Anyway, right now I'm sat on my bed relaxing and writing this, with half an eye on The Hills Have Eyes 2 (You take what you can get in English on Korean TV). It's been a productive day, in a productive week. I spent the morning lesson planning at school, had lunch out with the teachers, did some more planning before going home and studying Korean for an hour. Then I popped out for a two hour bike ride, and found perhaps the greatest cycling road in Korea, a beautiful tight twisting descent down which one can do a passable impression of Valentino Rossi. It's a bit of a pain that you have to cycle up it first, but it's well worth the effort. I came back past Jinbu's new coffee shop and then cooked myself a pretty tasty bibimbap in my new dolsot, then did another hour of Korean study before winding up where I am now, and still managing to be vaguely productive.
At the moment the school is on summer break, which in Korea is not exactly what you might expect. I'd say at least a third of the students come in every day for supplementary classes, and study for pretty much the entire day. As for the teachers, the ones who don't have to come in are all off on residential training courses for the summer. Part of being a native-speaker English teacher here is "desk-warming" (as it's referred to by the pond-life that frequents the forums at Dave's ESL cafe), being obliged to come to school even though you don't have classes. Personally I don't see what the problem is - it's pretty much the same in any job in the UK or the US (except, ironically, teaching) and if you put it to use you can make your life a lot easier. It helps that my school is pretty great and let's me go home after lunch, but that still leaves plenty of time in the mornings to get set up for the next semester. Compared to my poor Korean colleagues, I have it pretty easy.
I find working in this kind of environment quite inspiring, and I'm feeling pretty good about teaching at the moment (perhaps as I'm not actually doing it). Having some time off has given me a chance to review what I did last semester, and I've come to the conclusion that while I did OK last semester, I can do a lot better this one. Motivating the students is never easy here (my class is worth nothing in terms of grades or exam preparation, which is the only currency for a Korean high school student) so it has to be 제미 ("jaemi" - the Korean word which means fun and interesting at the same time). I surveyed my students to find out what they wanted to learn, and they overwhelmingly said music and movies, so next semester is going to kick off with music week which will hopefully leave my students able to understand the second conditional with Beyonce's help, rap like Will Smith and tell the difference between rock and alternative music (I'm not sure I can do this myself, but ho hum). I'm also starting to think about ESL teaching long term, and investigating weekend CELTA courses and maybe even a masters. I've also joined the ranks of KOTESOL, the association for English teachers here in the hope of learning a little more about teaching English, and maybe making a few useful contacts while I'm at it.
So really, life is pretty good in Korea at the moment. Aside from a bruised big toe which has kept me out of football this week, everything's going really well. Let's hope it continues that way. For anyone who's wondering, I'm almost certainly staying here for two years now, but if this semester goes as fast as the last one did, I'll be back for my winter break in England in no time.
Anyway, bedtime I think. Please excuse the slightly self-indulgent post, but we'll be back to the holiday snaps pretty soon.
Until then,
A
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