Day 49 -- First Day of Teaching

Last night around this time, I professed to a friend that, no, I was not nervous for my first day of teaching. I then spent half the night worrying about every last detail. I was so nervous. I wasn't prepared at all and on top of those last minute technology checks and material gathering, I still had to make a speech to the entire school staff IN KOREAN.

So, when I woke this morning before the sun was up, I was a bit overwhelmed.

Luckily, my coteacher is awesome and my classroom is super sick. Mrs Soh settled all my concerns, my speech went well (enough), and soon I was waiting anxiously for my first class--one of the senior classes--to arrive.

My lesson was--surprise surprise--on self introductions. I used lots of personal pictures and video because I want to be close to my students. They responded WONDERFULLY. I thought it was just beginner's luck and when my last class of the day--a junior class--walked in next, I was a bit apprehensive that I would get the same response. I mean, one of the students had a little swastika tattooed on his wrist.

As it turned out, that class was my best. The kids had awesome energy and were so responsive. Even my little swastika dude. He actually participated the most and was so willing to speak up in class when nobody else would.

I had them write me little notes introducing themselves, so here are three of my favorites from today. I am QUITE sure I will get even more amusing responses as the week rolls on.

Nice hobby.

He may not like it, but he's pretty good at it. The beginning section was equal parts hilarious and impressive.

At least he's honest?

I had agreed to teach an "advanced" class for an additional 4 times a week. Since I only teach 12 classes (12 hours) a week otherwise, I agreed, bumping me up to 16 hours which is still well under the maximum of 20 teaching hours (not including lesson planning and prep/down time at the school).

I was not warned, however, that this "advanced" class was actually a TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) Speaking section cram class. My six students will be taking the TOEFL in September and I was told that, after this course I'm teaching, the school expects them to score at least a 20 out of 30 possible points. That's a pretty steep standard, since "passing" the TOEFL means getting about 60 points out of a possible 120. So a 50% is passing. And yet, they want me to coach these kids up to a 67% in the hardest of the 4 sections (reading, writing, speaking, listening). Good thing I'm trained in TOEFL tutoring oh wait...