Next Year
I'm now into my tenth week of semester two at Jinbu High School and things couldn't be going better. I sat down and worked out how to make my lessons a bit more interesting and relevant to my students, with pretty decent results. We've done a month of music videos, in which I got to play Arcade Fire to my kids, and have them finish the lines to Summertime by Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince. Now we're just coming to the end of a series of lessons based on Up (best movie ever), culminating in my students writing and performing an alternative script, one of which morphed into a musical, and will probably walk off with the prize of some cinema vouchers.
Things are going well at my elementary schools too. I've equipped my older ones with grammar textbooks, and they're now au fait with the intricacies of present simple vs present progressive. With the younger ones I'm working on pronunciation and basic spelling. This involves a lot of singing, running around and making letter shapes with our bodies.
All in all things are going really well, but I feel like my work is only just beginning, rather than entering it's final stages. Given that I seem to work in one of the most relaxed schools in South Korea, it seemed senseless not to renew my contract, so I will now officially be staying in Jinbu for another year starting March 2011.
Holiday
The good news is my contract renewal gives me a 5 week break during the winter vacation, so I will be coming home on January 24th, and staying until February 21st. This is at least good news for me, as it means I'll get a little respite from temperatures of -27C, and it may be good news for you, assuming you want to see me. I'll sort out some kind of schedule nearer the time, but keep some space free, yeah?
Educating Grev
I've been trying to do a bit of professional development of late, which has included joining KOTESOL, the association for English teachers here. I headed up to their International Conference in Seoul a few weekends ago, and was convinced that doing a masters would be a good idea. Having spent the weeks since researching various programs, I'm now in the process of applying to the University of Birmingham (The Midlands, not Alabama) to start an MA in Applied Linguistics in April. It's a distance learning course, so I can do it while I continue to work, without ever having to leave Korea and go to Birmingham, which is definitely a boon.
All that means that I'll most likely be spending a fair proportion of the coming years outside of the UK. I'm sorry if this is disappointing to anyone, but at least you'll always have an interesting holiday destination.
Soppy Romance Bit
Finally, after ten or so months of not doing so, Linda and I live on the same continent again. We've even managed to wind up in the same country. OK, she's over the other side (Incheon) but we are at least within commuting distance, and can see each other most weekends. I won't bore you any further, but expect the odd mushy photo in the coming weeks.
And that's all my news for now. I'll pop some photos up in the next couple of days from stuff that didn't really merit it's own post. I'll try to keep writing as often as I can, though my days seem to be getting busier and busier. I'm doing ok on 6 hours sleep a night, but I'm not experimenting with 5 for you lot's sake.
Sorry about that,
A
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