So Much to Say

Wow, what an adventure I've had so far! So many experiences, and still a little jet lagged. But I have now been here for over a week, and am comfortable with the subway, can navigate most places, have met and connected with the staff from my school, as well as the kids, and am already planning and preparing for my classroom! I begin Friday, March 2! (Weird day, but I'll explain later.) Fear Not, my faithful readers! I will fill you in on the experiences of the week. I've been making a list of  the things I've felt and experienced to let you know all about it. Since there is so much, I'll try to make a few posts this weekend so you don't have to read a novel at one time. Ready? Set...Go!

The school was so sweet to give us a morning to settle into our housing, contact home, and adjust before we had to be somewhere. Each class at LCI Academy had been working on a song and a story in English for the end of the year "Show Off" performance to their parents. Which happened to be the day after we arrived. So we all met up at school and got a mini-tour, then rode a bus with the rest of the teachers to the performance location. There we met the Owner and Director of our school, Mr. Kim, for the first time and were Welcomed by the rest of the Korean staff. My first impressions of them were that they were extremely sweet and welcoming. They worked so hard to prepare things before the kids came including making them a dinner before their performance of Kimbap (Korean Sushi, My Favorite!). It was delicious, and such a welcoming treat for me. So then the kids came and did a run-through of their performance which we watched as we tried to stay awake from the jet lag. They are so cute!!!! I am so excited to try and get some videos posted of them! I don't think my internet is strong enough at the hotel and I've tried to post several videos and it just hasn't worked :( .

Automatically, I could tell that the parents of the kids were extremely involved in their child's life. Most of the parents I'm told are doctors and lawyers, thus MokDong being located in the financial hub of Seoul, and the students being very well behaved and hard working. I learned that parents pay at least $900 a month for their child to attend the LCI Academy kindergarten program alone. That's not counting the various other activities and lessons that parents pay for their students to be involved in. This was proven by the bouquet stand out in the lobby of the performance hall, and the many parents who bought the elaborate bouquets to give in support of the hard work put in by the teachers and students. The bouquets not only had fresh flowers that were beautiful, but toys hanging from plastic hearts, LED lights that glittered, candies, and handmade paper flowers as well. Every parent fought for the best place on the front row or in the front of the auditorium to get the best possible shot of their student while they were performing. It was really cool :) Here are a couple of pictures from LCI Academy's Performance 2012:

This is the room where all of the students gathered after rehearsals to eat kimbap, and get dressed in the costumes that the school had rented.

Of course, students posing in aegyo, or cuteness. A big thing here in Korea :)

This will be my 7 year old Kindy class in less than a week!!!

The whole LCI Kindergarten grades, both 6 years and 7 years :)

So, another thing I've learned about LCI, is that they have two years of Kindergarten. The first year is Kindy 6 years old because Koreans follow the Lunar calendar. Culture Fact: Everyone has the same birthday on the Lunar New Year though you have an actual birth day. So you get two parties, but are the same age as everyone else. For example, currently I am 23 in Korean years even though my 23 birthday isn't until May. I will stay 23 in Korean years until the Lunar New Year in 2013 when I along with everyone else born after the 1989 Lunar New Year will turn 24. Make sense? Generally the first year Kindy's have had no English experience at all, and are coming in fresh. Then there is the 7 year old Kindy grade. These students have already gone through the first year Kindy program, or are 7 years old.

That leads me to discuss more information about the school. Here's a basic run-down of the day:

*:30am-Korean Teachers report to school

9:00am-Foreign Teachers report to school

9:30-10:30am-Morning Kindy Students arrive; Block 1 of instruction

**15 minute playtime break

10:45-11:30am-Block 2 of instruction

**15 minute playtime break

11:45am-12:30pm-Block 3 of instruction

***Lunch for Teacher and Student (Lunches are made by the kitchen staff at school, they are generally good, but always traditional Korean stuff--they've been fun to eat, and they're free!)

1:30-2:15pm-Special Activity, Morning Kindy goes home

**25 minute break between Morning and Afternoon classes

2:40-4:00pm-First afternoon class

**10 minute break between classes

4:10-5:00pm-Second afternoon class; Block 1 instruction

**10 minute rest break

5:10-6:00pm-Block 2 instruction, and classes over for the day

6:30pm-Foreign Teachers can leave

7:00pm-Korean Teachers can leave

It makes for a pretty long day, but nice because the classes change, you get lots of breaks, lunch is fed to you, and you don't have to write the lesson plans. Also, different teachers have different classes on different days. I will have morning Kindy Monday-Friday, Afternoon class 1 Monday-Friday, and Afternoon class 2 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Again, making for long days, but generally less stressful.

Some specifics: The Korean Teachers' role is to make lesson plans, grade some homework, and provide relief and discipline for the Foreign Teacher throughout the day/week. They are also the mediator between the parent and the teacher, making communication between them easier. The Foreign Teacher is the Teacher of Record. They are the one who implement the lessons (mostly out of workbooks--not the best method I've learned but it works for LCI), grade writing assignments, and are in relationship with the students every day of the 20 session days a month. The student may come or go as they please because they are paying per session. Lots of students go on week long vacations, go skiing on the weekends, and a few students leave the country for a session and then come back for the next. It's really very interesting.

