Steph Lloyd » Teaching

The Opposite House

Steph — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:51:59 +0000

A former student of mine, Sun Woo, sent me this picture of herself in front of the “opposite house”. Haha! I’d say ‘only in Asia will you find an upside down house’ but I’m pretty sure it’s been done elsewhere. Maybe not as cutely though.

Sun Woo would NEVER stop talking. I swear. She really didn’t like studying English, she just wanted to talk with me. I wasn’t opposed to it, since speaking English was what they all needed to be doing the most, but there were 13 other kids that needed attention too. What’s funny is that she’s the only one that has kept in touch from that class. I really miss those kids. Mostly their hugs and laughs. And random cutesy eraser from their pencil case. And the random cutesy candy from their pocket. That I always ate because I’m cool like that!

June Nice!!

Steph — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:03:53 +0000

There are several phrases that Matt and I use that we picked up from some of our students in Korea. One of them is “June nice!”

One of my students was having a hard time remembering his birthday in English. Repetition is key, so we went over their birthdays everyday, and sometimes I’d do a little pop when-is-your-birthday quiz. It was a lot of fun. This particular student was quiet, observant and shy. He was extremely smart but wasn’t as gifted in languages as his classmates. (Yes, languages plural. Walking geniuses, I tell you.)

So one day we were going over some things and I guess I kept using the word ‘nice’. The kids picked up on it and started using it too. When I dropped the ‘when is your birthday’ question, little Jude’s eyes lit up and he yelled, way before his turn, JUNE NICE!! See, he had a hard time remembering ‘ninth’ and couldn’t pronounce the ‘th’ very well anyway. I saw his face the moment it clicked. It was so cute! I was so proud of him. I tried over the next couple of weeks to work on his pronunciation of ninth… but whether he didn’t care, or didn’t hear the difference, he continued to use ‘June nice’. And every time he had a giant grin on his face. It was beautiful.

Matt and I don’t use ‘June nice’ the way he did, we just attach ‘June’ to ‘nice’ whenever we use it. In order to use it right, you have to be really excited… and have a big grin on your face. Not a fake one, a real one. Two examples:

Matt: Steph, look at this picture I just finished…
Steph: June nice!

Steph: Does this outfit look cute?
Matt: Yes, it’s June nice!

Steph: What, the shorts I wanted at the beginning of the season are now half price?!? I’ll take two. June nice!!

Also of note, shortly after the ‘June nice’ event, my student decided to use an English name in class. I think he was holding out because he didn’t enjoy studying English for the longest time. Once he had that breakthrough, a lot of things started to click for him. I gave him a short list of names that I liked and he chose Jude, my favorite. I sure do miss those kids!

Blue Skies & Bright White Clouds

Steph — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 00:04:25 +0000

I was in the middle of one of my 6th grade classes yesterday when one of the girls looked out pointed out the window, “Look, teacher!!”

I strained to see what I figured to be an airplane in the sky, but didn’t see anything. Two other girls turned around and started oohing and aahing. At this point, I figured I had better get up and go see what they were looking at. I walked around the desks and looked outside. I couldn’t see anything but blue skies and bright white clouds. Oh, wait, beautiful blue skies and big, white, cumulus clouds; there was no smog and it wasn’t overcast. Definitely a rare occasion here. It was beautiful!

One of the students asked me if that’s what the skies look like in Canada. After I reminded them that I was from America, I confirmed that, for the most part, that’s what our skies look like in North America. One of the girls asked if she could take pictures with her camera phone. I told them they could, so all eight of them popped out their phones and started taking pictures. One of the girls was in complete awe of the sky. I love the sky myself, so I was glad that she got that opportunity to enjoy a beautiful one. I felt really bad, too, that it doesn’t happen more often for them. We ended up looking at the sky and taking pictures for the last 15 minutes of class.

I’m thinking it was clear because of all the rain we’ve had over the past several days. Today is not too bad either. There is gray on the horizon, and some of the clouds are gray, so it isn’t particularly beautiful, but you can still see some beautiful shades of blue high in the sky. Just another thing that I used to take for granted.

I is mad, then I is not.

