Teaching Notes

Teaching is going well but remains challenging. In less than a month of teaching, I have learned a few interesting things:

• Teaching children is fun, but requires a certain temperament and a lot of preparation. On temperament, it is necessary to find a balance between patience and discipline and to know when to use each. On preparation, activities must be educational, interesting, and such that all the 35 students in a class feel involved. It is not easy, but exciting when it works.
  
• It is also a great feeling to believe that your students are excited to see you. I never get tired of hearing students yell hello to me as I walk into school in the morning or down the hallways during the day. As I left school this afternoon, a few of my students were in the playground playing stickball with a wooden bat and tennis ball. They shouted for me to come over and play. Even though I had a ride waiting in the parking lot, I couldn't resist taking a few swings.
  
• I just found out that I will be teaching a weekly "Parents Course" in addition to my other classes. If teaching teachers is any indication of what I should expect from the parents, it will be difficult but fun. I find that engaging adults with lesson plans that appeal to their goals, and solicit active participation from them, is no easy task. When I successfully do it, however, it is a blast.
  
• Trying to learn Korean has made me a better English teacher. The small amount of Korean that I have learned helps me better understand my students and how they perceive things like English pronunciation.
• At the same time, teaching English has provided me with an opportunity to think about the English language in ways that I never have before. I find myself realizing expressions and difficult words in the language I use. I am also becoming aware of the difficulty of the English language lying in the fact that English speakers often don't follow "the rules" that English students are taught. Today, I had to explain to the teachers why "I am going to a movie" is a more common response than the correct future tense "I will go to a movie" when one is asked "What are you doing tonight?" I still don't have a very succinct answer.