My third grade Korean winter camp students are about 20% exhausting, 30% confused/confusing, and 50% adorable. Let me explain.
During the month of January public school is closed for holiday. I have to be at work each day and teach a winter English camp. The first two weeks I have third grade students, and the last two weeks I will have fourth grade. I teach 2 eighty minute classes a day. I teach the students by myself without a co-teacher. I have planned different themes and activities for each day.
I began my second week of camp today. Last week had it's ups and downs. The students' English levels are not very high. Being by myself in front of the class can be very frustrating and tiring. I feel like an idiot half the time standing up there making hand gestures and staring into blank Korean students' faces asking "ok? understand?" when I know they do not. This also makes discipline difficult. Sometimes students just tune me out because they get tired of trying to understand me. I can't blame them, but then they become distracting to the rest of the class. This is the exhausting part.
Some of the students and one in particular is always calling me "Sam". I had no idea what this meant and spent the better part of last week's conversation with him saying that my name was not Sam, but Jackie. I finally figured out that he was calling me "Sam" because it is a shortened version of sonsaengnim, the Korean word for teacher. I will give directions for an activity and then walk around only to see the students doing something completely different. I will have contests or games and tell the students that the winners will get candy, give candy to the winner(s), and then all of the other students look at me with puppy-dog eyes when they do not receive candy because they did not understand what I had explained. This is the confused/confusing part.
Most of the students have regular English names, but some have names like Kitty, Rainbow, and Sup. These names make me laugh. Some students with English names also insist on an incorrect spelling. For example, Selly (Sally), Jak-sun (Jackson), and Aarik (Eric). There are lots of things the kids say that make me laugh. I am not making fun of their accent because I know how difficult it is for them to pronounce some sounds, espcially "l" and "r", but I can't help but giggle a bit when they say it. They will say "finishee!" (not finished) when they are done with something. They will shout "Olleh!" when they win a game. They say "Engrishee" instead of English. They will tell me "yes-uh" instead of yes. They refer to me as "jacket" instead of Jackie. They say "yes-uh, sir!" to me when I give them directions on how to do something. I have to tell them repeatedly that I am not a 'sir'. This is the adorable part.
one of the funniest kids ever, Kevin
Sung-sup or "Sup"
Brian with a toothy grin
kiddos outside after playing red rover and tag
playing in the snow
Namaste
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