Giving an Interview

The kids were OK. Tomas was too talkative, then at 4 PM I kept the whole class after the bell. Part of the problem was that I was interrupted half-way through class by Joelle, who wanted me to give an interview to a Korean teacher they were thinking of hiring. No notice, no chance for me to prepare anything, just go and leave Joelle in charge of my class. When I came back, she wasn't there, but had told them to memorize the story. Some of them were sort-of doing it, but the class was pretty chaotic, and took a few minutes to completely settle down again.

The interview was fine. I was only slightly nervous, while the girl was VERY nervous. She kept giggling, and on several occasions spoke to me in Korean. Excuse me, I'm a foreigner! I understood what she said, but was surprised at her not being able to say those simple phrases in English! When I asked her, "Have you worked at an academy before?" She didn't know the word "academy," so I had to tell her the Korean word for it. Later, curious as to how she had worked 5 months teaching English before, I asked if there were any foreigners at her former job. She didn't know the word "foreigner," either. Her favorite part of teaching was phonics, and her least favorite part was grammar. Her pronunciation was good, but her speaking and listening weren't. She responded to my questions with the shortest answer possible, and at the end didn't have any questions for me. Unless she was teaching only very young kids, she wouldn't be good at our school. The current teachers who aren't good at speaking/listening are very good at grammar, so it sort of balances out. I felt bad doing it, but I told Joelle that I didn't think she would work at our school. Joelle didn't seem at all surprised by that, so perhaps was already thinking that, but wanted me to speak with the girl, too, to confirm her initial opinion.

I love the 5 PM class!! We talked a little bit about their tests and how they did (today was day 3 of 4 testing days). They asked me if I was a good student, and I said yes. They wanted to know what my "dream" was when I was in school, and I told them a few of the things that I've dreamed of doing during various times in my life. They were impressed by some of the things, and told me, "You have high dreams!" I hope that I'm showing them that it's good to dream big, and that they can have high dreams, too.

At 6 PM Billy and John were talking about the girls again, referring to them as the "Hulk family." Apparently the girls continue to beat up the boys, which is pretty pitiful on the boys' part. The boys with their big mouths probably deserve it! Then to finish off the day with the 7 PM class I was really strict with them to start, so the rest of the class was fine. Jake finished his taekwondo thing, so is able to stay for the whole class again, which is a lot better for him.

Last night I stayed up until way after 3 AM trying to figure out how to put a counter on my site. Not one of the ones that records how many people visit; I already have one of those. But one that updates itself everyday to keep track of how many days the MIC ban has been in place. It took about 3 hours to find one like I wanted and work all the bugs out, but I learned a good bit about HTML in the process! I also saw that when you're close to giving up, you often make a break-through, so don't give up, keep trying!