X-Mall Bldg. 5th Floor

                                            Kids Club Institute

                                              #364-1 Dae bang-Dong

                                            Changwon City, Kyoung-nam Province

                                            South Korea 641-805

 

There it is the long address of a person living and working in the same place: the 5th floor of a mall in the comercial sector of part of a city in South Korea. Right next door is a singing school or a 24hr singing room or both it is hard to be certain given the condition of the sign and my low reading ability. It can be noisey and frequently is. I have no control over my own heat and have been very cold lately as a result. I cook on a two burner gas  range that is supposed to self ignitet but does not. I shower in a small bathroom in which there are no separate walls for the the shower itself. An odd thing all and all. Anyway, enough of the review, back to today.

 

Things have been going fairly well since I last wrote. I went to MS Echo this past Saturday as opposed to the dance class thing I was supposed to be invited to as Mrs. Yang had an interview appointment with a perspective student. Ahhh, the life of the Academic Coordinator (who actually does much  the job of directing as well I think). The meeting was quite interesting this time around. One of them did a speach on Karma, as well as he could anyway, and one mentioned not feeling well about an interview test in which she did not answer a question asking what entropy was. I was a little confused as to what that had to do with the job, but it seems it is just one of the things they do to make it more competative.

 

One person gave a speach on the type of learner you are and whether you are right or left brained. It was quite interesting. It was based on the L2 teaching style (I am not sure exactly what that means) which is what she uses with her students. She is a kindergarden teacher and may be a good resource for me (though the suggestion she gave for controlling them didn't work for me as the meaning they get from gestures from a Korean teacher are not interpreted the same from a foreign teacher). 

 

Anyway, in this L2 method, it seems that the whole word approach is used more at first with phonics being introduced a bit later. One of the beliefs is that one of the reason that other approaches fail is that they focus too much on left brain activities and fail to stimulate some of the important right brain functions necessary for language acquisition. She said that Koreans tend to be quite left brained, so this was a especially true for them. It was a good speach that gave some good resources that I could look up. (The reviews of them were in Korean, but the names are in English).

 

One of the members mentioned after the meeting that when I first came he thought I was very pale, I didn't say much, and that I didn't seem to enjoy myself. But now, it seems as though my face is bright and I have a lot to say. He wanted to know why the change. I had little idea what to tell him other than I am very shy and have difficulty with people until I get to know them. He accepted this and let it drop.

 

One of the female members seems to be interested in me. THe ways of women tend to be subtle, and it seems that Korean women tend to be even more so, but to start with she bought me a cup of coffee (a dixie cup about half full for 150 won which is roughly 13 cents). While that is not a big thing, one does not buy something for you unless they like you (as a friend). Later she asked if I had yet seen Matrix 3 I told her I had not (and  since I have been sick I didn't think to ask her where they show movies at, DOH!) Then she seemed overly concerned with how I got there, though she knows  that I take a cab whenever I come alone. When I told her I  came by cab, she went on about how it was too expensive for me. After  dinner (for the first time at a place where you didn't have to take off your shoes and ironically I had worn my  slip-on  dress shoes  instead of my hikers this time.) she again asked me how I was getting home, and expressed her  concern about the amount of a cab.

 

This was after she looked at me and stated simply, with a pout on her face,"It's time to go home." I had to laugh as she was just so adorable. She hit me for laughing (I am always getting hit. If not by my students then by my friends). She looked like she was going to add something to her concern about my return trip when one of the others said that I could ride with him as he was going in my direction. She didn't look happy to hear that. I almost wish he wouldn't have offered I would have found out what was going on behind the eyes of this person who either thinks I am really poor, or over estimates the costs of cabs.

 

Anyway, enough of this rather odd but interesting situation. Onto my classes. The kindergardeners were fairly well behaved, so I didn't kill anyone, though I did have to send one of them out into the hall for a little while so he would be quiet as we read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" again. We have to do this everyday for the next two weeks so they will all be ready to take it home and read it to their parents. It is almost like teaching to a test, but at least they are learning.

 

My 4:30 class has a way of just trying to get anything and everything they want. One of my new students is a little rough. I think is has a little to do with her being rather large for her age and a black belt in Tae kwon do. They really aren't as disciplined as they should be at the age of 12 I guess. She hit me on the head with her book (not real hard, but it was a show of defiance, and I just can't have that ), so I went around the table and tapped her over the head with the plastic folder I use to hold the class assignment plans. She apparently didn't like this, or took it as a sign of a duel, and stood up and proceeded to attempt to hit me again. The little tustle that ensued ended with me kicking her in the butt with a kick she didn't see coming. After that she sat down. What a way for the likes of me to  assert my authority! Of course it could have something to do with how we first met: she was one of them who decided I needed to be put out of commision at Halloween. I guess that image just stuck with her.

 

My 6:00 class was interesting there were only 2 people there instead of the usual 6. I decided we were going to do a different combination of books because one of them didn' t have one of the books we were going to do, then they decided that I should just copy it for her. I did this, but, as it turned out, it was a waste to do so we never finished it.

 

Jenny, the 12 y/o in  a class of 15 y/o, seemed a little sad. She wasn't talking like she usually does (which I surprisingly missed), and she didn't really even try to get out of work. So I asked the other one, Jane, how  Jane was, and she told me she was a little sad because all her friends had boyfriends and she didn't. I left that alone as that can go in soooooo many different directions. Then I went back to Jenny and asked how she was. "I'm fine," was her half hearted reply. I joked to Jane that Jenny was sad because she just broke up with her boyfriend. I should never have opend that can of worms.

 

Jenny started talking about how she liked this boy and that she found out that this boy liked her. The problem was that she had learned from her friend that this boy was, according to the dictionary we had to go to for the translation, "sexually preverted". I was hoping it would stop there (elementary school seems a bit young for this type of thing), it went on. Apparently most Korean males (and males in general world wide) are afflicted with this disease, and she is angered that the one she liked (at least for this month) could not have escaped its twisted overreaching grasp.

 

This started Jane up on the same type of topic, and so it went for the whol 1.5 hours: I was basically doing relationship counseling with 1 teenager and 1 preteen. Of course the usual topics of body image were thrown in as well. Hey, I learned a not so useful Korean word, helped two youngsters vent, and got through another class period without incident. What more could one ask for? That, and as I am able to write about them without breaking confidentiality, it gives me something to write home about as well. I feel like I am doing another internship class!

 

I guess that is all I have for now. I did look at my budget and found that I am well under in all catagories, so I guess I am managing my Won well. The money I send home is spent faster than it should be, but that is alright that is what it is for.