That time I thought it was an OK idea to sing in front of 80+ parents and teachers

If you weren't already aware by my refusal to every sing karaoke, singing isn't my favorite thing to do. I don't particularly hate my singing voice...I just think others don't need or want to hear it. I don't like the idea of singing in front of large groups of people and, most likely, never will. So when my co-teachers told me that I had been volunteered to sing in front of parents and teachers at a school gathering, I was less than thrilled with the idea.

But first, lets clarify what a parent-teacher gathering means in Korea (since I had zero idea what to expect when I heard about it). Around 60+ parents came to school to spend their afternoon (3 hrs) playing games with teachers.They were able to chat with the teachers who work with their kids, bond with one another, eat food, and win prizes. It's was just a fun time for all.

When we first arrived at the gym I was extremely happy to see a table with beer, Soju, fried chicken and other yummy goodies. After chowing down, the MC had tables compete against each others with dance contests (I may have stood on a chair and danced for a bit...we lost) and some other games. The tables were divided by class years. So if you had a child in the 5th grade, you sat with the other 5th grade parents. The English Center had a table to ourselves.

The MC had us line up by table and complete different activities: massage each other, sit on each others laps in a line, pass something above our heads as fast as possible up and down the line, and more. Everyone was involved in these games and it was really fun.

Next the MC asked for people to play different party games. The first involved having 5 people tied together by their ankles who had to go back and forth across the gym. After watching a few different teams compete, a co-teacher and I decided to give it a go. We won and got a prize.

My lovely co-teachers with our table of food and drinks

Participating in a game with teachers and parents. We won!

From then on I mainly watched as parents and teachers competed against one another for prizes. It was funny at times because the MC made the losers dance (some parents really broke it down) and the games were just strange to watch. There was a game were 6 people held onto ropes that were connected to a flat circular disk in the center. They had to bounce a ball on the disk as many times as possible. There was a jump rope competition (double dutch) with parents trying to get as many people as possible jumping at one time. They played a game were one team had one yellow balloon tied to an ankle and the other team had a white balloon. The goal was to pop the other teams balloons. My co-teachers convinced me to try and within 1 minute I was out.

They had a raffle going throughout the festivities and I ended up winning one of the bigger gifts: 3 tissue boxes! So I won tissues (I have a cold again..perfect!), toothpaste (can never have enough) and cans of tuna (dream gift right here). I'm happy with all my prizes and how could I not be- they're free!

Now the singing. The awful, awful singing. Every table sang a song. One person sang and the others danced in the background. All the parents sang really old Korean songs that everyone was dancing and clapping along with. I was silently freaking out because I don't have 'a song.' Everyone seems to have that Karaoke song that they like to do- I don't really have that. I like singing N'sync and Backstreet boys but I didn't think that was appropriate for Korea. Bruno Mars is fairly popular here so we decided to sing one of his songs and went up to the stage. I convinced Chia, another Native co-teacher to sing with me and THANK GOD I did. I had the mic taken out of my hands by the MC about a 1/4th of the way into the song (I think I was out of tune and off key) and then our song was stopped early because we were....great. It was awful but it's done now and we're never going to talk about it again OK?

So I had a lot of fun, other than singing, and faced my fears. It was a really good day.

I won prizes for participating in games and in the raffle!

Peace!

Damyang Bamboo Forest and smiling until my cheeks hurt

Saturday was really, really, really fun. So fun that my cheeks were hurting from smiling and laughing so much.

On Saturday morning Megan and I met up with new friends to check out Damyang- a county (so says wikipedia- lets just call it a town) located 30-40 minutes outside of Gwangju. The actual town is pretty quaint but has most of Gwangju's tourists attractions. We went to the most popular attraction- the Bamboo Forest- and also walked along the Metasequoia Road.

Before heading to Damyang, we all met outside of a building near Chonnam University. This would normally be really uneventful except that they had this gorgeous flower display happening. It was a pretty start to the day.

Side note: Chonnam University is a national university located in Gwangju. I live around 30-40 minutes away by bus. It has an student population around 37,000 and has a really sweet area with bars and restaurants that I go to now and then with friends.

Surprise! Random flower display made the day a little bit brighter.

