Teaching conversational English

Right now, Fulbright is hosting an English immersion camp for grade school through high school students. The theme for camp is holidays. I had the chance to teach two conversational English classes this past week. Both classes were with advanced students. This means that they can read and write really well. The can also mostly speak in complete sentences.
My first lesson was on "New Years Day" a mostly cultural lesson. We watched the ball drop in NYC. I taught students about travel vocabulary, i.e. destination, vacation, attraction. I showed them an example of a flier, and introduced the concept of what a flier does. They then had to make their own flier for an attraction in NYC. Students were engaged (and so great!), but I had a lot to improve on- such as speaking slower.
The second lesson was to the same group of students, and was on Independence Day. I taught about the importance of flags in a society. I used a lot of questions in this lesson, and the students really responded! We played a game, where students were in teams and had to decide if the fact given was for the American flag or for the Korean flag. We talked about symbols. Students then had to make their own flag, with symbols and colors. They also had to write sentences about why they chose those particular symbols or colors. Then, they had to share with the class. We hung up the flags in the room and they looked great! This lesson went a lot better, my questioning was better, as well as my pace and repetition of terms.
During this lesson, the director of Fulbright South Korea, came in and watched me teach for about 15 minutes. I feel honored for her to observe me teach, and I hope I did a good job representing our group. It is very cool that she is so interested in what we are doing!
I will teach again on Wednesday. It is Thanksgiving. I will be teaching an intermediate class. When I observed, they are not as comfortable using sentences. First, we will talk about emotions and emoticons. We will define thankful. Then, we will be writing and speaking sentences using "I am thankful for_______ because ______". They will write these on feathers for a turkey, and eventually make a turkey. They will be reading these out loud for speaking practice. This group may be more challenging, as they are not as comfortable using English. I hope it goes as well as the second lesson.
I hope to have more pictures added to photobucket soon, and will post a link when I do. I hope you are all doing well. I think about you often!

Week 2!

Week two in Korea has been very busy for me. We have Korean language class every morning for four hours. Then in the afternoon we have a teaching workshop or a cultural workshop. After that it is off to taekwondo, dinner, and studying. This past weekend, we took a trip to Songnisan. It is a very mountainous region in the middle of South Korea. It was so much fun to get away from the stress here at Chuncheon. We took a six hour hike to the top of a mountain- and the view was so worth it! Additionally, we got to eat as traditional Koreans eat, i.e. on the floor with no shoes on! As a group, we went out and had a blast at norebang (i.e. a karaoke bar), and yes they do have songs in English, such as songs by Journey and Elvis! We are now back at Chuncheon. The University that we are at is hosting an English immersion camp for students. As part of this, we are having the chance to teach three conversational English lessons. I taught my first one on Monday about travel vocabulary and New York City. I will teach again on Thursday about the American flag, and why flags are important in a culture. Tonight, a group is going to see Harry Potter (in Korean, BUT with English subtitles)! Hopefully, this weekend I will be able to go to Seoul and meet with Dongmi- I haven't got to see her yet!!! I hope to have time to post more pictures soon. I hope everyone is doing well- and I miss you a bunch!

New pictures!!!

http://s795.photobucket.com/albums/yy231/JacqueLaRue/My%20new%20home/

Click on the picture to see more from Korea!

Cultural Adjustment #1

Our first assignment for orientation was to pick and answer two questions. These will be weekly assignments and are called cultural adjustment checks. Our responses had to be 500 words. Here is my assignment.

4. What are your top three goals for this Orientation? You might consider professional, personal and cross-cultural development.

My top three goals for orientation are as follows:

1. To learn as much of the language as possible.

2. To develop new relationships and friendships with other ETA’s.

3. To learn as much about the Korean culture as I can.

1. I am challenging myself to learn the language, first off because I have never done anything like that before. I want to learn enough to be able to get by in Korea, and to be able to be at least partially independent. I also want to learn this, so that I am better able to communicate with my students, co-teachers, and host family when I get placed.

2. I have already had the opportunity to meet a lot of cool, interesting, and intriguing people during the first couple of days. By sharing many of the same experiences, I think we will bond. I want to continue to grow these relationships, and maintain them not only for our time here in Korea, but also when we go back to the states.

3. To accomplish this goal I have been trying many new things. This includes the food (I have tried all of the foods at each meal) and the extra-curricular activities. I am psyched to learn taekwondo and how to cook Korean style! Additionally, I would love to attend new festivals throughout the year, hike a few mountains, and go shopping in an underground shopping mall, as well as in Seoul.

5. What is your greatest motivation for coming to Korea on this grant? Explain.

My greatest motivation for coming to Korea is to teach. I want to learn about how their educational system works by being on the inside. It is so interesting how Korean students in general can do so well on standardized tests. With the educational system in the United States pushing standardized testing, I think we have a lot to learn about how to prepare our students for them. At the same time, when Korean students are so worried about preparing for testing, I wonder what they are giving up to accomplish their goals. It will be interesting to see how students balance their school work with extra-curricular activities, family time, and friend time. I want to learn from Korean teachers effective, new techniques that will be useful to use as a teacher back in the United States.

As an agricultural educator, we have a lot of opportunities to share time outside of school with our students. We coach our students to help prepare them for contests, we help them with applications and record books, and we have the opportunity to travel with them. I am hoping to get involved in some way to give these opportunities to my students here in Korea. At this time, I don’t know exactly what that will be (maybe coaching or helping with applications), but I want to give my students here as much individualized attention as I can.

P.S. We had ham this morning for breakfast!!! I have never been so excited to see ham in my life :-)

First day in Korea

We arrived at Incheon airport at about 4:30 a.m. local time. We loaded the buses and headed to Kangwon University in Chuncheon. We had the morning to meet our roommate, move into the dorms, and unpack. We at lunch at the cafeteria. Lunch consisted of kimchi, a macaroni salad, curry and rice, and soup- a great introduction to Korean cuisine. This afternoon we had business meetings and a tour of the university- it is really big and they even have an ag. department! Dinner consisted of some cooked eggplant-like stuff, spicy soup with squid/octupus in it, kimchi, fried fish pieces (I think). I hope to find some American food later this week. We then walked around outside of the university a little bit- there is a Baskin Robbins and Dunkin' Donuts close by. I signed up to start taking Taekwondo for next Monday. We will have classes four days a week for an hour each. My roommate's name is Christine and she is pretty cool. Tomorrow we have our language placement test and workshops. Although I did sleep some on our 12 hour flight, I am now exhausted and will talk to you all soon. Much love.

Top 5

Tomorrow I am leaving for Korea. My flight leaves KCI at 6:45 p.m. I arrive in LAX at 8 p.m. Once there, I will meet up with other Fulbrighters to board our plane to Seoul at 12 a.m.! So, I have made a mental list of the things I will probably miss the most. This list is open to change once I'm actually in Korea.

5. No language barrier.
4. My own bed
3. The farm
2. Food, especially potatoes and steak
1. My family and friends

My phone number is 1-620-433-5031. You can call me (if I am on the computer I will answer, if not I have voicemail). Remeber, that I will be 13 hours ahead!

I love you all and the next time I blog I will be in Korea!!!