End of Orientation

Saturday and Sunday were both back to regularly scheduled programming. The lectures the last two days weren’t as good as the ones on the first two days, in my opinion. We had: secondary school education, English comprehension, after school and English camps, co-teaching, EPIK life and etiquette, Lesson Planning 2, Lesson preparation 1, and how to learn Korean language and culture.

In the class about teaching secondary education, I was hoping for more specific details about teaching middle school and high school, like what we got in teaching elementary, but it was more about the school system as a whole. There were also a few lectures that were very dry, like the How to Learn Korean lecture, because it basically just reiterated cultural points that we talked about in other lectures. One really good class was about co-teaching. A current GET (Guest English Teacher) and his real life Korean co-teacher came in to speak to us about how to effectively teach together. First, they lectured us and gave us tips, and then they modeled a shortened version of a class for us. The Korean teacher’s English name was Apple. She was SUPER cute--very shy when we clapped for her, touching her face a lot to hide it. It was really great to see how effective a co-teaching relationship can be.

Gianni and I have been snacking from the convenience store at the bottom of the dorm building a lot the past few days. We’ve gotten several kinds of ice cream and popsicles as well as some chocopies, which are my new favorite snack! One night, Gianni bought what he thought looked like cheesie poofs. He got them because of the monkey on the bag, and he didn’t think to read the words in Korean on the bag; he figured he wouldn’t know the word. I read the words to see why there was a monkey on the bag, and it turns out that it said “ba-na-na.” So Gianni bought banana flavored things in that are the same texture and shape as cheesy poofs. They weren’t entirely awful, but they were a very fake banana flavor.

I’ve been learning a lot of good phrases in Korean class. We went over greetings in the first class, shopping words in the second (because our field trip was the next day, and Ellie thought we could use the vocab on our trip), and numbers on the last day. I’m getting pretty good at reading I’m proud to say. Now I just have to memorize and expand my vocabulary. On the last night, the head EPIK orientation leader came down to say hello, and she brought us all donuts! They have Dunkin Donuts here by the way. Apparently America and South Korea runs on Dunkin!

We had two special periods during the day on Sunday where we didn’t get a lecture. Instead, we got into our groups to prepare a demonstration lesson. I had a girl named Anahita, who is also from Boston, and a guy named Alex in my group. We were assigned to plan a 45 minute lesson for 7^th graders on giving and asking for directions. So we spent two periods on Friday planning our lesson, and instead of having Korean on Sunday night, we were given more preparation time. We had finished our lesson plan and powerpoint during the day, but we spent a few hours at night going over it and practicing who was going to say what and how they would explain directions.

Today, everyone got dressed up to present their demo lessons for their classes. We had to condense our 45 minute lessons into a 15 minute demonstration. I think my group did pretty well. We got a lot of feedback about speaking slower, and the teacher watching us gave a few suggestions about how we could have changed the activities a bit. But overall, I think we did a really good job and had some good games. I had never seen Gianni in front of a classroom doing a presentation before. I was a little nervous for him being that he tends to be shy and not talk a lot, but he impressed me immensely! When he teaches he talks a lot and takes control. It was great to see him in a different light. You would think after 5 years, I'd seen it all, but he surprised me again. There were some really outstanding groups that demonstrated today as well. Really fun to watch what other people can do.

After all the groups demonstrated their lessons, we got to meet the representatives from the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education. They gave us all packets of helpful information as well as our final contracts to sign. Gianni and I found out that we have both been placed in middle schools in the same area of Daegu! YAY!! We are hoping that means the apartments aren’t far from one another either. Our placement seems to be working out really well for us, and I couldn’t be more excited. We’ve made some really great friends here, and it turns out that a few of them have placement really close to us. Sian (pronounced Sean), a girl from South Africa, and another couple, Maria and Matthew, are all going to Daegu, just a slightly different area.

After finding out our placement, we went to the closing ceremony and dinner. The buffet was HUGE!!!!! We wanted to try everything, but we didn’t realize how long the buffet was, so we ended up piling our dishes embarrassingly high. The food was excellent though! After eating, we got to watch a few performances. One of the orientation leaders did a traditional fan dance and the Kpop class performed a song and dance for us. The last thing was that we got our orientation completion certificates and our medical check results. We are all set to officially work in Korea!!!

Tonight, we had to bring down all of our big bags so as to avoid clogging the elevator tomorrow morning. We then load our bags onto a truck at 7AM tomorrow morning, and we leave for Daegu tomorrow at 9AM. It’s about a 3 hour bus ride to get there, and our co-teachers will meet us at the office of education to take us to our new apartments and our schools. We have to dress up tomorrow too in order to make a good impression on our co-teachers and because we might be meeting our principals, which is a big deal. I’m really excited and nervous to see how things will be, especially because tomorrow Gianni and I will probably have to split up for the first time. :/

After bringing our things down in two separate elevators, we joined our friends to go for a drink and our first experience with noraebang (singing room, or karaoke). First, we went to a bar and tried Soju, Korean rice wine that tastes like vodka or rubbing alcohol or medicine—all those words fit it in my opinion. But, Sian turned us on to getting flavored soju. We got pitchers for only $8 each of strawberry and peach soju, which was really good! We played a fun drinking game, and then headed out to noraebang. In Korea, you don’t have to embarrass yourself by singing in front of strangers. Instead, you and your friends rent a room for an hour. You get your own screen, and you all sing in a room by yourselves. We sang some excellent songs and everyone got really into it. The funniest thing is that the videos that play while you sing have NOTHING to do with the songs at all. Either they are national geographic-esque videos of animals and nature or they are another video by the same artist whose song you are singing. It’s really bizarre.

We had an excellent night out, and I can’t wait for tomorrow! Finally going to Daegu!!!