I guess it's about time I talk about my job, huh?
I teach preschoolers every day of the week from 10:00-2:30, then in the afternoon I have older classes. The preschoolers are 6 and 7 years old. The oldest afternoon children I teach are 13. I have to say, so far I'm preferring the preschoolers. This coming from the guy who has always professed to hate kids. They really are a good bunch. I have the largest preschool class, which is 10 students. And the are a handful, that's for sure, but for the most part they are excited to be there and enthusiastic to learn English. We teach in teams and the classes are split half the time between a foreign teacher and a Korean teacher. I work with Yeowah, who is like the super teacher of the school. It must the pheromones she exudes because the kids just fall into a lull and listen to whatever she says. It's amazing watching her work. I, on the other hand, spend a good portion of the time trying to reign them in so we can be productive. I'm getting better at it, though.
As far as language barrier, there really is none. The preschoolers speak excellent English. So well, in fact, that it makes me want to send my kids to a Spanish preschool once i have them if it'll yield the same results. We have a "No Korean" policy across the board in all of our classes and it's the preschoolers who comply better than their 13 year old counterparts. (Granted they are immersed in English for 4 1/2 hours 5 days a week.) Even when they're chatting amongst themselves during lunch about their cartoons it's in English. They just insert lots of hand gestures with each other. It's kinda cute. A normal preschooler conversation goes something like this:
"And then Young-soon go like dis! And den like dis. And den!...And den!...And den!...Boom! Pow! Bery bery big Kabooooom! Yeah!!! It was bery exciting!"
A lot of times I forget that English isn't their first language. They've even given me a nickname. They've converted my name, which they pronounce "Daybid Teacher", to "Baby Teacher". They get a real kick out of that. I admit, even I think it was pretty clever.
Elementary students are a whole nother bunch who I will discuss later. I just had really bad day with them yesterday. Tomorrow and Friday they face David Teacher's Dark Side. Muhahahaha. We'll see if I can deliver.
By the way. I added pics to the food post, just in case you've not ducked back down there to see them.
