Yesterday I had a very interesting experience. Colin Powell came to Korea University to give a speech on international relations between the United States and Korea. His speech was good and he did half an hour of Q&A. But the best part of the experience happened when he was coming into the auditorium. There were so many people there that many of us were crammed in the back just standing to watch. Well as he was coming in they cleared a path and I was standing at the edge of the path. As Colin Powell walked in he came over to me, said “Hi, how are you?” and shook my hand!!!! I was the only person whose hand he shook and the only person he talked to. It was so amazingly weird. I am assuming since I was the only Caucasian standing in the crowd I stood out a little bit and he recognized that I probably looked American and decided to greet me. It is an experience I will never forget and never stop laughing about. I just wanted to get that out of the way before I forgot!
This was my last week of teaching mathematics before I move onto teaching science. I have really enjoyed teaching math and I think it’s been good for the students because they are learning a lot of English math terms. So far everything I have taught the students is something they have already been taught in Korea, but now they are getting it in English. I think this is beneficial to them for a couple of reasons. 1. It provides them with English lessons. They already know the names of angles and place value positions in Korean, but now they have learned the same things in English. 2. It provides the students with an opportunity to practice what they have learned in Korean. One thing I have noticed about Korean teaching is that the teachers move fairly quickly through the concepts and therefore the students do not get much time to practice what they have learned, as they would in an American school. I think practice if beneficial to the students and thus I believe being introduced ( I couldn’t think of a better word) the same subject more than once is a good way for the students to practice.
My biggest issue that I have had so far with the student teaching is the amount of guidance I am receiving from my CT. She hasn’t yet been able to go over my lesson plans with me before I teach them or even tell me her opinions or the opinions of other teachers about my lessons. So far I haven’t received any complaints so I am assuming I am doing okay, I just would like some kind of feedback whether it be positive or negative. Because right now I am feeling a little useless and, I don’t know that I am considered by them to be a real teacher. I think the other teachers think that my teaching is just a time-filler for the students. I am a little jealous of Michael and his CT because they meet with each other a couple times a week and she gives specifics on what to teach and also provides feedback and guidance. I know that Ms. Lee (my CT) is busier than Michael’s because she is in charge of the 4th grade and the other foreign teachers at the school. She has given me the material for my lessons I will be teaching next week in Science, but it is not that helpful. She basically gave me the student textbook with the lab lessons and suggested I use the picture to write the lessons and/or find a Korean friend to help me translate it. From the pictures I can see the basics of the experiments, but quite frankly I’m a little afraid I will leave out important information if I don’t know the exact translation. The other problem is she just gave these to me Thursday and wants me to email the lessons to her by Sunday in order for her to go over them and I will begin teaching on Monday. Since we don’t go to school on Fridays, this doesn’t give me much time to consult with her about the lessons before I write them or even teach them. I plan on discussing this with her next week and seeing if she can help me more with some feedback and also go over the lessons with me before I write them and teach them.
That’s pretty much it for now. I'm running low on mental juices and I have a lot of work to do this weekend!
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