Video now included

Today is our last day of class before vacation. It was a half day for our morning kids, but we still have kids until 7pm tonight. Two weeks ago, we were told that today would be "Acting It Out Day". All of our classes would have to prepare a song and memorize lines to perform in front of the rest of the classes. This was partly rather simple, and partly rather annoying. All of my classes have songs and memorization built into the curriculum, apart from my last class, which is 6th/7th grade. The problem comes with having students memorize specific parts well enough to perform them in front of their peers in two weeks, while continuing on with the curriculum we'd planned, including tests, homework, etc.

My kindergarten classes did fine this morning, since I have them every day for 4 thirty-minute sessions. We had three kids absent today, and they still managed to re-learn all their lines, and remember a song we hadn't sung in about three weeks as well as the one we've been practicing that they choreographed themselves (the audio's pretty bad, but that's what you get with video from a camera):

My afternoon classes, however, I've been struggling with. I only see them for 45 minutes, and three of the classes are only three days a week instead of five. The stories have 5 characters in them, so it's hard to assign 'parts', and for me to remember them for all the classes. So I had to create a script for each class. Partly so they could take them home and memorize them, and partly so I could remember whose line was next to prompt them if necessary (this, by the way, is on top of the weekly lesson plans, monthly lesson plans, and monthly progress reports for 5 classes and 60 kids that were due today). My first two afternoon classes had their song and their parts down pat, but my other kids, well... to say they needed prompting is an understatement. Especially my oldest group. Anyone who works with middle school kids would understand the look of "you've got to be kidding" when I told them they would have to stand up in front of the other classes and recite their parts. From memory. And my severe displeasure with them when the two youngest in the class had memorized their parts, intonation and all, and the three oldest hadn't even tried.

Soo.... after lunch, Julie tells us that for the first class, we're not going to do the first class, and then second class watch a movie. Meaning no acting out. This is slightly annoying, as the lesson plan for all but one of my afternoon classes was to practice for acting it out. Then she decides since so many kids are absent (it is, after all, a Friday at 4pm before vacation), there will be no lessons, just the movie for both periods. For all the classes for the rest of the day. Now mind you, I spent a lot of time with all my classes getting them to practice, and reminding them they would be performing in front of their peers on Friday. With some of my classes, I'm relieved. I'm also annoyed that I spent so much of my time, and theirs, preparing for something that didn't happen.

The other problem is I had a unit test planned for my last class today. It was supposed to be their first big test since I've had them, and now not only do I not have a test grade to put on their evaluations for the month, but I'm going to have to spend Monday reviewing since they will have forgotten everything over the break, and have them take the test on Wednesday. This pushes my lessons for the month back by almost a week. Again, rather annoying.

(5 minutes later)

Julie just informed me that the 5:30 class is going to have class the first lesson and then watch the movie afterwards. This is partly because James was going to have his test, regardless of what the other classes were doing. At this point, all the Korean teachers have left. Normally they would have class from 6:15-7:00, but one of them had a plane to catch, one of them had a Bible study or something, and I don't know where the third one went. But they were all out of here by 4. So. Now I will still give my test, but Julie will administer the test to the two students that are absent later so I don't have to re-write my lessons. And I will leave at 6:15, whether my evaluations are done or not.

Aisha.

By-the-by

I know some people that read this blog had requested that they be e-mailed whenever I had a new post. I just found the setting that allows me to have up to 10 e-mail addresses notified whenever there's a new one. I've already put three addresses on the list, so if anyone else is interested, just leave me a comment here, send me a note or an e-mail with the address and I'll add the first 7 requests that I get. 

If you're a little more technically savvy, you can also subscribe to the RSS feed with the link at the bottom of this page. This will update your feed list, but not your inbox. 

Also, next week is my first week of vacation. This Friday and Saturday I'll be going to the beach for 2 days with Adventure Korea, and then I'll be exploring random places throughout the week. I think my first stop will be the Korean Folk Village. I just got my Lonely Planet guide today, so I'm going to sort through it and find some interesting places to visit next week. I'll probably have quite a few updates next week, so keep your eyes peeled!

More Adventures in Korea

Adventure Korea is now one of my more visited websites. (Click on the name to visit their site). I just signed up for two more adventures (I'm going with them to the Mud Festival tomorrow).

I have one of my weeks of vacation coming up (the other one is at Christmas, and I'm wrestling with going home or staying here) at the end of the month. So the first adventure I'm going on is the Summer Special Trip at the beginning of my week off, July 26th-27th. We're going to Doripo Beach on the western coast. A chartered bus, 2 meals, accomodations, and experience fees are all included for two days for less than 100,000 won (about $100).

We're going to travel to a small islet by boat and will do net fishing (in a traditional Korean way), clam digging, octopus picking, and swimming. And we get to eat the seafood that we catch right away. Pretty cool, huh? We'll also visit the Muan White Lotus Festival, where we'll take a boat ride along the lotus flowers road, make onion-kimchi (yuck!), and taste various foods made with lotus like lotus ice cream, lotus tea, lotus sandwiches, lotus-wrapped rice and lotus beer as well. (Should be very interesting...)

The second trip I'm taking is to the DMZ on Saturday, August 23rd. It's a day trip to Imjingak, which is as far as civilians can go to the North by themselves without permission, the 3rd tunnel, the Dora Observatory, and Tongilchon, one of two villages inside the DMZ.

And of course I'll be posting pictures from both of these. I can't wait!