Winter Break Creativity

Schools in South Korea are on a different schedule than schools in the USA. The school year starts in February and runs until the end of December. Kids get a Summer Break for a few weeks in July, but their longest break is Winter Break and lasts for the entire month of January and most of February for the older students, plus another week or so in December. Most English academies do 'intensives' during these breaks. I'm not really sure what that is because my school doesn't do them, but it requires a change in schedule for that month because the kids need something to keep them busy all day. Teachers who work later schedules are usually required to work earlier hours during those times, and the kids are often at the academy with the same teacher for longer periods of time, and so they are called 'intensives'. I think.

Even though my school doesn't do 'intensives', or at least doesn't use that term, my schedule was changed slightly for the month of January as my late 7:30-9pm class was moved to 1:20-2:50. That was my major schedule change. We also offer a reading comprehension/grammar/writing class that I teach every other Friday for an hour at 4pm.

There seemed to be a lot more creativity this month, most likely because the kids were on Winter Break.

I had two students, Anthony and Sophia, in my UniGold class last month. It is our top level conversation class, and ever month we do projects that they work on the entire month and present on the last day of the term. January's monthly project was on the 7 Wonders of the World. The kids had to pick a set of 7 wonders (you know, because there are so many sets - ancient, modern, industrial, underwater, etc.) and tell us about those seven. Then they had to pick two more things that they thought should be included in that group. Next, they had to pick a region of the world and choose seven cool things from that region and talk about those. On top of all of those 16 'wonders' they had to research, they also needed 5 visual aids. Because previous month's visual aids had been lacking the 'wow' factor, we said that four of the visual aids could just be pictures they printed out from the internet. The last one, however, needed to be a WAY COOL visual aid - something that would blow us all away.

Meet Anthony. He's 10 years old Korean age, which puts him about 8 international age. He is very, very quiet, but speaks excellent English. He's so cute, too. He answers everything in complete sentences. "What's cool about Antarctica?" "Antarctica is cool because ..." "Why is football a popular sport in the USA?" "Football is a popular sport in the USA because ..." Too cute.

This is Anthony with his monthly project visual aid. It's a lego rendition he built with his dad of a house you would see in Antarctica, if people lived there permanently in houses. It had broken slightly in transportation to school, so we left it in the bag. I think he was upset about this, but he tried not to show it. I thought it was the absolute COOLEST project visual aid I've ever seen.

Anthony and his Antarctica house 

Antarctica house

Remember Sophia? She's 12 Korean age (10 international). She's also very quiet, and having two insanely quiet kids in our top class last month, which just happens to be a conversation class, was incredibly difficult. However quiet she may be, she is very smart as well, and is not to be outdone. This is her project visual aid - a pop-up Mt. Fuji.

Sophia and her pop-up Mt. Fuji

I had an extra day at the end of the term in another class this month, with the same kids who are in the combination reading comp/grammar/writing class, so I took what I've learned from my TEFL (Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) course and did my very first lesson plan entirely on my own. I focused on Thank-You letters, and started with asking the kids about cool gifts they've received.  Why did they get a gift? How did it make them feel? Have they even given a gift? Why? How did that make them feel? What do you do when you receive a gift? That's right! You write a thank-you letter. They had no idea because they don't do this in Korea, but I introduced it to them and they loved it. It was the perfect lesson to get 10-year olds writing. I'm a genius.

In class, we wrote a thank-you together on the board to show them the typical style and layout of such a letter. Then I let them each pick a folded piece of paper that had a gift written on the inside. Their in-class assignment was to write a thank-you letter to their parents for that gift, but they weren't allowed to say in their letter what the gift was. When they were done, they read them out loud and the other students had to guess what gift they had received. It was so much fun. Again, genius.

For homework, I thought it would be cool to have them write a thank-you letter to Teacher Brandi for being such a good teacher to them all year. This is her last month teaching them, and what an awesome way to start off the month it would be to read a thank-you letter from each student in that class. There are only three students in that class, and two of them actually did their homework assignment. Check out the letters:

Evan's letter

"Thak you Brandi teacher giving me a gift. Knowledge. I'm very happy because you gave me a knowledge. I can English. I'm a so happy. Next I can English speak to foreign when friend don't know a English word in school. Another thing teacher your is supper supper supper teacher. I'm a very sad. Brandi teacher good buy. Thak you teacher for the good gift knowledge you gave me. I'm very happy and sad. Good buy. From/Evan"

Kelly's letter

"To Brandi, Thank you Brandi teacher. I'm very happy sad because you goes to the USA. I study by you. I miss you. I love you. Even if you go USA I study hard and English for you. I remember you. Good by. Kelly"

Are those not the most awesome thank-you letters ever?

And finally, last Wednesday was our end-of-term test day. We always let the kids do some coloring on the last test day of the term because there's always left over time and they should be having fun  - they're kids! We always gear the coloring to an upcoming event in the following month so we can hang their pictures around the classroom. This month we gave them some options to color for Valentine's Day.

Remember Amy? The cute girl who started with me in Spring 1 ten months ago who still has trouble pronouncing simple words. She's a trooper, though - she can definitely do it and she thinks nothing less of herself, and she shouldn't. She's 6 (international) and she has a zillion tons of tenacity. I'm taking her home with me. She's my favorite.

She made us this Valentine the other day after her test, on which she got 27/27. (I was so proud!) It proudly says 'lobe'. Of course she means 'love', but for Amy, it's 'lobe'. It makes me smile with as much pride as she has tenacity.