A little whinging but no snow

Crikey it has been a tough old week and it is only Wednesday! I hate this time of year, when the kids go back to school after nearly two months off for their winter vacation. The chaos that ensues at the hagwons can be really vexing. I have kids show up in an advanced class when they themselves can't even read. I have seven year olds arrive in a class full of middle school students. Even more irritatingly, I have the kids turn up for a class way before the books turn up. I guess that I have been pretty lucky in the last three years in that my classes have rarely gone over eight or nine students.

Yesterday I had two classes with fourteen students in- in which over half were in a class with a foreign teacher for the first time. Now this is a scary and exciting thing for them - perhaps they have never even seen a white face close up before- but a frustrating time for me:

Me: Hi!
First time student: ......
Me: Hello!
FTS: ......
Me: How are you?
FTS: .....
Me: How..are....you??
FTS: .......
Me: What's your name?
FTS: ......
Me: Name?
FTS: (slowly starts to cry)

Usually at this point one of the kids who understands a little more will burst in and translate for me. Then I have a name. But that is all. Oh the fun and games!

But the new kids are cute and some of them are very good at English already which is a joy. But I miss talking to the kids when the classes are that big- there is much less chance for one to one talking. I try really hard not to give the best speakers all the class time. But in my experience it usually takes a couple of weeks for the new kids to loosen up enough to try talking to me, in any language.

Also, while I was at the photocopier making copies for the new kids I found a pile of posters in a box on the floor. On closer examination, I found my face all over them! I knew that the director had taken a lot of photos of me over the last couple of months but I hadn't seen the results until now. Some of the photos are OK. But one of them.... let me explain.

Two weeks ago we had a visiting kindergarten class come into the school for a look around. Most of them had never seen a foreigner before and could speak no English. We had organised a game for them and Judy teacher was explaining the rules in Korean. And I was pulling funny faces at the kids for laughs while she did so. I guess I don't really need to tell you at what point the photo was taken. I took one of the posters and showed some of my kids and they asked me if it would be in all the newspapers tomorrow- I hadn't thought of that! It won't make me stop pulling faces at the kids but I will make sure that I am just out of the camera view at the time.

Hopefully things will settle down this week. And there are only three more days until the weekend. And after that I just have FIVE more weeks to go before jetting off home to London. Yes, I know that Felixstowe is my home town but I really can't see them landing a plane in downtown Felixstowe (maybe the Spa Gardens might be a better option).

Had a strange thought the other day. My mum's cat, at Korean age 15, is older than most of my students. And his English isn't that much cop either.