5 Reasons Why Today Was Stressful

Most days I find being an EFL teacher is a fun, rewarding and enjoyable job. But some days it feels like banging my head against a wall....

- having to explain the word 'logical' to my class of 8 year old beginners.
- having to explain to my 8 year old beginners why 'read a book' is not a school subject, even though in the text book there was a picture of a child reading a book.
- teaching art to thirteen 6 year olds, with 10 of them simultaneously shouting "teacher help me" because they were unable to to stick a piece of string to a paper plate.
- knowing that tomorrow is 'open class'; an opportunity for all the parents to come in and observe my lessons, with carte blanche to criticise my every move.
- having my Korean co-teacher in a panicked frenzy because of said open class.

And if that wasn't bad enough... they served tuna for lunch!

Chirstmas Day

Guess that makes me Mrs Claus 

Merry Christmas

2012

Having to work on Christmas Eve is usually unpleasant, but not in Wonderland! Ric dressed as Santa and gave presents to all the children, and we had games and films and carol singing competitions. I could feel the buzzing excitement of the kids and they were so happy and loving it was really heart warming to be around them.

Tender hugs for Santa

Santa and his class

My kindergarten class enjoying a festive teacher pile on

After school we checked into a hotel in Cheonan, Hotel Tirollia. We wanted to do something a bit special to compensate for being away from our friends and families. The hotel is made to look like a traditional lodge in the Swiss Alps, it's decked out in wood and antique furniture; fittingly Christmassy.

On Christmas Day we woke up in our luxurious suite and opened our presents that we'd bought for each other and some that had been sent from our friends and family. My presents included play-dough, wool, a highlighter pen and gin tonic flavoured soap! We then popped in to visit our friend Sydney, for morning coffees and more present opening.

Christmas morning

Unsurprisingly, we had a white Christmas. It snowed throughout the night, adding yet another inch to the already deep layer of snow covering Cheonan.

From the hotel window

In a sense, our Christmas Day ended at 12 noon, when I ate a snowman shaped doughnut. After that we were in holiday mode. We took the bus to Incheon airport (which was beautifully decorated and had an orquestra playing), checked in, and ate McDonalds for our Christmas dinner and then played scrabble until it was time to board the plane.

Festive and calorific

Incheon airport, looking down on the orquestra

Christmas was a bit on a non-event in Korea, all the shops were open, people we out shopping, drinking coffee and generally going about their everyday Korean business. A contrast to England where it's the one day of the year that everything truely stops. Even pubs only open for an hour or so.

Six hours later we landed in Bangkok airport. Amazingly, in our taxi ride to our hostel, the Queen's speech was on the radio! We found our hostel, ate supper in a roadside cafe and made calls home to wish our families a merry Christmas. It was surreal speaking to my family at 12pm Thai time (2am Korean time) when it was only 5pm in England and they were still waiting to eat their Christmas dinner!

For my first Christmas away from my family, I'd say it was pretty good.

Sangnok Resort Field Trip

On Saturday we had a fiels trip to Sangnok resort in Cheonan. The children's Dads were invited along and we were told to impress them by encouraging the children to speak English. The resort comprises a hotel, a water park (Aquapia), a fair ground/small theme park, and an English-themed activity centre. The resort was deserted, we only saw a couple of people the whole time we were there, and the water park appeared to me closed for the winter.

The day went OK considering we were working unpaid on a Saturday, and it was interesting to meet the children's fathers. I guess in Korea the roles within a family are somewhat different than they are in England, very outdated; the mother takes care of all the family, cares for the children, cooks, while the father goes to work, controls all the money and makes all the decisions. Some of the Dads on the trip were friendly and interacted with the children; others however looked pained to be there and couldn't have been less interesting in the their children. The kids enjoyed it though and that's what matters.

Julia on the merri-go-round

Me and Sally on a train

Andy and Patrick in a space ship

Happy Chuseok

This weekend marks the start of Chuseok festival and a wonderful five day weekend! Chuseok is a Korean holiday where people honour their ancestors and give thanks for the harvest. Korean families will get together and eat songpyeon, a special rice cake. They have a ceremonial dinner lead by the eldest son of the eldest son of the family and they will pay their respects to their ancestors. As Ric and I don't have any Korean ancestors we're going camping!

On Wednesday this week we had Chuseok day with the kids at school and we learnt some traditional Korean games.

First of all, we made rice cakes. They're surprisingly easy to make; mix flour and warm water until its a sticky dough, mould into a bowl shape, add filling (sugar, sesame or red bean paste), seal and steam.

Then for the games. First we played yut. Traditionally played on the first day of the lunar new year, yut is a type of board game where you throw four sticks to determine how many spaces around the board you move. Next was Tuho. A very simple game of throwing arrows (or decorative sticks) into a container.

Tuho

We then played Jaegi; the children had to do keepy-uppies with a weight adorened with feathers and coloured paper.

Kicking the Jaegi

Finally, my personal favourite, the one-legged chicken fight. I loved this game simply because schools in England would never ever allow it to happen. The game comprises standing on one leg and holding your other leg bent at the knee, and bumping into your opponent until they fall over. Health and safety crazy Britain would never encourage such a "violent" game. After all the kids had had a one-legged match me and Ric took to the floor and tried to out-hop one another, with all the girls cheering for me and all the boys cheering for Ric. It was fun.

Mine and Ric's kindergarten classes demonstrating the one-legged chicken pose.

Preparing for battle.

