Almost three weeks in to my job as an English teacher and I have become aware that I have not talked much (or at all) about the kids. Being that I’m not really into children this was an interesting choice of job. Made even more interesting when I discovered I was teaching Kindergarten!!
My experience with young kids is non-existent unless you count the occasional lunch with Laura and Jak (my 20 month old godson). But even then as soon as things got tough Laura was always on hand to take charge of the situation! I certainly never dealt with any of the gross stuff produced by young children!
So imagine my horror when I arrived to discover I would be teaching children as young as four! I am still yet to decide if, with the really young kids, the language barrier is a good or a bad thing. On one hand it makes it very difficult to give them instructions, but on the other it gives me a great excuse to watch them colouring and plan my lessons rather then engage them in stimulating conversation about their colouring. When they try and talk to me (always in Korean) I spend a lot of time looking confused and shrugging my shoulders!!!
I have three classes of kindergarten, the four and five year olds, six year olds and seven year olds. The two slightly older classes are a bit easier as they are able to understand basic instructions – all be it with a lot of miming, pointing at pages in a book and demonstrating what I want them to do!!
The really little ones however are quite a challenge. They have the concentration span of a nat and no ability what so ever to comprehend my instructions, luckily there are only four of them in the class! For these lessons I have developed a unique teaching style. We usually spend the first 15-20 minutes of a 40 minute lesson doing the work they are supposed to be doing – either memorising a story book or phonics classes. Then if they’ve been good and listened rather than wondering around the room, making noises, putting their book on their head, or trying to blow snot out of their noses (without the aid of a tissue) they get a small chocolate and do some colouring for the rest of the lesson!! This means I can sit and plan my afternoon lessons whilst they colour, chat and sing in a language I don’t understand!
I was beginning to quite like this class until the snot-blowing incident. It reminded me why I could never have children. They were sat colouring and I was engrossed in my lesson planning, admittedly not paying enough attention to what there were up to. Suddenly they began laughing. I looked up to find one of them had blown more snot out his nose than I have ever seen. I knew it was my job to wipe it up but just looking at it made my stomach turn. How was I supposed to actually go near it. Luckily (or maybe unluckily) just as the realisation dawned that I couldn’t just sit and stare the school director opened the classroom door, said something in Korean and called the Korean teacher to wipe it off his face, mouth and chin. I had lucky escape there. Until the next lesson when he decided to do it again. This time I looked around and realised I was completely alone. But regardless there was no way I was going anywhere near that volume of child snot – yuck! I spotted a toilet roll ripped off a piece and give it to him. He cleaned up the majority of it himself leaving me just to wipe up the residue – not too bad, but something I would rather not have to do! A firm NO and a dirty look (before letting him clean it up) made sure he knew he wasn’t to do it again. Not in my presence anyway!
The other two kindergarten classes are a lot less eventful – most of the time it is just a battle to keep them vaguely interested in their story book or phonics class. But more about them at a later date.
j150vsc – Thu, 2006 – 09 – 21 05:27
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