Students

I have been at my school long enough to write about the students now. I teach elementary grades 1, 3, and 6. I teach two different 1st grade classes when the teachers remember to send them to me--so far I have seen one class once, and the other class twice. Right now they kind of look like Bambi staring at a car coming straight at them--cute and stupid lol. But they are really passionate about coloring--so my job is easy. Teach them a bit of alphabet and give them letters to color or connect the dots to color and they are busy for 30 minutes.

I teach four classes of 6th graders, about 28 students in each class. They are 6th graders--awkward, emotional, and hard to involve. They love to roll their eyes and sigh in exasperation, which is funny because I do that too after ten minutes of having to deal with them. And they haven't learned that the more they complain about an activity, the more embarrassing the activity is the next class. Oh yes, this time I plan on making them do Comparative Karaoke to "Anything You Can Do" and Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" and Pet Clarks' "My Love" Oh yes, I am an evil seon-saeng-nim.

I have to admit that my favorite level is 3rd grade. The girls are so cute with their pig tails and huge bows in their hair, and all that pink. And the boys are so cute with their ill fitting clothes and crazy haircuts and their runny noses. They are the cutest wildest devils you ever saw! One girl is amazing at English, down to using elaborate hand gestures... she is the one who wants to be a singing cardiologist and donate 10% of her earnings to "less civilized" countries to develope her method of healing. Another girl is torn between being a pianist or a comic book artist. Another girl has as many as "50 dreams." Another girl doesn't speak a word of English and is quite "Special," but every class she pulls my shirt and waves at me.I speak with her and she nods and smiles widely; I know she has no clue what I am saying, but we have a bond. One girl sets me up with a new 3rd grade boy every class, and I have to gently let the boy down who then gives a sigh of relief that I won't marry him. I feel used.

One class made me particularly angry and one student asked, "Teacher what wrong?" and I said "You are all driving me crazy!" And now one girl in that class walks in every morning and says "Carmen-Teacher crazy!" Of course she would remember that word.

 There is one boy who my teacher swears is "Special." I think that means special needs, but I donno as all the children are "Special" according to her.  This one "special" boy has very good English. He called me over, climbed up on his chair, and pulled my nose saying, "Teacher big nose! Beautiful!" and stroked my nose until I swatted him off. Today he came up to me and said "Carmen-Teacher has a big beautiful nose!" Another boy is tall and skinny and awkward, and looks like the Korean version of my nephew, J, at that age... I just want to hug him. Another boy is incredibly hyper and runs around the class and I have to grab him mid run and put him back in his seat and stand next to him all class. Some times if I am across the room he goes "Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Carmen,Carmen, Carmen, Carmen, Carmen-Teacher, Carmen-Teacher" until I get exasperated and go "WHAT?" and he giggles and shrugs his shoulders.

Two boys apparently had just learned the macarena, as they were practicing it before class. They were trying to show other students how to do it too. It was so cute! I asked them what they were doing and one boy said, "Oh its the Macaroni."  And I had to force down a laugh as they taught me the "Macaroni."

I did an acting activity with them today. Some students were just too shy and scared to get up and act. But one class took it very serious. One boy was prop master and was in charge of flying a bird across the "stage" and being a monkey at a certain time. He did it with such skill and he was so proud.  Another boy directed his whole group to ensure that everything was right on cue. He got angry when a student lost his or her lines. Another student literally practiced her little scream. And one boy go so into the moment he cried "STELLA!" I was laughing so hard, I cried--he was just so into the moment of the giant banana and the small chair. He was so proud, it was as if  he had been waiting for that opprutunity his whole life.

No description of these cute little monsters would be complete without telling you about Konglish. These are words I cannot break the kids of:
"Teacher Finishy"-Teacher, I am finished.
"Geeetar"-Guitar
"Oppice"- "Office"
"I was (good, bad, sunny)" -It was sunny, good, bad.
"I go played swimming"-I went swimming.
"oranji"-orange (which is actually the Korean word for Orange)
"yesa" accompanied by a nod and a blank look-what the heck are you talking about lady?
"It's a big."- It's big.
"lunchy"=lunch
"Englishy"= English
Any givin conversation goes some what like this:
Ss: Englishy
me: English
Ss: Englishy.
Me: Eng-l-ishhhh
Ss: Eng-li-ssshhhhhhyyy
Me: No! Not Englishy, English.
Ss: English
Me: Yes! Say it one more time: English.
Ss (with an esasperated nod): Englishy.
Me: (Whimper)