my day at the school......

Today was my first day at the school. No I was not enrolled to attend any classes - I taught at a Hogwon (korean english school). Actually they were L's student. I will be relieving him one day during the week which will be his day off, since he's going to start teaching Saturday classes. Most of their high school students have gone to college and the rest can only attend class on the weekend. When the director requested that he teach on Saturdays he immediately made this arrangment. This way I have something to do and it will be good experience if ever I decide to teach at another hogwon.

My first day went well. Having never taught before, at first I was kinda nervous when ushered into a classroom filled with expectant faces. But I can safely say that I did okay (tooting my own horn, eh!). The kids seemed overwhelmed and the director was pleased. The hard part of teaching here is when you talk to a bunch of kids who hardly speak your language. It's hard to communicate with them and explain things unless I do it in the simpliest way. I tried to translate some english words into the few korean words that I know, but the effort was futile. Korean kids are cute and I can say that some of them are nice and follow orders, and some are hard headed and inherently different.

One thing about korean students, they study hard like pit ponies. They all seem to be dedicated to learning and trying to achieve the best they can. I thought filipino students were the hardest workers of all but koreans beat us. During the school term they go to regular school from morning till night. In between there are extracurricular activities, such as language lessons- english, chinese and french; music lessons- violin, piano, flute; taekwando and others - not to mention homework waiting to be done. These students are all expected to go to a university. They seem to have a great deal of pressure placed on them by their families. Each of them are expected to find a good job once they graduate. That's why some students end up studying in at well know universities or even abroad - that is, if their family can afford it.

Anyway, right now I can't decide if I like teaching or not, but I can say I like those cute korean kids :)