My Favorite Class

I have written about this class before, but I feel the need to do so again, as they were my first class today and got me started out on a very positive note.

It's a class that, in a sense, seldom comes into existence in the world of Korean English academies.

The kids were in different beginners' classes, then the best and the brightest got placed into this class. So it's kind of an AP EFL (English as a Foreign Language) class.

There are 10 kids (2nd grade) in the class, the max, 7 girls and 3 boys. I haven't really thought about the gender equation before, but that is really an optimum mix, as the girls are usually better students at a young age and tend to mellow out the boys' rowdy behavior.

Last semester we began combining a conversation/grammar book with a reading book, and we are continuing it this semester.

The difficult thing is that the class only meets for 40 minutes, and it is hard--if not impossible--to do everything I want to do during that short time frame. Most of our other classes meet for 50 minutes (twice--one class with a Korean teacher, and one class with a foreign teacher).

So these kids are smart and almost all have some aptitude for language; that is no small matter given that Korean and English are very different languages.

However, as I said to my Korean co-teacher today, after I taught the class, they are not only good students--they are also nice and happy.

Does that sound weird or trite?

Yes, they are a happy class, and I love them. They perk me up.

We banter jokes. One girl today said (mistakenly) "I am thirty". She meant she had thirty homework stickers, which means she gets a prize of a pencil or eraser. I said, "Oh! You are thirty! You're an ajumma!" ("ajumma" means "older woman" in Korean.) The class thought that was hysterical, both the idea and the fact that I spoke a Korean word. They wanted me to repeat it over again.

I also said, "Haley's mother called me this morning and said Haley likes monkey burgers."

Haley, not knowing the words for "teacher is telling a lie" (actually, she forgot, because we did this before), mimed "teacher is growing a long nose" (ie, Pinocchio).

One student said, "We are busy" as I rushed through the two books, and, indeed, it is true. We have little time to play games during a 40 minute period, and I so much want to have 50 minutes, or, better yet, a whole hour. Wow! What I could do with that extra time!

For now, though, it is enough (mostly) that the parents are happy, the kids are learning by leaps and bounds, and I get so much satisfaction from the class. This is one of the things that keeps me in Korea.