Day 244

Tuesday August 18

Before my 1st class the Korean teacher said she wanted to observe my class. Beginning next semester the Korean teachers have to teach English in English instead of teaching English in Korean. (I dont know how teachin in Korean is helping them!) She wants to watch my class to see how I teach and what kind of English I use.

My first class was good. The Korean teacher only came in for a few minutes. I don't konw why she didn't come in earlier. When she came in the students were practicing speaking with each other so she didn't hear me teach much. If she would have watched the whole class it would have been beneficial. We had a good class. There were a lot of speaking opportunities. At the end of class I assigned the essay. I wrote a korean word on the board in Hanguel. Its the korean word for imagination. They were so happy that I could write in korean. They asked me to write another word. I knew the first part of the word and the last part but not the middle so they showed me.

My 2nd class was good. We had a little speaking practice. I can't get the new student to speak. I asked her to speak with the guy in the class but she wouldnt so she didnt practice speaking today and I was his partner. We covered a lot of material today. At the end of class I assigned the essay. I wrote the korean word for imagination on the board and a few of the girls clapped. I only wrote one word and they loved it..haha.They asked me if I could write in korean. I told them just a little. I can actually read korean but I don't actually know what the words mean.

I was taught the korean word for imagination by a guy from who is also an English teacher at our school. I think that will help them know what they should use in the writing assignment. They might not understand what it is if I just use the English word.

My 3rd class was good. we talked about things like morning, afternoon, night, noon, midnight, etc and what you do during those times. There were pictures. He's getting up. It's the morning. etc. I assigned the essay. They started working on it in class. One of them was writing about a panda. I told him the panda is already an animal. I want him to create a new animal so he changed it to kung fu panda. Where is his imagination? I thought kids are full of imaginary ideas.

My 4th class was good. We talked about vacations. They had a poster in the book and they had to tell me what that person was going to do on vacation. Then they had to look at a passage and tell me what that person was doing for various days on their vacation. Then I got them to tell me what they were doing each day of the week and to tell me what their classmate was doing. I assigned the essay. They were surprised by me writing korean on the board. they asked 'where did you learn that?'

My 5th class is always bad. No one does their homework. One student actually pays attention. The 2 boys are the worst. The other girl pays attention most of the time. The boys are always playing with phones. One of the girls was reading a comic book whenever she got finished with an activityI think my last class actually grasped the concept of the essay. When I wrote the korean word for imagination they said I was clever. First, one girl said "what is imagination?" THen I wrote the korean word and it was like "oh I know now".I told them it could be any size and any shape or color and one of the girls was excited about the essay. I wanted to give them something fun to write about. I'm giving them the freedom to be as crazy as they want to be. They can let their imagination run wild.

I get to sleep in tomorrow!! We go back to our regular schedule! I can sleep til noon!

I can finally pay my bills tomorrow. I'm going to pay my cable, internet and gas bill.

I didn't eat any fast food today. For breakfast, I had grits. For lunch, I had a tuna sandwich. For supper I will have a grilled chicken breast on my george foreman and pasta.