English Winter Camp

At first, I was dreaming "English Winter Camp", which all public school English teachers must do in Korea. Then they knocked back my hours from 5 to 2 hours and told me I would be working from 1-3 and didn't need to come in to school before that or stay after (actually... no one ever said I couldn't stay after, but no one has said anything yet! Plus I did all my lesson plans and worksheets in December so I wouldn't have anything to do in the office, anyway.) I get paid as much as I do when I work 40 hours a week. We play games and do fun stuff. My life is awesome.

So far we have played Apples to Apples and watched "Twilight: Eclipse" and "Napoleon Dynamite". Apples to Apples was a big hit (I used the Kids version, and it was perfect for their level), but I had to explain what Beanie Babies and Godzilla are (really surprised they didn't know the last one.) I also do real lessons, too. We did a day on shopping (we made fashion magazine advertisements!) and travel (we made travel brochures!) and food and restaurants (we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches but I couldn't find peanut butter 20 minutes before class so we just ate bread and jelly!) We have three more classes, and the lesson themes are Murder Mystery, Harry Potter, and School-Funded Pizza Party!

The students are middle school grade one and at first I was really afraid that they wouldn't be able to understand me. Even some grade 3 students barely speak any English. Despite some super-cute students who have a lot of difficulty with the class but really try, most of the students are like little geniuses! Four of them will probably be fluent by the time they graduate middle school. I'm not even kidding! They're silent when I talk, do all the worksheets I give them, and even VOLUNTEER ANSWERS when I ask questions. This NEVER happens in regular class. I have about 10-14 students (depending on who skips class, since it's free and optional) compared to the 35 I have in normal classes, so it's really nice to get to know the students by name and know more about their personalities. For example, Victoria loves Twilight and Kamanohashikamo, May has 2PM everything, Jamie's cousins live in Chicago and she can do the "Single Ladies" dance really well and every time I ask for a word she screams "POO", and Ke$ha is obsessed with Japan. Plus they get to wear street clothes and they are so cute and fashionable and smart and perfect! I am obsessed with them! I hope they're still my friends when the normal semester starts.

One day I did a lesson on differences between American and Korean high school. This is my student Lauren's response. She's 13 years old and writing almost perfect English! She really wants to go to America. She is totally going to Harvard or Yale in 3 years. Actually, probably, Columbia or Barnard, since she likes New York so much. She is also a really talented artist and her travel pamphlet for Thailand was more heavenly than the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Click to make it bigger!