Happy Halloween Seoul!

This was my first week teaching World History at SGHS. I was excited to get in there and teach the subject I really want to teach. I had some challenges. First, I think some of the students are way smarter than I am and so they ask super hard questions. I know that I am bound to have students challenge me and ask me questions, but its scary when I don't have an answer since I'm supposed to know. I taught 2 sections of World History on International track students twice this week and 1 section of domestic track students once this week. I was luck that I was able to teach my homeroom class in the domestic section. I had a great time interacting with them in the classroom. I enjoyed the international track students too. I still have to practice learning to tell a better story when I teach and not rely on reading off of the PowerPoint slides. I definitely need to improve this. Maybe I will try writing longer notes and just reading those, but I hate it when teachers just stand in the front of the class and read from a paper. So I think I just need more practice leading a class and hopefully I will improve.

This Saturday I went with my homeroom class to the Kim Koo Museum and Library. Kim Koo was the leader of the Independence movement that helped remove Japan from Korea. The students took a tour of the museum, luckily I had an English pamphlet so I could follow along. The museum was very well done and the students seemed to be very engaged. Before we headed into the museum we spent some time talking outside. I can be difficult to communicate well with the students but they are very interested in me and I am in them. After the museum tour we went to lunch in a traditional style Korean restaurant, where we sat on the floor. The food was delicious!

My Homeroom teacher and myself

Yummy lunch!

The highlight of this week would have to be giving the students some themed bags for Halloween. They loved the gifts!  I put a Halloween pencil, some candy, and Halloween stickers in the bags and they were so happy! Koreans don't celebrate Halloween the way we do in America but they know what the holiday is so they were excited. Their enthusiasm was very contagious and I left work that afternoon with a huge smile on my face.

Trials and Triumphs of Teaching

My lesson on the Laurie Santos’s article “A Monkey Economy as Irrational as Ours” did not go as well as I had hoped. The computer in the room was broken and it took about 15 minutes to get it working somewhat. I did the introduction for the article and the experiment, which the students participated in well. The results were very different that the author and I would have anticipated. Some of the students left class in the middle of the lesson so I did not have enough people to read the 6 sections in pairs. The cooperating teacher in the room offered to represent the last section of the reading. The students did do a good job of summarizing their reading and creating an overview of the most important points. They seemed comfortable talking in front of the class and did a good job reviewing their section of the reading. The Inside/Outside circle part of the class did not go very well, more students left the class. The ones who were left were not at all familiar with the concept and not very comfortable with it at all. They tried to answer the questions with their partners and did a good job of rotating when it was time to switch, but I could tell their enthusiasm for it was very low.  Book club is a required after school activity for which the students receive no grade. I think this leaves them with little desire to work in the class. I was also not able to use the video because the computer sound did not work. I think my frustrations over the computer and the students leaving the class clouded my feelings about the lesson. In the future I would try to use inside/outside circle again with more clear instructions maybe even with a video to model the activity. I think the reading in pairs and working to create a summary of a complex text like “A Monkey Economy as Irrational as Ours” was a good way to break it down for English language learners. I would use that technique again in future lessons. 

Reading "Monkey Economy"

Presenting sections of article



Student Work



Trying to do Inside/Outside Circle

This week I also taught two lessons about Halloween both went very well. I created a Who Wants to be a Millionaire? PowerPoint game for the English Conversation class and did a Halloween write-around story. The students really participated well and liked guessing the answers in the game. I had to make some rules for the second time I did the write-around because some of the students used their classmates’ names or swear words.
I also did a Halloween themed lesson for the second Book Club lesson I taught. I printed out some scary stories and ghost stories that we read aloud, the students took turns reading paragraphs. I then did the Who am I game? I taped the names of characters from the story and some other Halloween themed things onto the student’s backs and they had to talk with each other to figure out who they were. We also did a Halloween Mad Libs. The students did a great job in all of these activities. I think using three different techniques in the same period really helped to keep their attention focused without getting bored. 

English Story: Modeling Write Around

English Story: Writing Around Story



English Class: Who Wants to be a Millionaire?



English Class: Student Story



English Class: Reading Write Around Stories

Book Club: Mad Libs Game

This week I also observed my co-teacher lead a lesson in which the class was broken into groups and made presentations for foreigners about Korean culture. The class was observed by many other teachers from outside the school as well as the principle and Seoul Global High School teachers. The students did a great job in their presentations They were broke into groups that presented the Korean life cycle, and showed how Koreans mark different times in a person’s life, like their birth, marriage, 60^th birthday, and death. I learned a lot about Korea just from those presentations.