Megan and I were meeting up with two boys we had met a few weeks back. What's really entertaining and wonderful about our friendship is that they speak next to no English. Megan speaks pretty fluent Korean and can translate a lot but I have to rely on body language and intuition to understand what's going on. While I'm getting a lot better at Korean and can make out some of what they're saying, it's mainly a jumbled mess of translating and motioning to one another...yet for some reason we all like hanging out and seem to get along well.

After a quick photo-shoot with the flower display, we drove to Damyang and ate a quick lunch of spicy noodles before heading into the Bamboo Forest. We had to pay a small fee to enter (2000 won each) and received a ticket. The best part of this ticket (which is absolutely going into the scrapbook) is that it says: 3 Adults-6000 won, 1 Foreigner- 2000 won. In Korean it really just says "Foreigner." Awesome.

Walking around was relaxing and fun. We talked, people watched (more like people stared at me and I pretended not to notice), and enjoyed the pretty bamboo. We wandered around the forest for close to an hour before coming out into a park. There was a small pond, temple, and just really gorgeous trees in every shade of orange and red. While I love living in my small city, it was really refreshing to be back in nature. It made me feel revitalized and I just wanted to skip/dance all over the place.

Entering the Bamboo Forest with coffee in hand.

3 Adults and a Foreigner....Normal. 

The boys enjoying a Korean snack (that tastes like glorified cardboard to me) before we entered the forest.

A path in the Bamboo Forest.

Taking lots of selfies. Lots and lots of selfies with bamboo.

Small waterfall surrounded by Panda bears.

Temple in the park at the end of the Bamboo Forest.

Having fun playing in the leaves in the park at the end of the forest.

After enjoying a quick snack of Green Tea Ice Cream (perfect for a cold November day), we drove over to the Metasequoia-lined Road. The road is semi-famous because it was featured in a romantic drama. I believe its been voted as one of the prettiest roads in Korea (who knew there was a list). After paying another entry fee (only 1000 won), we walked along the road and enjoyed the gorgeous leaves. While this might seem boring, it was really fun. People were taking wedding pictures, there were couples everywhere with Selfie Sticks (if you don't know what that is you need to look it up), and kids were running around in the leaves. We just sat around and enjoyed the views. Megan and I also might have felt a bit too revitalized by the outdoors and started playing an impromptu game of baseball...using a stick and some pinecones. The boys joined in later.

Metasequioa Lined Road and the perfect picture. 

Playing some baseball. We're super cool and we don't care who knows it.

After Damyang we went back to the Chonnam University area, grabbed dinner, played some pool, and walked around exploring the University. I feel like I keep repeating myself with this but it was a really great day.

Peace!

What am I teaching in South Korea?

To refresh your memory- I teach in an Elementary English Center, I teach most classes alone, my class sizes range between 8-14 students (although I've had 3 students show up one day...fun class!), and my lessons are all considered supplementary lessons (the students already have English class during the school day and then they come to me for extra lessons).

I teach 3 levels: Phonics, Beginners, and Intermediate. The Phonics class has a really basic workbook, while Beginners and Intermediate have a more advanced book. I follow along with the chapter theme but never really teach directly from the book. Don't get me wrong- I teach the book! However, the kids seem to find the work to be pretty easy so I tend to expand on the theme.

Please ignore the bags under my eyes. The books I use for Phonics and Beginner/Intermediate 

A page out of the Phonics book. 

I've covered quite a few topics with my kids over the last few months so I won't get incredibly detailed about all of my lessons but here's a general idea of some of the things we've covered:

1. Phonics
            -I teach a 1st and 2nd grade Phonics class and they're precious. We practice the ABC's, writing our names, short sentences (Thank you, I like/don't like, etc), food names, and most importantly- the ability to identify sounds. When I make a sound for a letter they should be able to tell me what it is. However, I'm just happy if they can make it all the way through the ABC's.
Here's my favorite program to show if I have extra time at the end or need to catch their attention at the beginning:

                                   Alphablocks: Great series to learn the sounds of letters

2. Weather
            -This is the most recent topic I was covering with my older kids. The key sentence was "How's the weather today?" and its corresponding answer. They learned vocab related to the weather and played games where they had to use weather words.

