Day 281

Thursday September 24

Today when I was on the subway there were these 3 young guys acting silly on the subway. One of them kept sitting on the other guys lap. I'd say they were probably in high school, but I can't ever tell.  We all got off on the same stop. They started talking to me. They were excited to talk to me. They told me I was beautiful. They wanted to know where I was from. They asked me what kind of Korean food did I like. And where I was going. They actually paid attention in English class. I could understand them. One of the guys asked me if I thought he was handsome. I told him yes. He was cute. I loved his hair. (Thats one thing I like about Korean guys. They have nice hair) Once we got into the main lobby of the subway we said our goodbyes and went our own way.

I gave tests in all of my classes today. Writing and conversation.

My 1st class was okay. We took our test and then we were going to study. They never want to study. They say class is boring. I don't know what to do. There's not a way to make writing interesting. I don't really like the writing text but there isn't really anything I can do about that. We talked about interviews today. We only covered one page. i wanted to do 2 more but they wanted to play a game. I made them do the 2 pages on their own for homework. Thats what they wanted so...The grades on their writing tests ranged from a 75 to 100.

My 2nd class was good. They were 10 minutes late coming to class. During breaks the children go to HomePlus downstairs to get snacks. Then they are late for class. I don't really care about them being late because thats less time that I have to teach this awful curriculum. We took our writing test and they both made 100. Then we went over 2 lessons. We learned about telling sentences and questions. We also reviewed the previous lessons. I gave them lots of examples of questions and telling sentences and they grasped the concept. Then they had a few mins of free time.

My 3rd class was okay. It was our online newspaper class. 2 of the computers are super slow and its hard for the students to work on them. Then they are always complaining about not being able to listen. There's nothing I can do. I can't help that there are crap computers and only 3 pairs of headphones. At least the kids did their work and didn't get distracted by going to other websites. I'm going to start making worksheets for them to fill out. They keep finishing too fast. One of the students keeps telling me to go to the bathroom. She wants me to leave the room so she can goof off on the computer. I told her I need to be in class. I can't just leave class. I'm already being spied on all the time.

My 4th class is terrible. Its so hard teaching conversation to 6th graders who don't even care. They can't complain that I don't give them time to conversate. I give them time. They just dont utilize it. The test went horribly! They were talking and cheating and asking me to repeat things 100 times and to spell the words. Its suppose to be a listening exercise. Then after the test we had 25 minutes left. They wanted to just leave. I can't end class 25 mins early. I told them we had to start unit 4. We only got finished with 3 pages. They wouldnt participate in the conversation practice with a partner. These classes are so hard to manage. I just don't know what to do!! I just have to make it through these awful classes for 2 more months! Next time I need to be strict and separate them and only say things twice and no spelling it out and no talking during the test. Its all skills that we learned in class so its not like im throwing out something new at them. How do you teach people who have no interest in learning? They are just interested in how fast we can end the class. They are always telling me to hurry up.

My 5th class was good. They went to home plus and were 5 mins late to class. I was just standing around in the classroom waiting for them to show up. We had our writing test. Then we covered a few pages in our writing book. They were a good class.

I skipped the gym 3 times this week. I just haven't felt like going. I went to Bulgwang to eat at Burger King then came back home. I am slowly killing myself by eating too much fast food. Maybe I should eat more to speed up the process.