My school

Well, after working for a whole week, I suppose it is time to weigh in on what I think of my Korean school.  First off,  I am not teaching at a public school, and I am not teaching Spanish. I teach at an English academy, which is called a hagwon in Korea.  It is basically an after school English language school.  I get to work at 1, and students arrive at 3.  I then teach until 9.  There are a lot of positives and some negatives, but overall, I think I am at a really good school. 

 In my research before coming here, I found a plethora of negative information about hagwons.  The reason for this is basically that these are private businesses, and like any business there are good ones and there are bad ones.  The problem is that these schools are dealing with people from other countries who may or may not have ever taught before, and many of whom are just out of college with little to no experience away from home.  This just means that you have a lot of people who are really out of their comfort zone.  Added to that, most schools have nice little perks like free flights, free rent, etc.  So, some places figure that in order to save some money they will just let a teacher go early for a made up reason, and then they don't have to pay for the return flight home.  I certainly hope that I will never have to deal directly with a situation like this, but it has happened.  So, the stability of my job is a bit more in question than at home with a public school; but these schools are a dime a dozen, so finding a new job is not that hard to do.  

My school has 5 other teachers at my campus, and everyone is really relaxed and seems to get along.  After 1 week, I feel like I have the schedule down, although actually remembering the kids is a totally different thing.  I have 8 classes every day that last for 40 minutes and there are anywhere from 3-12 students in each class.  My schedule is pretty much the same on M, W, F and then again of T, TH.  So, total that is about 16 different classes that I teach, so I have about 150 students or so.  That is pretty comparable to home, but I see them everyday at home and have them for a longer period of time, so I get to know them better.  

But, anyhow, the hardest thing about school here is probably just the number of classes that I teach and the variety of levels.  I teach 2nd to 8th graders, although they are all split up by grade level.  The young ones are very cute, but they NEVER stop moving.  My classes with older students are so much easier!  The work involved for each class is so much less here, because I really don't keep grades, and there is much less planning as the curriculum is pretty much provided.  They have it mapped out day by day, so I just have to know what I am teaching, and maybe make up a worksheet or quiz.  The greatest thing is that the kids always do their work.  Pretty much.  And they listen, and they don't talk back, and they are really cute.  Having small classes is wonderful!  

Well, that is all I have right now.  This is probably only interesting to some of you, but people have been asking, so I figured I would just write it out here.  

As anywhere, Wednesday is over, so the week is on the way out!  

Hope all is going well for everyone at home!