"Is this" your blog?

September 8, 2010


Last night Michael and I took a taxi to downtown Daegu to meet up with some friends from EPIK and have some dinner. We were all supposed to meet up at the 9th gate of the subway station but the taxi driver dropped us off at the 24th gate. We didn’t even know that until we got out of the taxi and walked around above the subway for a little but and saw the gate number above us. We gave the taxi driver the correct place but for some reason he wanted to drop us off there…that happens a lot around here (on several occasions the taxi that was driving us to our destination had to stop and ask some random stranger on the side walk how to get the that specific place…). So, we just had to walk to the 9th gate and we’d be there right? Nope. We looked at the subway map and we knew which way we needed to go. We get to a sign that says Gate 9 and the arrow was pointing straight so we followed. Well after like 10 minutes of walking we end up at Gate 3. What just happened?! Apparently there are two different subway signs and are color coded. Uh…we didn’t leave this specific subway so how could there be different signs for the same freakin subway line? So we back tracked and we finally met up with one of Mike’s friends after 20 minutes of walking the entire freakin subway.

We went to this pretty nice pizza place that was on the second floor of a building. There pizzas looked good but I’m in Korea right? I’ve got to have something Korean. So I had some rice and bulgogi plate with really good sauce. It was like a $15 meal…haven’t spend that much on food for myself in a long time. It was really good to see some of our EPIK friends but it really blows that me and Michael are a 20-30 minute cab ride away from all of them. We need to figure out how to ride the bus to downtown because it’s way cheaper. The taxi was about $12 one way so split between me and Michael was only about $6. However, if Mike weren’t with me that would be $24 there and back. Pretty expensive and it will add up quick. On the buses it’s like half that cost but it takes a little longer to get there. We haven’t really figured out the bus system yet but I’m sure we’ll experiment one day when we have the entire day to waste. I think it’s going to take a while to figure it out because all of the signs are in Korean and there are two different bus lines that we can take. My co-teachers were saying to take the #2 on the red bus line so we’ll see.

Today I taught 2 third grade classes and 2 fourth grade classes. The classes were good for the most part but the fourth grade had some comprehension issues. They are now learning ‘may I…’ and ‘is this/that your____?’ It is difficult to ask questions about the video clips they watch when they don’t understand key words like “he, she, hear etc.” I always have to be conscious of the wording of my questions and constantly have to think on my toes in terms of rewording whatever it is I’m saying. I use a lot of hand motions and I have to speak very slow so they can pick up on main words and understand my questions. It’s really helpful that the co-teacher is there to help me if I get stuck with the students and they have blank looks on their faces and the whole room is in complete silence after a question. But, for the most part, they understood at the end of the lesson and with some practice using the words in phrases. My fourth grade co-teacher said that the students really listen to me and that she’s jealous because they don’t listen to her. I guess that’s a good thing that I can grab the attention of the classroom even when we’re not doing anything particularly interesting. But, honestly, I think it’s only because I’m a new face and because I’m a foreigner. It probably won’t last. After a couple of months they will probably be just as uninterested as my co-teacher claims they are now with her.

I realized that I needed some materials for this lesson because I wasted a lot of class time writing sentences on the bored and I will have to write them several more times. I printed off some sentences and laminated them so I can place them on the bored to save time. I also printed out pictures of the characters and pasted them on sticks to make it easier to ask questions about certain characters. We will see how well that works. I think any materials are good for the class…especially visuals no matter how simple they are. Hopefully the students will better understand what I’m asking of them. Cross your fingers! Tash, I have a true understanding of why you bring your work home with you. There are so many things involved with teaching and I only teach English! You do it all! So much to do in so little time. Goodness gracious I don't know how you have the energy to do what you do. I commend you!

By the way…my camera has no batteries because mine died and I haven’t gotten any new ones…sooo, I will get some ASAP!