Because another foreign teacher just left, the school has decided not to hire a foreign teacher to take her place but just to divvy up her classes among the current foreign teachers. So instead of just adding a class or two to everyone's schedules they decided to mix all the class up and give us completely new schedules. Aargg! This is has been so frustrating because I was just beginning to get used to my April schedule. I was also developing relationships with my students and almost had their names learned. (I am sooo bad with names it's not even funny.) So now I have some of my old classes, but mostly new classes. This new schedule is all over the place. Some classes meet mon, wed, fri. and some meet tue, thur, but then I have a whole bunch of classes that only meet once a week. It's going to be a lot harder to learn names and develop relationships with kids who are only in my class once a week. I also lost some of my really good classes. So now I am readjusting to new students and new classes. I wonder how often this will happen...hopefully not every month. Although, with our school I wouldn't be surprised if this was a regular thing. Oh the chaos!
So upon coming to Korea I was under the impression that I would be a conversation teacher. Conversation meaning to converse, talk, shoot the breeze in a manner of speaking. But that is definitely not what I am doing. I am a full blown English teacher. I have been teaching grammar, spelling, reading, writing...etc. We work from workbooks, we read out of textbooks and I provide as many animated examples as I can. I have no problem with all this English teaching, it's just not the conversation that I was expecting. And really, I think these kids would benefit more from conversation over grammar and spelling. With my new schedule also came four IVY classes. These are the highest classes that our school offers and for some reason they were give to me. (I am not even a good speller) So it will be interesting for me to figure out what I am going to do in these classes. This is all quite the learning experience. Not only am I learning a job that I never studied for, but I am also learning more English, learning about the Korean education system (which is a joke), and learning about all different ages of children. So far I love being a teacher! It has also been a great confidence builder because in every class I am always the boss and always the star that everyone looks up to. :)
So with the new month also comes our new apartment. Yay! For the last three weeks Heather and I have been living out of our suitcases knowing that we would be moving. Finally the time has come. We are not sure exactly when we will move, but we know it will be this week. Our move is only down one floor of our apartment building, but the new apartment should be a bit better. Supposedly it is slightly larger, it has more furniture, it has a full sized refrigerator that works, the bathroom doesn't smell nasty, it is not facing a noisy construction site, and it's right next door to Shay Teacher's apartment so we will be able to bother him any hour of the day. :) This should be a good change.
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