As most of you know, our schools have been on winter break since just after Christmas. When I think about "school vacation" I think of sleeping in, watching movies, playing all day long, and generally relaxing until the point of boredom. This is not what Korean students experience. This is also not what teachers in Korea experience. We have been coming into school everyday even though school technically isn't in session, and we've been teaching extra classes. Our classes are a little more entertaining than the typical class during the semester, but they don't even compare to an afternoon building snowmen.
We've both had English conversation classes for the last 3 weeks and this week we had an "English Camp." Yes, its exactly what it sounds like. It's extra English classes that are jazzed up a bit so that the school can call it "camp." I asked a few of the students how many extra classes they are taking over the break and could only roll my eyes when several of them told me that they have about 4 classes a day - either at school or at a private academy. Give me a break!
In our English camps (we taught together at my school and at Chris's) we were asked to do our classes on practical, situational English. For example: going to the doctor, going to the movie theater, going on a trip, etc... At Chris's school the principal got it in his head that we HAD to take the students on a field trip of sorts for them to use their English. To the bank, perhaps, or the post office? Great idea, right? Wrong. No one at the bank speaks English. Who will the students talk to? The thought did run through my mind that I could make the students come along with me to run all of my errands and just have them translate for me. But, that would really be taking advantage, so this was our brilliant idea. Take the students to Home Plus (a super Walmart style store with groceries on the first floor and clothing/toys/electronics on the second floor).
So, we bussed 60 middle school students to Home Plus for 2+ hours of English activities. We had those students working hard. They were describing different products in English, completing grocery lists, translating shopping conversations, and MORE. Most of the students had a great time and really got into the projects. Chris, however, lost a student. I mean, don't think too badly of Chris -- the student wanted to be lost, and by "lost" I mean that he ran away and hid. As you can imagine, Chris was not pleased. He looked all over the store for the missing child and couldn't find him. That's when special agent Emily stepped in and snagged the deserter and brought him back to base for a sound scolding. I literally escorted him back, as in I was holding on to his coat sleeve the entire walk through the store. Disaster averted.
Other than the fact that we aren't letting kids get away with ANYTHING over here, I have some other good news. We have 2 weeks of vacation starting in .... 1 hour! I thought the best way to spend my last hour of work would be to blog, clearly. We are heading to Seoul on Sunday for a few days (and an embassy appointment) then catching some friends to go skiing. Seoul is going to be teeth-chattering cold, so I'm not really all that excited about it - to be quite frank with you, but I guess I'll suck it up and try to enjoy going on a trip. Sigh. I'm actually really excited about being in a US Embassy. Is that sad? Its fun (obviously, in a nerdy way) to think about being on US soil for an hour or so.
Which gives me an idea - on Monday, Jan 24 at 10 am (that's Sunday night at 8pm for all you Americans in the Eastern time zone) you should stop whatever you are doing and enjoy the fact that Chris and I are visiting the States! woooo!
And, on that happy note, I'll sign off. Missing everybody back at home (and by home we clearly mean Toledo, Melbourne, AND Canberra... duh.)
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