3. The Solar System
           - We learn and review the names of the planets, watch a video showing how the planets compare in size, use flashcards to put the planets in order, and practice identifying planets by playing memory games. End result: they should know all of the planets in order, Mercury is the smallest, and Jupiter is the largest.
Here's my lesson plan for teaching the planets:


 4. Storytelling
           - Using the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar we learn and review the days of the week and food names. I show a video with the story, use flashcards, and use memory games to practice.

5. Clothing
           - This topic was expanded over multiple classes but I'm gonna condense it. We practice sentences such as, "What are you wearing? I'm wearing..." We learned shopping expressions and went shopping. We reviewed the different seasons and discussed what was appropriate. Learned about traditional clothing from around the world (ummm...they've been teaching that America's traditional clothing is Cowboy clothes....I don't know how to feel about this).

6. Cubes and Cuboids
            - Reviewed 2-D shape names (square, triangle, etc) and then expanded to 3-D solid names (sphere, pyramid, etc). Played a board game, listened to a song, thought of different objects that were different shapes, etc. This is the video I watched over and over. I know all the words. Super.

7. Food
        - My favorite topic to teach because I love all food. We learned/reviewed names, learned key phrases (This is delicious! This is gross!), discussed foods from around the world compared to Korea, learned what to say in a restaurant, made our own menus, etc.

8. Body Parts
         - Kids in this school are now really good at singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, fantastic at playing Simon Says, and great at identifying body parts (especially to say their friends have big heads/noses/mouths). We drew pictures of monsters and talked about their bodies, measured body parts, and just played lots of movement games to remember the parts of the body.

9.Colors
         - Point to something red! Something green! Touch something black! Lots of Powerpoints, coloring, and running around to find the right color.

I get a lot of great material from websites like Waygook.com (resources galore!) and just general google searches. Teachers like to share their fantastic Powerpoints and worksheets- which makes my life a lot easier. I'm not the greatest at making Powerpoints but I'm pretty fantastic at modifying them.

Hope this was informative and interesting. If not, I'll try to do something interesting this weekend to write about.

Peace!

An elementary school festival in Korea

Sorry for the delay in blog posts recently. Sometimes I feel like I have nothing to write about...and then I realize that I'm in Korea and have no excuse. I can always think of something semi-interesting. Shame on me.

ANYWAY. This past Wednesday my elementary school had a school festival and it was more adorable than you could possibly imagine. For the past month or more all of the classes have been preparing a performance for the festival. There were dances, skits, and musical performances. Everyone had a time to shine- from the youngest kindergardeners (5 yrs) to the 6th graders.

I was able to watch all of the performances in the morning. With all of the classes performing, the show lasted almost 3 hours. They had the run-through in the morning and then the parents came in the afternoon. They had professional lighting for the stage, balloons decorating the gymnasium, student art surrounding the entrances, and, my favorite thing by far, costumes.

Since festivals in Korea are a common thing throughout Elementary, Middle, and High School, there are companies that are based solely on providing costumes to students for the day. It was incredibly cute and hilarious to see what the teachers chose for the kids. Some costumes matched the performance (Elsas and Hans dancing around to Frozen's Let It Go), while others had nothing to do with anything....which was great.

My favorite part of the festival actually had little to do with what the kids were doing on stage. During a skit about a doctor the Hava Nagilah was playing....loudly, on repeat, and definitely a klezmer version. I think I laughed until I started crying and then began singing along. No one understood but it was a great moment and really made me think of home.

All of these pictures were taken by the fellow native teacher at my school. Enjoy!

Doctor performance to Hava Nagilah.

Performance where they made different flags using paper to a song.

LOOK AT THOSE COSTUMES.

Traditional drum performance.

Teachers making the students laugh. Last performance.

Cheerleading performance.

Let It Goooooo....every Korean elementary student knows this song.

Recorder performance.

Look at those capes! Look at those suspenders! Just look!

Skit about students and something....I didn't get much. Korean class starts later this week.

Fantastic performance. Possibly 5th graders.

Youngest kindergartners. I think I was squealing during this performance. Words couldn't express how cute they were. 

Shiny outfits, shiny skirts/pants, and a great show.

Traditional drum performance by a 6 grade class.

Kindergartners. I think my heart exploded at this point.

Guitar class showing off their skills

Adorable. Look at those costumes.

I'll write more sooner rather than later. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Peace!