We finally got our teaching schedule last night. Apparently, they don't do "weeks". And worse, they don't do "weekends". Our calendar doesn't even make any sense to them. We teach for a "big week" that consists of about 2 weeks straight without any break whatsoever, then they take a break that is usually 4 days long. Thankfully, they give foreign teachers every 5th day off, so we have a 1 day "weekend". As far as I know, we're the only ones, including students, with that day off.
So for example, we work Monday through Thursday this week, then get Friday off. Then the "short week" starts over again so Saturday is essentially another Monday. Work till Tuesday, then get Wednesday off. Then we teach Thursday through Saturday before a 4 day break. We cannot wait.
So as far as I've ever heard, we Americans think that Asian kids take their studies very seriously. Now, they do have this schedule without every 5th day off and they do have 10 classes a day going from 8 in the morning till 9:30 at night. But our kids are for the most part horrible students. They are undisciplined and talk the entire class (with the exception of maybe 5 good ones per class of 35 who actually want to be there and learn).
The worst ones will stop talking for maybe 15 seconds after literally yelling at them to be quiet before they go back to snickering and giggling. The boys are the worst. There are maybe 5 boys in each class (usually out of 35ish...Liz has a class of 48!) and almost all of them sit in the back and either read a book or make noise, despite my best attempts to stop them. I would have to neglect the entire class just to keep a few boys quiet and it's just not worth it.
(If any trained teachers read this, do you have any suggestions for how to get a class of 35+ students who don't care, don't participate, and don't understand you to care and participate, or at least behave??)
We had kind of made up simple lesson plans for today dealing with introductions and rules and generic stuff for the first day. The previous teachers had left their lesson plans and that had taken until the 3rd day. Well since not a single one of them participates I burned through that in about 20 minutes. Fortunately we had planned to about day 3 so I had them play a little game introducing family vocab and then did some stuff with a family tree explaining what each was. I felt like a boring bumbling fool for the first two classes but then I tried using some students to make the family tree instead of just drawing it on the board and talking at them. It was at least much more interesting and they cracked up laughing at the people I made get married and have children together.
So yeah, it might be a long year.
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2 comments:
Just got caught up with all your posts! It sounds wild and fabulous! I'm so envious! =) Keep 'em coming! Also, I'm no teacher, but having had two boys - incentives work well! When Vince was little and full of piss and vinegar, we had legos (tons of legos) and a drawer that had a variety of imaginative play things & gadgets in it that he could go to an occupy himself with. Odd stuff - super balls, hand whisks (the kind with gears), locks and latches, etc. Just an idea! Take care you two! Thinking about you lots! mjb
This is mom - I can't get it to recognize me. But I wanted to tell you that a few things came to mind - one is to just stand there with your arms crossed until they are quiet. Another is to turn the lights out. Another is to teach them to be quiet when you count to 5 (they could count with you and learn some English). That will let them know it's time to be quiet. I know this sounds quite elementary, but they won't know the difference. By the way, it sounds like you're already getting the hang of it by having them act things out. I sent you a package today and it was very lightweight, but only cost me $3.50 so if you need any lightweight things, let me know. We'll see if and when it gets to you.
Mom
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