Orientation Days 3 and 4

This is Courtney and it’s my turn to blog again! I’ll just give a 2 day rundown – don’t want any of you followers to miss a single moment of our Korean Lifestyle! I’m going to give a pretty simple rundown because a) it’s been a pretty simple two days and 2) I’m about to go to bed. So…I guess a warning is in order. If you really don’t care how Sam and I spent the last 2 days, don’t read any more. But, if you are interested in knowing what an orientation for Teaching English in Korea consists of, read on!

*Before I get started, I should explain something. All the teachers are divided into groups according to where they will be going. For instance, Sam and I will be in the Gyeongbuk province. Everyone who will be going to this province is in Group 8. This is the group we separate into for class meetings, bus rides, group work, etc.

Welcome ceremony with all the teacher attending

Now that that is out of the way…….

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Friday started off with a medical exam. Sam and I, along with the rest of our fellow English teachers, will find out just how healthy we are!

The medical exam consisted of:

- Height check

- Weight Check

- Blood Pressure Test

- Color Blindness Test

- Hearing test

- Eye Exam

- Blood Test

- Urine Test

- X-ray

So basically we’ll find out everything we ever needed to know about our health!

Soap in the bathrooms is on a bar on the wall, not liquid soap in a dispenser.

After the exam was lunch, then 2 classes before dinner.

Class 1: We set up a bank account, got some introduction information, and voted for our group leader.

Class 2: Basically a history lesson – it was extremely interesting. The lecturer discussed:

- The reason Korean’s hate Japan

- The deal between North and South Korea

- Weird questions Korean’s will ask you

o Like “Have you eaten?” and “How old are you?” and “Where are you going?”

Dinner! And after dinner it was Korean Language time.

Now Korean Language time deserved a bit of an explanation. In each group there are different levels of Korean language speakers. There are the complete beginners (they go to level 1 class), no so beginners (level 2 class), know quite a lot (level 3 class), and just too smart (taekwondo class). Because Sam and I don’t speak Korean, we are in the level 1 class. It’s taught by a woman who doesn’t speak English. We all sit around the classroom and repeat whatever she says. It was so confusing – no one knew quite what they were saying. She was going overjust the vowels and consonants, but even then it was soooo confusing! Sam of course did a good job of it. She really needs to stop being so good at remembering things. She makes the rest of us level 1-ers look bad!

A Korean movie shown after the lesson – Welcome to Dongmakgol. They said it was supposed to be funny, but in the end everyone died, so I didn’t find that too funny. But the theater we saw it in was outside. The university we are staying at has a small outdoor amphitheater on the 4^th floor where movies can be shown.

The next day it was classes all day. These consisted of:

- Active tasks for the Second Language Classroom

o Learned some good games to play with students

- Tips for Teaching Reading

o Tricks to make kids want to read

- After school Classes and Vacation Camps

o Where we found out we can either teach a summer camp for 4 hours, or sit in an empty schoolroom for 8.

*Lunch*

- Project Based Learning

o Where we were informed that “Korea is so cute it will fry you’re brain!”

- Explore Korea

o We learned all the great places to visit while in Korea

- Upgrading Media Use in the ESL and EFL Classroom

o We found out the most useful studio 4 tool we never had -http://prezi.com/ - The alternative to power points

Sam's head with the rest of the class

It was dinner time again. It’s hard to eat dinner at 5:30 – I’m not hungry then, but by the time it gets to be 10 or 11, I’m starving! We had choice of kimchi, salad, noodle salad, French fries, soup, watermelon, cookies, and other stuff I can’t remember. Maybe next time I’ll just take a picture – it’s easier to remember that way!

Korean lesson time was better tonight – though Sam was still showing off her mad Korean Language Skills, I was starting to get the hang of it. Everyone who didn’t catch on yesterday was sitting in the very back of the classroom today, so they wouldn’t get called on. So the front half of the classroom consisted of the people who were understanding what was going on, a few people who forgot to move to the back of the classroom, and way to many empty seats.

Instead of another “funny” movie, Sam and I opted to walk back to the store a mile away! We spent over an hour peering at all the strange things they sell there.

Barbies

Spray Perfume and it's uses

Hand puppet cleaning things

Book about Poop

Pens with sentences

Balloons with faces

Where you store your pet when you want to go shopping

After walking back – we bought a really greasy and unhealthy pizza burger on toast. It was not fully consumed by us – I don’t think it is humanly possible to consume one of those. Unless you are a garbage can. But a garbage can isn’t human.

Sam and the Pizza Burger on Toast

Hopefully this information gives you a good idea of what orientation is like. It certainly is easier to write it all once, than into 6 different emails, then talk about 3 more times on skype! Goodnight!