So my contract end bonus has been processed.  I should be receiving it within one to two weeks.  YES!!! NEW COMPUTER!!!

I’m actually not counting on my dad to get me one, but I actually hope he comes thru this time.  If he gets me a decent netbook, then all I’ll have to buy is an external hard drive.  Saves me money and I can plan a serious ( Read more... )

I’m generally a laid back guy when it comes to students here.  I’ve only recently gotten strict in class about punishments and paying attention.  As documented on my facebook, I tend to find rather creative punishments for students to piss me off.

However, my students know I’m a nice guy and I would rather be nice to them then get mad at them.   ( Read more... )

Sparkling Korea hasn’t done this in a while to me, so I guess I was overdue for another headache moment.

For the next three weeks, I’ll be giving individual reading tests to students.  I sit in a room and they come in one at a time.  Each student will pick from a series of pre-prepared cards and read them to me.  I will record and grade each ( Read more... )

As I'm sure I've stated before, I don't teach at a school known for it's high standards for it's students.  They aren't bad kids, but they aren't the most overly motivated either.  This alone makes my job difficult.  But combine that with the fact that the teachers (and be extention the school) don't know what to do with me and I end up with some ( Read more... )

This week has been very laid back at least in terms of teaching. Because the students will have mid-terms soon, the second year students have to play catch up. This means that my classes for them have been canceled this week. That effectively cuts 1/3 of my classes for the week, so I haven’t tried to actually use the books to teach from.

For the ( Read more... )

(Originally written 4/06/08, this entry was revised at a later date to be posted)

This past weekend I skipped my usual trip to the gym with the rest of fight club group and met my old co-teacher Mrs. Jeong (aka Korean Mom). She has a weekly meeting with a group of her friends and they practice English and she invited me to come along. I figured I ( Read more... )

And so the time has come; the question of contract renewals has come up. Signing back on means another year in Korea. Another year away from friends, family and the comfort of Atlanta. No Game nights with the crew, no AWA, no UFC nights with the guys and no football. Also, no time with someone special back home I miss, no goofing with my ( Read more... )

So I figured out the oddball issue with uniforms here.

It's not secert that Korea (and many Asian countries) have uniforms for schools. It's just one of those trademark things here.


( Read more... )

This is how I know I'm taking the idea of teaching more seriously ( Read more... )

I feel sorriest for my Monday students. All last semester I would walk in on Monday with a set of lesson plans and at least one of them would fail miserably. The epic looks of confusion on student's faces would be all the evidence I need that whatever I was teacher or working on would need some serious revision. I each time this happened I would ( Read more... )