First weekend in Gurye. Ran into a group of foreigners today, first bunch I've seen since I got into this town. They were only camping for the weekend. Did meet a couple who speak English though. Slowly but surely I'll run into them English-speaking folk who actually live in Gurye. Over half of the faculty that work at both my schools live in Gwangju so it looks like I'm alone for the weekends until I meet some locals who I can actually have a conversation with. Did manage to get some hiking in though, some nice trails up the hills behind my house. Only 160m but still gives a wicked panoramic view of the city. Beautiful.
Got to experience my first day in the second school. Every Friday I'll be in a little country school called Tong Jeun, it's in a subsection of Gurye called Toji. The school is basically polar opposites to Gurye All Boys MS. The school still has all three grades of middle school, but grade one is about 14-15 students, same with grade 2, grade 3 has 8 kids. So small. Basically the whole student population of that school is one of my classes in Gurye MS. I fell in love with this school the second I got to the front door of the building, looked around and realized that it sat on a hill and you get a clear view of rolling mountains, and since it was a bit foggy I got to see the fog roll over the tops of the mountains. It was a phenomenal way to spend the morning. My co-teacher's name is Annie. Found out later that she's nearly 50, but she looks like she could be my age. When she told me that I almost crapped my pants. Guess it helps that she doesn't have to stress out about the students, who are so unbelievably well-behaved and incredibly fun. I really like Gurye MS and the kids in there, but these kids are incredibly fun and easy to teach. They've got nothing but questions and understand a lot of what I'm saying. I think it's the smaller class sizes that actually do it. It's hard to manage 30+ kids and keep them all entertained.
I get to teach each grade in the morning on Fridays and then after lunch there is an afterschool class that is basically open to anything I want to do as long as it gets them using English. We just played hangman. So it's basically game time. Since there is only one class per grade, I'm guessing that they get a lot of time outside of class. What really made me fall in love with the school was how arts based it was. I get my own English room on the second floor and the next class is a piano room, filled with keyboards where 4 or 5 five the students learn to play. Next to that is another music room where they play everything else I think. Then there is another band room on the first floor. Every kid plays an instrument, so when the afternoon hits on Fridays and there are no classes but it's technically still school, they all practice. The school was filled with music. I actually heard someone play Frosty the Snowman on the flute. And the piano teacher offered to give me some advanced lessons when I come in and I'm not teaching. Phenomenal. I don't think I stopped smiling the entire day, hopefully it keeps up through the year. Plus, the principal and vice principal are super nice. Not that at Gurye MS aren't, but here they can speak English, so I was able to have a solid half hour discussion with the vice principal and was able to have an early morning coffee with the principal.
And, small world, I actually get to teach a Canadian in this school. His parents were born in Korea, moved to Canada where he was raised until he was 7 then moved back to Korea. He lived in Ottawa and speaks English very well. He's in grade 2 only because he's lacking in the necessary Korean skills. And a plus in this school is that the grade 3s are incredibly smart. There are a couple that aren't quite up to the level they should be, but that's expected. The rest barely need me. But that makes it a little easier because I can use better examples I'm thinking, plus it'll help to not have to bring things down several levels. And they want to hear some Blue Rodeo next Friday, so that will basically be my "lesson" for Friday afternoon, Blue Rodeo and probably some more hangman.
Basically all my worries about teaching are slowly going out the window. I'm sure once I get some actual lessons down I will be more confident, but even my co-teachers have told me that it looks like I've been doing this for a while, so that's definitely encouraging. Well, either way, one week down, fifty-one to go!
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