The heart warming post-fight celebrations! <3

Wonderful Wonderland and Korea Co-teachers

"Everybody Smile At Wonderland"-My School's [grammatically inaccurate] Slogan

My school is a franchise called Wonderland. And yes, sometimes being 6ft tall, I do feel a little like Alice when she drinks the magic potion, grows into a giant and can't fit through the doors!

The franchise has a really bad reputation, so bad in fact that when our agent, the mysterious "Doyle", told us we had an interview with Wonderland we immediately wrote it off and decided that we'd do the interview only for practice.

Wonderland

Our minds were changed however, during the interview. The friendly laid-back manner of Ian, our supervisor, put us at ease and when we found out that the two teachers we were replacing had been there 2 and 7 years we figured it was worth re-considering.

The fact that the school is a franchise means that it's run like a business. There's no government funding, and the only income comes from the [extremely high] fees the parents pay. This also means that while my school is considerably well run, another Wonderland school just down the road could be completely different.

The bad reputation of Wonderland stems mainly from blog entries and sites such as "the hagwon blacklist", that claim "the school didn't pay me on time", "the school tried to dock my pay when I was off sick" and other such petty complaints. Having been employed at Wonderland for 3 months now I feel strangely protective of it, and of the wonderful people who work there.

My desk

Stereotypically a large majority of the people that come to Korea to teach English are American or Canadian, they've just graduated from university, they've left mummy and daddy behind and they have no frickin' clue about what life is like outside of their North American bubble.

The school didn't pay you on time?? Poor baby. Welcome to the real world. I've don't think I've ever had a job that did consistently pay me on time!

(I think this explains why my closest friends here are those who already have some considerable experience travelling.)

I want to set the record straight about Wonderland. It's not perfect, it's a business, it's a job. Deal with it.

Clockwise: me, Soomi, Claire, Haley,
Michelle (who Ric replaced), and Daisy

At my school there are four native English teachers (myself and Ric and two Americans), and six Korean teachers all of whom are young, funny and WONDERful!

On Tuesday this week all the teachers went out for dinner together to a traditional Korean restaurant whose theme was seemingly a Korea harbour 80 years ago. The decoration was cool, the smell was bad.

The Restaurant

We ate pajeon, Korean pancake made with spring onions, carrots and squid tentacles! And Korean stew (sausages and kimchi), and a variety of traditional Korean snacks (silkworm larvae included). It was surprisingly tasty.

Haley, Daisy and the pajeon

Wonder-teachers

Silk worm larvae, everyone's favourite snack.

Graffitti to mark the occasion, the Korea bit says "teachers"
in case you didn't know.

Little Monsters....

They look cute.... Don't let them fool you!

Cheonan Football Stadium

After our cringeworthy swimming expedition we thought we'd have a look around the rest of the sports complex and see if there were any sports that didn't involve swimming caps and public hair.

The volleyball team is called the Sky Walkers and they have a pretty decent stadium, there were also tennis courts and squash courts. The most important part (for Ric) was of course the football stadium. As we approached we realised that there was absolutely no security and that the gates to the stadium were in fact open! We walked through the stands, past offices and laundry rooms and a kitchen (?) and then found ourselves a gate that opened onto the actual pitch. Now I'd like to point out that this isn't Sunday league I'm talking about, its a professional team with a massive stadium! We even went on the pitch and I had a nice sit down while Ric practiced his diving skills!

More like ballet if you ask me...

My First Week Teaching

I survived my first week teaching! It's Friday and the week has flown by.

My first lesson was on Monday at 10am. I was really nervous - there's so much to remember; my kindergarten classes have 4 books to get through every morning, plus snack time and all the messing around they do. It went well though and so did all my other classes that morning. Every time I made it through a lesson without any massive blunders I got a a real buzz - by lunch time I had to go for a walk to get rid of all the adrenalin!

After that the rest of the week went smoothly and now I feel like I've worked there for ages. The kids are good, most of them are really motivated to learn and they are so bright; my kindergarten are amazing, they're 5 years old and yet I can talk to them as I would talk to a 10 year old English child and they understand everything. I can joke around with them and they joke with me too. It puts the English education system to shame but then again, I think the children in Korea are massively overworked. The older children go to normal school from 8am to 3pm then go to English school (that's my school) for 2-3 hours, then after that they will go to maths school, music school, art school and sports school - some of them don't actually stop studying until 10 o'clock at night.

I think I'm going to enjoy being an English teacher, its a lot more interesting than the job I had proof reading in England before I left, the children keep me on my toes. And it pays double - WINNING! :)

Steph and Ric are Going to Korea!

WE HAVE TEACHING JOBS IN SOUTH KOREA AND WE'RE GOING IN 5 WEEKS!!!!!

We got our teaching certificates, we are now qualified EFL teachers. After applying to Footprints recruiting and getting no where, Ric and I took matters into our own hands and applied to an agent in Korea. The agent, Doyle, is a bit odd, his emails are rather suspect, but we've spoken to the teachers we are replacing and everything sounds legit. Within a week of contacting Doyle we'd had interviews and been sent a contract.

We're going to teach English in a private school called Wonderland, in Cheonan, a city in the north west of South Korea

I've handed in my notice and have only got 10 days left of work. That way I'll have three weeks holiday before starting in South Korea.

The whole process of applying is complicated, lots of documents are needed and they have to be notarized and apostiled and sent to Korea.

Fingers crossed we'll get everything sorted in time!