...and on Monday- it starts!

We work at a school called KDLP (Korean Dual Language Program). It's located in a high-rise building (you would have never guessed there was a school there) on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors. The 8th floor is where the elementary school is- your regular 1st to 5th grade elementary school. The 9th floor is where the kindergarten is. The 10th floor is more classrooms.

Since we've been here, we've been observing/'teaching' the other foreign teachers' (who we're replacing) classes. Their school year here ended this last Wednesday, and this Monday starts a new school year.

The other day, we got our class assignments. For the foreign teachers, we teach both in the kindergarten and elementary (kindergarten in the morning & elementary in the afternoon). For kindergarten, I'll be teaching the "Cherries" which are the 3-4 years old (in Korea, you add a year or two to their age for their "Korean age"- so here they're considered '5 years'- but for this blog's sake- I'll stick to the "normal" age). I also teach this program called Meysen in which I have all the other classes for half an hour and basically sing songs and read poems (I'm the only one doing it-- the other foreign teachers have other programs they do). The other classes consist of Kiwis (the level up from Cherries), Oranges (a bit older students who have never had formal English instruction) and Apples (the last level in kindergarten before they get promoted into elementary-- and the class Jason will be teaching).

I've never dealt with this young of an age group before in a classroom setting, but I'm actually feeling good about it. I think it's going to be fun, but a challenge. It's these kids' first time at a school, let alone their first time being exposed to English. I kind of feel like there's a lot of pressure on me with this class- especially from their parents- but I'm staying positive about everything and everything will be fine. We'll see....

Then for elementary, I have 2 2nd grade classes, a 3rd grade class and a 4th grade class.

I got to decorate (somewhat) my class rooms and I've been looking at lesson plans (and I've been a little stressed out with everything and now I have a cold- boo!). But all-in-all, it's going to be fun. The school is good to us, the people we work with are very helpful and are also good to us (and the former foreign teachers said this is true and that they had a great year- which was really reassuring to us).

This is the calm before the storm... bring on Monday!!