The morning Kindy classes learn normal material in English. For example, we will spend a lot of time speaking with them, spelling, writing, reading, working grammar, and doing mathematics. As well as their special activity which will introduce them to science. There are so many other types of Hogwans in our area and Seoul, parents often choose which to send their children to to learn more detail about the other subjects. Our school is primarily focuses on teaching them the English language. The afternoon classes are the ones that are shorter and for older students specializing in specific aspects of English. They use different programs and resources to teach about Reading, Writing, Grammar, Speaking, and Listening in/to/of English.

As well as teaching a class, each teacher also has a special activity that they teach; such as Music, Art, P.E., cooking, Song and Story (literally that), Science, and a Speech or Presentation class. We rotate around to different classes and classrooms each day for the time directly after lunch, and teach our special activity. This coming 6 months, I will teach Music to the first year Kindy classes, and Cooking to the second year Kindy classes! They decided this based upon my resume and interests. ;-)  I'm not totally sure what Music involves, but it sounds like a combination between an elementary Music class in the states and a Theatre class. The school has CD players in each room, and a pretty good selection of plays for me to teach to the students. The goal is to get the students confident to speak or perform in English in front of a large audience. For cooking, I will be teaching simple skills such as how to read a cookbook and recipes, gather ingredients, measure (which should be interesting since they work in the metric system), and make simple things to eat (such as chocolate covered strawberries, PB & J, and Spaghetti). The school provides everything that we need, and I won't have to spend any of my hard-earned Won!!!

What's also interesting is that LCI is primarily a business, not a school with the goal to Educate in the best possible way. It is a Hogwan, or private academy, and therefore gets it's support solely on it's enrollment. We make parents happy-> they send their kids-> we get money-> the school stays in business. Get it? Mr. Kim is the owner of the business, he is not the principal. He pays grattitude and respect at performances, and is often seen around the school, but the students are not sent to him for disciplinary action. Then again, with Asian children who have parents that are doctors and lawyers, and are encouraged to be heavily involved in multiple activities, there aren't too many discipline problems other than talking and minor childish infractions. But they are 6 and 7 year old children.

There is also too much work for the students during the day for them to misbehave, and they miss out on playtimes if they do. They have at least an hour of homework generally every night from LCI alone, and if they don't finish that, they miss playtime. For the most part, they have a pretty good system going, and the kids are incredibly sweet. I haven't seen a single one with a true intent for evil; unlike when I substituted at certain schools back in the states. 

One of the main goals of the school is to make the parents and students happy. If they are happy, they keep coming. It's a very lucritive system, which unfortunately places a lot of pressure on certain people to ensure that everyone is happy. There have been a few stories of teachers getting fired because the students weren't happy. Mostly men, unfortunately because of the kind of lives that some of these students face with their Fathers. Culture Fact: Korean men are mostly the ones who work all day to provide for their families. The mothers are the ones to handle the kids. But a lot of the students in our school have both parents that work very well paying jobs, so they may only have a nanny or other family member watching them. A large population of hard-working Fathers get out of work, go out and drink, and only get involved when their are problems. Some of them are angry and abusive, even without the alcohol. And some of them get too involved with expectations and requirements that to us seem impossible, but somehow the children manage to accomplish them. Then you do have the parents who are wonderful, and truly desire for their children to succeed. They love their children, encourage them, work with them, and support everything they do. Every culture has it's difficulties, and Korea is no different. 

Nevertheless--it is so fun. The children are simply delightful, and their little accents, funny sayings, and treasured hearts make them worth every bit of energy and Love I have! The sweet faces of each child, the quirky things that make them laugh, the way they interact with each other and think so quickly is simply astounding to me, and I look forward to spending many days with them!

Now, my first day of teaching my own classes will be Friday, March 2. That's just an interesting part of the monthly session schedule, and remember, Korean's go to school all year long. Graduation is on February 29, Marth 1 is a Korean Holiday, so the first day of the March session is Friday the 2nd. We get weekends off, about one day a month off for either a Lunar or Korean Holiday, 10 days off in the Summer, and 10 days off in the Winter. This is a full-time job! We'll see how I feel it compares to American schooling after I've been doing it for a little while.

Whew, that's a lot of information, how about some pictures to look at?

Here is the Entrance to LCI Academy. It is on the Fifth floor of a building in MokDong.

This is the Library just to your left and behind you as you walk in.

This is 'The Glass Room' that is the divider between the hallways. There are many lesson materials stored in here, and we have individual meetings in here. The 'Teachers' Room' is on the other side of that back wall. That's where ALL the desks are :-)

The Hallway of classrooms on the right of the glass room.

The hallway of classrooms on the left side of the glass room.

Here is the small playroom that each class gets to use once a week.

(the other times they play inside of the classroom)

And here is the multi-media room that the kids use for many things...such as watching movies, or practicing songs.

Pictures of my classroom will come soon! I get to start setting it up on Tuesday :-) I am so excited!And, God is so good to me...the accent color of it is Purple, and I get LOTS of Natural light!!!



Are you tired of hearing about it yet?? I am thinking that my posts in the future will not be as long. This is just the backgroud informaton that I have now. :-)

Thanks so much for tracking with me, more information about various adventures around the city to come. Peace, Grace, and Love to all :-)

Love,

Madison