Steph — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 01:57:49 +0000

I waited in line for 15 minutes to get a Coke from McDonald’s today. What’s more ridiculous? The fact that they were running around in circles, unable to assist customers, or me, standing there for fifteen minutes? It sucks that there is only one place with fountain drinks in our area! Gosh, the worst part was when I ordered my Coke, the lady kinda laughed that that was all I wanted. Yeah. Hilarious. Burn.

Matt and I ran out of there to catch a cab to work, but it happened to be the third time I’ve ever seen the the taxi line without taxis, so we power walked to work. It was fun. I’m guessing it was about 90 degrees… so we were pretty hot. I ran up to work, tossed my bags on my desk and hurried to my classroom. I opened the door, expecting kids to be fighting and crying, and saw 20 little eyes look up at me and smile. “HI TEACHER!”

Oh, man, they are awesome kids! The girls were chatting at the table and the boys were playing a very mild game of dodgeball. Once again, they made my day. I love those kiddos!

Freaking Mosquitoes

Steph — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 05:11:59 +0000

I’m not sure what it is about the mosquitoes here but they are bad news. Whenever I get bit, the area around the bite swells up at least triple the size of a normal bite, and that’s without scratching. They drive me crazy because they not only itch like crazy, they also burn a little bit. These suckers are horrible because if anything even brushes against them, they’ll itch and burn the rest of the day. It’s to the point now that if I even think I hear a mosquito, I jump up from where ever I am and start hunting. Matt doesn’t appreciate it when he’s awakened by the lamp at three in the morning, but, dude, I can’t handle being eaten up by them! The mosquitoes are also highly intelligent. Whenever I turn the lights on, they immediately hide. I swear it. I have spent up to an hour looking for one of them. No, I don’t have a problem. Yes, it’s that bad.

In class today, my students and I compared mosquito bites. Apparently I’m not the only one who swells up. Not everyone does, Matt doesn’t, but at least half of my class had these humongous bites. I felt so bad for them! One girl was nearly in tears because she had them all over her legs, ankles, arms, neck and face. I’m not sure why she got bit up so bad, she couldn’t really explain it in English, but it was traumatic for her. I’ve seen bug repellent here but I’m not sure how many people actually use it. One of my boys was bit on the eyelid while he was sleeping last night. The cutie pie has the cutest little eyes anyway, but with the bite, his eye was swollen shut. Haha! I tried not to laugh but he was just too cute!

I Heart Them To Pieces!

Steph — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 04:43:15 +0000

Today went really well for a Friday. There was a lot going on but I just kept putt-putting through my day like the little engine that could.

I brought my camera and got some pictures of the students… and I had Matt tape my kids and I singing our favorite “Clock” song. I get that song stuck in my head for hours at a time. It’s a good thing though, I love that class. I think that I will miss those kiddos more than anyone in Korea! I’m already sad about leaving them!

Whenever I’m sad, I’m going to watch this video!

yawn

Steph — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:31:11 +0000

I was in a weird mood yesterday, and I’m in another weird one today.

Yesterday it was raining like crazy. It was hot outside but it was freezing inside from all of the air cons running full freakin’ blast, it kinda felt like it was fall. I was walking back and forth from class wishing for things like hot apple cider, hotdish, a roaring fire in a fireplace, and a walk around the block in a warm jacket. I have never in my life wished for anything but summer. I love Christmas, so I get pretty excited around that time of year, but I’ve never just wished for fall just to enjoy it. It was weird, but slightly exciting too, because I’d like to be able to enjoy each season equally.

I haven’t been wishing for fall today, I’ve just want to go to bed! Ha. I went to bed early last night, before midnight, and didn’t wake up until 9 a.m., but I’m still exhausted. My first four classes this afternoon were crazy. The kids are great but they have so much energy! It was hard to keep up with them today, and my voice is on the verge of leaving me. Oh well, I’ll just pop a cough drop and try to talk less tonight.

One of my favorite students just switched back into my class. He’s so cute! The class he’s now in is a bit rowdy, but they all have great English, so we talk and talk and talk. It’s definitely the highlight of my Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I went back to taekwondo last night. I wasn’t sore this morning, so I guess I’m good to go. I did take it easy during the whole class and actually sat out the last group of somersaults, cartwheels and flips. All that crunching and twisting would have been too much for my rib. I counted 22 more practices before we go home… such a short amount of time to transform myself into a hoss!

