English camp and some extra stuff

With the semester done and with this crack down that EPIK has on enforcing the 22 work week for their teachers I haven’t had a chance to breathe these past few weeks. My co-teacher told me that EPIK continually sends her documents and e-mails about making sure that I’m at school during certain times and not just desk warming but teaching during those hours. Which is pretty ridiculous.

Because of that I was given a HUGH pile of extra classes to prepare for and teach during my desk warming time. So I have/had my summer camp, extra after-school classes, storytelling classes, teacher classes, and an extra English camp at another school. I’m pulling anywhere between 18 to my required 22 hours a week of teaching. I’m just tired all the time these days.

my ugly schedule for summer

Yakdong Summer English Camp: I felt like no matter how much I prepared for my English camp I was always missing something. The theme that I picked for my camp was travel which was pretty out in the open and it allowed me to go in any direction that I wanted to go. Honestly, I didn’t know what I should prepare or do for camp. I felt kind of bad for the kids at the end of my camp because it could had been better. But they still said that they enjoyed it and majority of them said they would attend the camp again.  So, this is how camp went down. Camp was a total of 4 days, 4 periods of day. My camp consisted of 14 students from grades 4-6. The camp was to prepare the kids for a trip overseas, everything from packing your bags to asking someone to take your picture. First day of camp, was a mess. The kids that joined camp just happened to be the kids that didn’t really enjoy role playing which was the main activity that I had for the periods. So I changed most of the plans for class the day before. The rest of camp went pretty well. The last day of camp the kids had the opportunity to visit the US military base Camp Carroll which is located in our city and only about 20 minutes away from our school. My poor babies.  The weather that day was horrible hot. I so worried that my kids would faint from all the heat. They kept on asking me for water, I pulled out my own water bottle for them to drink. Other than that they were just glad to make it back onto the bus where the ac is on. camp done.

opening orientation for the summer camps

Sungsoon Summer English Camp: I had to teach an English camp at a school that I had never been to before. Sungsoon Elementary is about 20 mins by taxi from my school. This camp was a mess. Oh my gosh. The school is much smaller than my main school, camp consisted of of 6 students grades 4 and 5. My co teacher told me that i would have another co teacher teaching along side me but it turned out that I was really teaching the kids by myself. The co teacher for the camp would take the 4th graders while I had the 5th grader then we would switch. There was no main theme for the camp so I just followed the instructions that my co teacher gave me for an outline of the camp. The highlight of this camp was actually when the 5th graders did their own rendition of Jason Maraz’s I’m Yours which was actually really good. We practiced the song during camp but they had already learned the song before camp. Oh, side note I’m super grateful that one of the teachers gave me a ride home. I’m really amazed at the hospitality of that I’m shown.  On the first day I asked if the staff could call me a taxi or where I would be able to catch a taxi instead 3 of the staff members offered to give me a ride home instead. My brought some pastries my last day of camp for the staff to show my gratitude.

Teacher’s classes:   Only one teacher other than my co teacher showed up, I mean was really interested in my teacher’s class. My co teacher told me that a lot of the other teachers ask what I would be teaching in the first place and they didn’t really seem interested in coming. But the one teacher that did, he made me feel so special, ahah. He actually tries to use a lot of the terms that I taught in the teacher’s class which makes me happy. I’ll give him this, he’s age and I did teach a Konglish class and a slang/common expression class with him. But the fact that he tries to integrate the things that I taught him when he talks to me it’s endearing.  My staff tells me that my Korean has gotten pretty good. I understand a lot, using context clues of the conversations. It’s harder for me to spit out the words that I’m trying to say though.

Storytelling classes: I have these storytelling classes that I read books to second and third graders. This is the first time that I got into interact with second graders and they’re just cute as a button. But second and third graders English levels aren’t has high and are limited. I have a hard time talking to them without using my broken Korean with them. But its okay I still did. The first day of storytelling was really fun no lie. But it got old fast. I still had a good time just talking to the kids having to them practice as much English as they could.

I finished my last desk warming day today and it was raining crazy cats and dogs. One of the staff asked me how I was going home and I told her taxi. She offered me a ride and I did not decline it.

Next stop Thailand.

So much more next time.

xoxo