I actually have to WORK?

After nearly four months of cross-training, lesson writing, development, and many idle hours, I have spent the past five days actually doing the job I was hired to do. Yes, friends, I have finally gotten to teach. Real students, who do not speak English as a first language. Rambunctious boys and giggly girls, all obsessed with one goal: to get another STICKER!!!

A month or so ago, I switched a shift this week with another teacher, so that he could go on a long vacation with his wife, and in return he will work a day for me in January (allowing me to go on a vacation of my own!). I didn't know that this would be our first week with students. The timing was unfortunate, since now not only do I have students, but I get to work 11 days with only one day off in the middle. Exhausting? Indeed. Informative? VERY. And to my surprise, I find myself not quite as burned out as I thought I would be, although I am looking forward to my day off tomorrow with great anticipation.

The real work started on Saturday, with a weekend program. They arrived around 2 in the afternoon, had classes until 9 PM, and then started back up Sunday morning at 9, until finally finishing around 3:00. They were quite bright, which generally means they are a little extra energetic and hard to control. Thankfully, my weekend supervisor was kind enough to pair me with experienced teachers, so I could begin to see how classes are run. The classes were also mercifully small, 10 students per teacher, two classes in the same room. So between myself and one other teacher, we managed 20 kids. This sounds incredibly cushy compared to a normal schoolteaching environment, but this place is set up more like a summer camp then a classroom, so you often need an extra teacher just for crowd control, or to help keep the energy and enthusiasm high.

We met the students at the front gate, gave them their 'passports,' and showed them to their hotels (small dorm buildings at the back of campus). It was strangely nervewracking, I really didn't know how to behave or what to say. Looking back, I'm amused at myself for being so nervous! We started our program with an opening ceremony, went over the rules, then began classes. The weekend lessons are fun: we had a science lesson that talked about gravity and about different shapes, and then the students got to do an egg drop. Your egg didn't break? STICKERS! Then there was some game time, where we learned Deathball - also a little tricky to do on the fly, but we figured it out. Next, we did a cooking class where they got to make cupcakes, with FOUR classes in the same room. Utter madness, the cupcakes finished baking late, and we had to bring them to the students in their hotels. There was also a glitch about where they were supposed to be sleeping, and in the midst of rearranging, we thought we lost one girl. (Turns out she hadn't come to EV, and the hotel list was wrong, but *whew* scary.) I went back to my room and totally collapsed!

Sunday didn't go very smoothly, but I learned quickly that it's not the end of the world. I taught two sessions of advertising class, where students learn about brand names, products, slogans, and adjectives and then get to make their own commercial. Both times we ran out of time to finish making the commercials, partly because I didn't know how to use the software so the other teacher ran around like a maniac helping all the groups. We were going to try and finish after lunch, but time was a factor then, and the students didnt even seem to notice. We took them to the show that is currently playing this season, then went to outprocessing and closing ceremony and sent them on their way!

Despite the fact that nothing really went quite right or smoothly, I learned some useful tricks about how to elicit answers from students, figured out the process of getting them where they need to go (teachers, students, and classrooms shuffle after each class, so sending them to the right place AND having your new classroom ready to go takes some effort), got shamelessly flattered by students in pursuit of stickers, and generally got a lot more comfortable in the role of...whatever it is I'm supposed to be here.

Monday I didn't work until 1 PM, so I took an early morning grocery store trip with Meg and Eugene. Too early, in fact: the store didn't open for 45 minutes. They let us sit inside in the customer service area, and it was almost worth the wasted time to see the store's opening ceremony: all the greeters and employees line up at the main entrance, a bell chimes, and in unison they say something along the lines of 'welcome and happy shopping' while executing a perfectly synchronized bow.

Monday afternoon was hectic, indeed: all the lessons are brand new, so no one has any experience with them. This whole week has been like that, actually, but Monday kicked it all off. We have 350 girls from a middle school program, of widely varying ability levels. I was scheduled in content areas that I had never even trained in, since I was busy training the ones I had written, but I jumped in wherever I could. The first two classes were about sending messages, and gearing up the students to record their own statement ("Hello, my name is Min Jin Kim, and I am a cute girl who likes soccer. I would like to talk to you about school uniforms..." etc.) It was hard to tell if we had adequately prepared them, since the classes build upon each other, but the teachers change midway through. After two of those lessons, I had to run to drama, where I taught with the woman who had developed the drama lessons. THAT was awesome, the class ran smoothly and the students had a blast acting out dialogues with voice actors reading the lines, and silent actors doing the gestures. From there, I had to monitor dinner in the cafeteria and then run the helium stick game during Go-Go. (three rooms host three different games, and 3 groups of students rotate through to play each game.) Helium stick is fun: the object is to lower a stick to the ground, but each member of the team has to continually touch it with one finger. The combined force of each finger is greater than gravity, so the stick ends up rising instead of lowering, despite all the screaming of "LOWER LOWER LOWER!!!!" It was a challenge to run the game in a way that kept everyone interested, and we had to do a few trial runs to properly explain the rules, but eventually we hit a good stride. Games are a little lower pressure, but much higher energy, so by 9:00 I was thoroughly wiped out.

Tuesday I got to teach the lessons I had actually written, and I was very nervous; I was selected to write because I had no experience with the way EV has worked so far, and they wanted a fresh perspective...but I wasn't sure I had made them actually teachable for ESL students. I had good coteachers and a high level class, and for the most part things went all right, barring plenty of technical difficulties (whiteboard was too small, classroom was too small, nowhere to hang the charts I'd made, etc). The activities I had designed were fairly open ended, but I found ways to make them work, and added some impromptu material as needed. That night I was scheduled to MC a game called Quiz Buffet, which I've never seen, so I gratefully traded with Arienne, who wanted out of helium stick. (Second time was the charm - it went very well.)

Today! Since I covered Keith's shift, I worked the morning instead of evening shift. Again, I wasn't trained in any of the lessons, but we figured them out and made them work. We did a session on the library, and on using the words "lend' and "borrow," then a class on airport language, then a writing class about surveys...where we never even got around to writing the survey! Still had fun and got them talking a lot, though, which is what counts. I have 3 more classes this afternoon, one of which I am not even scheduled for, but I felt bad: I had 3 periods off, while my closest friend here was going to run a game by herself with two classes, so I offered to help out. Other classes include class 3 of the other lessons I wrote, but it's only baking cupcakes so it shouldn't be too involved...and then I take 2 classes to have dinner at one of the restaurants on campus and then to go shopping at EV Mart for candy and cheap toys. And then...I collapse! Thursday I am off, and Friday the students leave first thing, so we have a laid-back day of development and meetings for Christmas. (I still can't believe we don't get the holiday off. Unless we want to use a vacation day, that is. GAH.)

Overall, I feel so much more at ease around the kids, and while I still prefer not to lead the class, I am more than purely ornamental. If I had to lead, I feel like I could; I did, yesterday, and it went ok, although I still don't think my lessons are right for this environment. (That's a whole different issue that I won't get into, but we were told to develop in a style that doesn't really work here. How was I to know?) I've definitely had less training time than most people get, but I'm not totally thrown in the deep end either. I'm not freaked at the idea of this upcoming weekend program, or about next week. I definitely psyched myself out about how hard this was going to be. Once my body adapts to this new schedule, I'll do fine.