Baby Got Back!

Steph — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:24:44 +0000

Let me preface this story by saying that last month we studied ‘body parts’ in one of my kiddy classes. Our material had completely left out the booty, and, naturally, the kids asked me what it was in English. I taught them to use the word “bottom”. We always review by me telling them to touch some part of their body. They always like it and one day I had them tell me what to touch. One of the clever boys said, “Teacher, touch your bottom!” He was so proud of himself and all the kids started laughing hysterically. I was just happy that they have all been doing so well! Haha.

So last week we were learning some new vocabulary. We have these cards with cute drawings that explain things like ‘big, bigger, biggest’, ‘short, shorter, shortest’, ‘front, next, last’, ‘top, middle, bottom’, etc. We spent a long time on each card, making sure they understood and could say them correctly.

While we were on the “top, middle, bottom” card, my youngest student yelled out, “Me little bottom!” She, too, was proud of herself and started laughing like crazy. The other kids weren’t sure what to say, because she’s never really made a correlation like that before. A few seconds another boy, who happens to be the same one that told me to touch my bottom, shouts out, “Teacher BIIIIIIIIIIIG bottom!” All of the kids busted out laughing at this and started showing me just how big they thought mine was. It was really funny. I played along with them for awhile, but once my bottom was the same size as the room, I had to make them stop. Hehe.

And I always thought they were looking at the whiteboard when I was writing! Geez, at what age do kids start noticing stuff like that?

BIRUS, BIRUS, BIRUS!

Steph — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 05:42:23 +0000

My coworker told me about a mini-conversation she had with one of her students today:

I’m sick, teacher.
What’s wrong?
My head has a virus.

Haha. Is that funny? I find it hysterical. Maybe it’s because they misuse the word virus, maybe because it’s funny to imagine only your head having a virus, I’m not sure.

Yesterday, in one of my kiddy classes, we were memorizing types of animals. When we came to the card with a pigeon on it, one of my students started yelling, “virus, virus, pigeons have virus!” (pronouncing the ‘v’ as a ‘b’ because we having quite mastered that sound yet!). I replied, “Yes, pigeons are dirty birds” and then the rest of the kids started chanting VIRUS, VIRUS!

Those are times when all I can do is smile!

Step, Turn, Hop, Hop, Jump, Kick – Yaaaaaa!

Steph — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 04:19:47 +0000

After sitting out for over a month, I went back to taekwondo tonight. It went better than I expected it to! I got a bit winded during the beginning warm-ups but I attribute that not working out for a month. We did our poomsaes and then worked on kicks. They’ve worked on this new spin kick a few times recently, but tonight was my first time doing it. Well, what I did wouldn’t really be considering doing it, but I tried! Hehe. If I can get the hang of it, I’ll use it to impress you all when I get back.

The middle schoolers have final exams coming up in the beginning of July so they are starting to study like crazy again. All of our middle school classes are cancelled until the end of the month. That means a couple of hours less teaching per week. They are adding a class or two to each of our schedules that is a kind of overflow class… because there aren’t enough Korean teachers to teach them all. We basically study their school textbooks during that time. Normally I just let them study what they need to be studying and then help if they need it. They are fairly disciplined when it comes to the couple of weeks before a test.

So, the next couple of weeks will be a little bit easier at work. Then, after the kids are done preparing, our schedules will go back to normal. We’ll work for three days and then our friend Josh will get here. We’ll spend a week with him (minus one day at school). After Josh leaves, we’ll work the normal schedule for another week and then we get switched to our ‘summer vacation’ schedules. We don’t have them yet, but we should be teaching a little bit earlier in the day and getting off earlier. That’ll last for one month. After that month, we’ll have a week back on a normal schedule and then we come home! I have a feeling the next two and a half months are going to fly by.

As far as the job search back home goes, I’ve turned in all my stuff to one potential job. My friend Nicole referred me, so it looks promising. I’m a little bit concerned about everything lining up time-wise, I think they want someone earlier than we’re planning on coming home. If it comes down to it, I will try to fudge with my contract here to make it back. If it doesn’t work out, I’m sure there’ll be something else, I’m not stressing about it. Gotta say, sleeping for a week straight would be amazing!