understand what you mean. However if they say "okay" once, it means they are still slightly unsure. The faculty and staff that work here are fabulous. Always smiling, always wanting to know how I am. The entire school took me out for a "Welcoming Dinner" two weeks ago (unfortunately I have no pictures form it, but I was assured there will be more dinners to come.) I sat next to the Principal himself and drank way too much soju with him and the Vice Principal, while my co teachers were telling me to "eat more, eat more, you will get drunk." It was the most delicious meal I've had since I've been here, and not just because it was legit seven courses. Yes, they treat you well here.

Young Nam Elementary School

The front entrance

Crazy hill I have to hike up everyday.. I often wonder what it would be like to roll down it =)

Fun walls as you hike up the hill..

Some of my 4th graders!



Behavior Management Plan



Pung Cheun is the elementary school I work at once a week. This school is a 30 minute drive and I am picked up every Tuesday by the Vice Principal, who couldn't be a nicer man. Mr. Gee speaks amazing English, he's been to the US multiple times and studied there. The school is located in a very rural area, surrounded by beautiful mountains. The first day I was here, the Principal gave me a traditional Hahoe mask wooden necklace from the famous Hahoe Village in Andong. I have a total of 19 students here. I teach a mixed 1st/2nd grade class, a mixed 3rd/4th grade class, a 5th grade class and a 6th grade class. These students are extremely intelligent and really fun to work with. I have my own English room here, so it's nice to have my own space where I can do basically whatever I choose. They are very laid back here. There's probably about eight teachers total. Also, I don't really have co-teachers here. Most of their homeroom teachers are not in the room with me while I'm teaching, so I'm in charge of my own classroom which makes me feel slightly more at ease.

Inside my classroom at Pung Cheun

The English hallway at Pung Cheun

A couple things about Korean Elementary Schools in general, and really all level schools here:

1. The hallways and bathrooms are not heated. The minute you step out of a classroom... you are in an icebox. Not the most pleasant thing in the world,  but it does save them a load of money.

2. The students sprint, run, chase each other, wrestle in the hallways, and this is completely acceptable. It is also something that I am having a hard time accepting, because the second a student runs in the hallways in the States, they would be reprimanded immediately.

3. Students and teachers eat together in the lunch room. Another thing that was odd for me at first, but I have actually come to like it. It allows you to see your students in a more informal setting.



4. While we're on that topic, students and teachers ALL buy the school lunch. No one brings lunch from home. When I asked my co teacher about this, she said, "Why would we bring lunch from home. The lunch here is so delicious!" I completely agree with her and so does every other Native Guest English teacher I've talked to. Lunch is our FAVORITE part of the day. However, I don't think it's even in their mindset to bring lunch from home. Korean meals are such a big part of their culture, so eating the same things and together is important to them.



5. There is not a lot of discipline in the classroom and teachers pick and choose where to give it out... something else I'm still struggling with. At home when I taught, classroom management was number one. It has to be; It's what sets up your class for the entire year. Here, as you can see above in the picture, I set a classroom management technique, where there is competition among classes in "The English Race" and students respond well to that. All I need to do is point to it, and they re-focus. It supports positive behavior reinforcement, but the biggest thing is the talking when other students or we teachers are. That was one thing I would not stand for in the States. If a student was presenting, and another one was talking, I would stop the presentation immediately. Here, the KT's don't really respond to these situations, so it makes it hard to know the line between stepping over their toes or not.



6. Special Needs students do not have the services they really need. It kills me to write this part, because I couldn't even believe it was happening in my classroom. Special Education has only recently become noticed and addressed in South Korea. However, since they are in that in between stage, their are major issues still going on with it in the classroom. One example, is I have a 6th grade boy who was not given a textbook or a workbook. He was not responding to anything, and being that I was not told that he was special needs, my immediate reaction was, is he just unprepared, or is something else going on?  Having experience with special education, I have that intuition when something is a little off about a student. But then why does he not even have materials? When I asked my coteacher about this, she responded with, "Oh, he's special needs. He goes to a special education class." I proceeded to ask her, "Okay but why does he not have books?" She did not have an answer for me. I am in the midst now, of finding a packet for him to work on during class that relates to what we are learning. He needs to have something to work on that is on his academic level. The worst part about it is that his classmates will not include him in anything, and do not try to help him out. All of the inclusion classes I've ever taught in, the regular education students are always helpful and genuinely care, so I need to find my own ways of developing this sense of character in my classrooms here.



7. Racism is still a major part of society here. Some days I really do feel like I'm living in the 50's and 60's. I showed a lesson the other day, where there was a Black girl in the video and right when she appeared on the screen, the students started laughing, pointing and talking in Korean about her. From that day on, I have created almost every powerpoint slide, every video, to include every minority I can think of, to get them as much exposure as possible. The percentage of African Americans in this country is extremely low, so I understand why these students are not too familiar with other races, but I believe it is still the Korean teachers' job here to create a diverse cultural atmosphere within the classroom. Part of my job here now, is to do that, and hopefully when I walk away after a year, these students will not think twice about seeing, hearing, and/or meeting a person of color.

After reading this, I feel as though there were a lot of negatives I wrote down about Korean schools. I love teaching here, but I want to write the truth about the environment. Though, I will repeat this again and again, the faculty and staff who work at these schools are the most caring, respecting, people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and working with. Everyone looks out for each other, and they want you to feel comfortable, even it does means taking a week to get a bed in your apartment haha.