What I Heard

Summer vacation is over for the Korean students. They had a whole month off, although many of them doubled up on their work at the academies. This means that a few select suckers, I mean teachers, had to double up on their work too. Hell for the students, hell for the teachers.

Now that we've gone back to the regular schedule, and I have free time, I'm at a loss of what to do. Practice my Korean, done. Read my book, done. Try and find an empty classroom to nap in, done. I guess I'll blog.

I haven't mentioned too much about the kids, how they act, their mannerism, their terrible English. That's not fair. In actuality their English skills are leaps and bounds above my Korean skills so I can't really point fingers.

For the most part the kids are great; however, there are those bad classes, those classes where you know the school administrators recruited for the most trying and annoying students from every corner of the globe. "This one looks promising, Kyong-Jun, Master of Konglish and Puller of Girls' Hair. His other specialties are writing on desks and farting in class. Put him in the class with the boy who cries for no reason at all." I have a class similar to this. I told Scott that I think I'd have better luck raising the dead than getting this class to utter one syllable of English. I'd feel like a failure as a teacher, but then I walk into the next class, do the exact same lesson plan and it goes off smashingly, so what gives?

The part that I hate is when a good kid tries really hard and doesn't progress as far as they should. I have one student who is really sweet and puts her heart and soul into studying, but at times her English is incomprehensible. When my students get ten stickers, stickers are doled out as rewards for games and perfect homework scores, they get to choose a prize from the prize box. This one student tried to tell me, "Teacher, I have ten stickers," but this is what I heard.

Student: Teacher, I have testicles.
Me: (with a very puzzled look on my face) What was that?
Student: I have testicles.
Me: (now with a concerned look on my face) What?
Student: I have testicles.
Me: What? (lowering my head towards the student to get a better listen)
Student: Testicles. I have testicles.
Me: What? (By this time I have my ear right next to the girl's mouth trying to figure out what she is saying)
Student: I have testicles.
Me: What? (Do I actually start to explain what testicles are to this girl and why she definitely does not have them?)

This issue was resolved, not through words but gestures, and get your minds out of the gutter. She showed me the ten stickers in her book. I would count this conversation as a bad English day for this particular girl, but then she earned ten stickers again and we had the exact same conversation again. I'm thinking we should really work on her pronunciation before she makes a trip to the states.