A short little post early in the morning...
So, in Korea, the new school year starts in March. It goes from March-July, then a one month break. Second semester starts August-December, a two month break, students come back for two weeks in February (and 6th grade has graduation at the end of that), then a week of spring break before the new school year starts all over again. ...A little different from the August-May school year in the USA.
It's so exciting to get back in the swing of things. After teaching winter camps ALL winter break, it is nice to have all the students back running through the halls, causing commotions, girls and boys playing....seeing how even by going up just one grade level, it changes their attitude. I still can't believe that our 5th graders are now the 6th graders! With that in mind, I do miss our 6th graders. It makes me sad that I won't see their faces around playing soccer or coming in during lunch period or after school in excitement to try and talk with me. But, nonetheless, I am filled with great memories.
And so....the start to a new year brings many changes.
I don't teach with the same two co-teachers I had before. My main one went to be a 3rd grade homeroom teacher, and the second one is now my "main" teacher, but I will not be teaching with her at all. In this case, we have added two NEW co-teachers. I'm still in the first week, so it's hard to judge the outcome, but it's definitely going to be an adjustment and learning experience and another opportunity to practice some of God's patience. One teacher is my age and has only taught for one year. Her English is very low (lower than most of my students, even), so I am worried about the students. I co-teach grade 5 and grade 3 with her. For grade 3, I am not as worried because some Korean is definitely necessary, but for the grade 5s (one of the highest levels in the school, actually) who have spent the past year with only English being used in the classroom (and VERY minimal Korean), I worry that they will become slack or unmotivated or discouraged from learning English if they are backtracking and having lessons in Korean. But it's only been a couple days, so hopefully it can improve.
As for my other new co-teacher (who is older than me), I will teach grade 6 and 4 with her. I have yet to teach with her, but I did sit in on her introduction class for grade 6. Granted, it was only them taking a test and filling out an "About Me" worksheet, but already, I can tell that she is going to be a great teacher to work with because she is really good about timing for the lesson and keeping the students on task. I look forward to my first class co-teaching with her.
Lesson planning, in this case now, is going to be a little different. I find that it will be more "co-teaching" of the lesson and not me coming up and teaching the entire lesson for the days I co-teach. I do like the idea of this model, and it is definitely something new to experiment with. From what I can see from trying to talk with them about lesson planning, it looks like they will be teaching from the book for the first half of the class, and I am in charge of the game from the book or creating new ways to practice the material (my personal preference). I am thankful for this because I can have some "control" over the level the students are at. For instance, with grade 5, the first lesson is "I'm from Brazil." Students learn to ask and say what country they are from, and it will work on spelling names. An example dialogue:
A: Where are you from?
B: I'm from India.
A: What's your name?
B: My name is Neru.
A: How do you spell your name?
B: N-E-R-U.
This is basically the sum of the next few weeks for 5th grade. Although learning country names in English may be new, for most of them, this is a really easy concept, so I feel it is going to be fatiguing for them to be doing this for so long. Also, my focus for this semester (something that I wasn't very good at doing my first semester) is on student levels. Now that I've been here for a semester, I have a better idea of what level students are at, and I want to work with that. I want to help the lower level students (and I will have after school classes 4-5 days a week for low level grades 2-5, as well), while at the same time, challenge the upper level students and make it still fun for them. For the first period of this grade 5 lesson, "I'm from Brazil," the co-teacher was able to teach the material from the book, but then I was able to up the level by adding many more countries to the mix during the game. Thanks to the help of my dear friend, Jeremy, I've had a fresh look on creativity in activities for the classroom. He's helped me get my creative juices flowing! Thanks, friend!
And so...I should leave it here for now. I will update you at the end of the week, but now I must get back to planning.
"Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it." ~Proverbs 22:6
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