My students

After about a month of school starting I am so very happy with my 6th graders and my 3rd graders. My 6th graders I had them before as 5th graders. I wanted to continue teaching and planning lessons for them. I also wanted to try something new with the curriculum. Teaching grammar instead of the boring Lets write situation they have in the book. When students get to middle school they do grammar, and unless they go to a hagwon ( after school language study) they are at a loss for what grammar is. I am introducing it to them as simple as I can. They are doing 7th grade work (my co teacher thought they couldn't handle it). What I am learning is that co-teachers in public schools don't think the students are capable of harder things. Kids like to think and prove people wrong. Take my 3rd grade for instance I never taught them before. This is their first time at formal English education in the public school ( almost all of them go to hagwons). My co-teacher wanted to have them go over their ABC's and sounds at the first class of every lesson. The first day I planned for them was all about their ABC's. I get a really slow version of the ABC's. What happens ? They know their ABC's in fact in all the classes at least one student told me the song was too slow. LOL. Then at the end of the video it says super simple songs, and what do my geniuses do? They read "Super simple songs" " Ooooo Ricki Teacher super simple songs." Lol I just have to laugh and say "Yes that's right." Soooo from now on I will push the envelope a little. Like today I introduced the characters in the book to the students. Then we were going to play hangman. My co teacher thought they wouldn't know how to spell the simple names soo we were going to do an activity where they learned the spelling of the names. Only one did they get confused on and it was not an easy one. I must say I love my 3rd grade already. They are well behaved and they really like me in class. Out of class they are still a little scared to approach me. One of my students wrote me a note last week saying they couldn't wait for English class and they loved me. Awwwww. Also this week was parent teacher conferences. Although I did not have any conferences, some parents spoke to my co-teacher and said their child liked English so much they wished they had it everyday. YAY !!!!! My students love me. Woohoo. They are just so smart and adorable though. They know English so well better than alot of my 4Th graders.

School, Learning Korean, and Yellow dust

I have finally moved into my new classroom. Yay it has like wooden laminate floors. It echos and when the children make alot of noise it gets really noisy. Oy vey. I am not a fan of this yellow dust nonsense that's floating around the air. Apparently it is sand from the Gobi desert and pollution. YAY !? So people walk around with surgeon masks on their faces. I have yet to get my mask but I will. It causes allergy like symptoms to me. It's horrible. I don't like it. I have been taking Korean lessons the past few weeks. I am learning to read but it is difficult to remember the characters. My dad (Hi Papi I miss you ) has expressed interest in learning Korean sooo I figured why not put it up on my blog so anyone who wants to learn korean.

Here are the letters Consonants

ᄀ- gee yok (g) ᄂ- nee un (n) ᄃ- dee gut (d) ᄅ- ree ul (r or l) ᄆ- mee um (m) ᄇ- bee up (b) ᄉ- see ot (s) ᄋ- ee ung (ng only when it's at the bottom) ᄌ- jhee ut (j) ᄎ- chee ut (ch) ᄏ- kee ut (k) ᄐ- tee ut (t) ᄑ- pee up (p) ᄒ- hee ut (h)

Vowels

ᅡ- a ᅣ- ya ᅥ- uh ᅧ- yeo ᅩ- o ᅭ- yo ᅮ- oo ᅲ- yoo ᅳ- eu ( like ewww) ᅵ- ee ᄈ- strong b ᄍ- strong j ᄄ- strong d ᄁ- strong g ᄊ- strong s ᅢ- ae ᅤ- ya ( like the ya in yay) ᅦ- e ᅨ- ya ( like the ya in yay) There is no alphabet song unfortunately. The only song I know is combining the consonants with the first vowel a.

가 - ga 나 -na 다 -da 라 - ra 마 - ma 바 - ba 사 - sa 아 - a 자 - ja 차 - cha 카 - ka 타 - ta 파 - pa 하 - ha

Now when you are confident with knowing how to say your letters or singing the song please call me and recite said song. I wll continue with my lesson next time.