September 9, 2010: Today it required the alarm clock to wake me up! I guess teaching school full time is not what it used to be when I was younger in Korea when my day started at 6:30 a.m. in Dr. Oe's house for his English lesson and ended at 8:00 p.m. when I taught businessmen in Myung Dong regularly. At any rate, I still made it to school in plenty of time to begin classes at 7:45. Little did I know until Czilla met me in the hall later, that the first teacher to teach in the day is required to fill out the class record book and then pass it to the next teacher that the class had. No trivial task, this requires the teacher to make a note of who's absent and the time of arrival of any late student. (Czilla warned me that each student has an access badge to the front door of the school and scans his/her badge into the reader denoting what time he/she has arrived. Therefore, if there's a discrepancy between the badge reader and the record book, the administration has a way to find out!) Among other things noted on this record book is the topic that each teacher teaches for each class. Since I teach a third of a class at a time, this means I need to divide my column into thirds and be sure to denote my entry in the correct column. And there's more -- this all has to be done in blue ink! Yesterday when I entered my data into the record book, I noted that I was the only entry in black which got me to wondering ... good thing I asked Czilla about that today. (No wonder why the students asked me all day which color of pen they should use to correct each others' dictations.) So, administratively, JPL is a cinch to Hungarian schools. I can hardly wait to find out how to enter students' grades into the grade book when it comes time for that!
Other than that, my day went very well. I was extremely pleased with how hard the students have studied for my oral tests; they take the lessons very seriously. (Let's see how serious the boys of 9E are when I test them tomorrow!) One slight concern, though. After class with one of my intermediate English classes, one of the boys stayed behind to tell me about an interesting youtube clip about a video game that students at Berkeley are creating in a computer science class. He then proceeded to tell me about the video game and how popular it is in Korea, and about a very funny video showing a teenage Korean boy who was obsessed with the game. His ability in speaking English got me to thinking that I'm really not aiming the level of my English lessons to his class's abilities. I'm really going to have to think hard on how to challenge the intermediate classes in the future.
Meanwhile I'm getting to know the other English teachers in my office. Maria is a real riot. She told me yesterday that her idea of an ideal school is one without students so that she won't have so much administrative work to do. When Kati entered the office, the wind slammed the door closed, and Maria, whose desk is just inside he room exclaimed "Gee, Kati, shall we all stand at attention as you enter the room?" She really has a very cosmopolitan style about her and she's great fun to talk with. Also, when Gabor complimented me on the shirt I was wearing today (just a yellow Oxford cloth shirt with button down collar), I thanked him and commented that I had only one more clean shirt to wear because I still don't have an apartment to wash them in, and he replied immediately, "Why don't you bring your shirts in tomorrow and I can wash them in my washing machine for you?" Of course I was touched by his generosity, but replied that I hope to be moving into an apartment this weekend (how I wish!) and would be able to wash them this weekend. Maybe I should reconsider his invitation.
Tomorrow promises to be the most challenging day of the week. I start teaching at 7:45 (and won't forget about the record book for sure) and continue teaching for six lessons straight. I should be thoroughly exhausted and ready for my weekend by then.
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