The school I teach at is named “Chungnam Marine Science High School.” It is a high school where the courses are geared towards the sciences. For high school in Korea students go for three years. I only teach to the first and second year students and this is because the way the school is a special school. For the third year students they are in vocational type classes and are working hands on with different things such as: welding, engine work, machinery, scuba diving, aquarium science, etc. I am pretty sure the third year students here don’t do much paper type of work, but a lot more job training work. Since this is considered a special high school it does have a reputation to have the kids who have behaviour problems and not disciplined. I can definitely see this as being the case. Actually when the vice principal found out that my major in college was criminology they were pretty happy because he said that some students can be hard to handle. I haven’t had too much trouble, but I do see the other teachers carrying sticks (drum sticks, bamboo stick, etc.) to class in case there is somebody that needs to be disciplined.
I obviously am one of the English teachers at the school. There are two more but one of them does seem to only know the English from the book and not much else. The other English teacher is actually my age and she is considered my co-teacher. This basically means if I need help with anything, especially with Korean, I can ask her. She has helped with finding bus schedules, telling me when to not come to work because of no school, and other minor things that some people might take for granted but can be difficult because of the language barrier. Her English is pretty good and I haven’t found anything she doesn’t know when I am talking to her. Of course we don’t talk about topics that require a bigger more extensive vocabulary.
At the school there are eight periods of classes and also a lunch in the middle of the day. Each period is fifty minutes long with a ten minute passing period. There really isn’t a need for ten minutes because the school is small, but that is the time that is given. I teach twelve different classes with each one at a different level. Again it is only the first and second year students. Plus there is an after school conversation class that I teach Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The class sizes range from around twelve students to the biggest being about twenty-eight students. The after school class has only eight students on the roster, but the most that has ever been to class is five. Since those students I meet three times a week they are the ones most experienced with English. The skill level of all the students is not that high. Yes, they are in high school but I would consider their English level at around an upper elementary school student (4th-6th grade in the states). So this does mean there is no reading of novels. The other English teachers follow a couple different books that are the “English curriculum” but I am encouraged to not use these books. This is because the students see me once a week and then one of the other English teachers another time where they learn what is in the book. That is fine with me because I think the books are disorganised and bounce around to random things. So instead I am making my lessons up as I go along. For example last week lessons were on meals along with the different food and then this week is on different environments along with the animals that live in the environments.
Next week lessons I am still currently planning and I just found out next week is a short week. In fact we will only be at school on Tuesday and Wednesday. This coming Monday is the school's anniversary and for some reason that means no school. So with the three day weekend I will be going up to Seoul to see the big city. Then next Thursday is Memorial Day and so no school Thursday or Friday. With that four day weekend I might try to head to Japan since it is only a simple ferry ride over to that island nation. I just thought of that today and I need to start planning if that is the case. This post has been a little bit about my school. I couldn't get pictures of the school this week because it has been raining all the time and I don't want to ruin my camera. With being out of town next week I might not post for a couple of weeks.