In counseling this week we talked more about the pressure that is placed on students to get into the SKY schools (Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University). They told me that less than 1% of students in Korea get into these schools each year, yet all students aspire to attend them. There is so much stress related to their GPAs. I asked the students what they wanted to do for their careers, two of the girls wanted to be lawyers, one wanted to be a news reporter, one wanted to be a CEO of a business, and one wanted to go into global relations. I am always very surprised by the immense amount of stress the students are under.

Saturday School

In Korea students attend school every other Saturday, the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturdays of the month to be exact. This seems like cruel and unusual punishment in my opinion. We woke up bright and early to head to school and while we were waiting for the bus my homeroom teacher drove up and gave us a ride to school, which was great. Not only did our free ride safe us money but we also arrived early. We headed to homeroom class and as usual in homeroom I watched the students study or sleep until first period. It turns out the students actually also do those same things during first period on Saturday also, I was glad that Crystal had a talkative student in her class who kept us occupied for most of 1st period. So during 2nd and 3rd period we thought we were going to be participating in Indie Film and Music club with one of the Korean English teachers. Great I thought! It turns out this Saturday the International Track students were taking the PSAT so all of the students had to leave campus and do activities outside of school. Because of the PSAT a lot of students were busy with that and the club size shrank so we were paired up with Drama club, another non-threatening club. Well in response to the required abandonment of school both the teacher decided we should simply hike up the local mountain for 2 hours. Wow! This came out of nowhere. I was glad that in the morning I had decided to go ahead and risk wearing jeans and sneakers (as I had seen numerous other teachers wearing on different occasions). So up the mountain we climbed. 

Taking a rest break

Wall that surrounds "Old Seoul"

SGHS is down there somewhere

Hazy Seoul

Earlier in the week I taught a book club after school class and and English Class. Book Club had the potential to go very well but I ended up with only two students because students were getting mandatory immunizations. English went better than last time also, I had an extra game planned so in case I had extra time (which I had) I could keep the students engaged. In Book Club I the students read sections of an article then we discussed them as a group. The students were great even though there were only two of them. In English Conversation class I asked the students to guess their learning styles then gave them the test and we discussed the results. English was first period so the students were not very awake at that point but they engaged in conversation with me about it and seemed interested in the results.  At the end of the class we played the Who is this? game. I asked students to write 3 things about themselves on a note card then we mixed them all up and students read them aloud and guessed who each other were based on the three facts written on the card. 

Book Club

Book Club

Who is this?

This week I had my first "counseling" meeting with 4 of my students from homeroom.  I met with 3 girls to talk about their lives at SGHS, they shared their college goals with me and what they wanted to study and do for their careers. The students wanted to be a broadcaster, a teacher, a politician, and one wanted to study either English or psychology. They are not allowed to date at school and CCTV watches all of their movements. They could be expelled if they were found to be dating. They were all very ambitious and bright young women who will do very well in their lives.

The only real student and classroom management issues I've observed continue to be sleeping in class and occasionally watching TV on their IPod. Apparently, students were told that high school students who sleep for 5 hours a night don't get into college while those who sleep only 4 hours a night do get into college. There is a tremendous amount of pressure placed on these students to excel in academics they stay up all night studying for exams.

Teaching My First Class @ SGHS

This week was the first week that students were back in class after the midterms. I was able to observe some classes and had the opportunity to teach English twice. I decided to use the first English lesson as an opportunity to introduce myself to the students and find out more about their lives in Korea.

I used the PowerPoint presentation we prepared before we came to Korea as the beginning of my lesson. I then developed some questions and asked the students as a class to answer them. I asked about their family size, where they are from, their hobbies, and goals. The first class was a bit of a challenge they were engaged initially but tuned out towards the end of the lesson and were not engaged in the discussion anymore. I tried to improvise and add in some discussion about the differences between Chuseok and American Thanksgiving. This garnered a bit more attention and some of the boys wanted to talk about football. I ended up teaching them a college football chant, which everyone seemed to have fun with.

Introducing Myself

I took what I learned from that lesson and some of the recommendations from the native English teacher who observed me and I made some changes before I taught the same lesson to the next class. I decided to have the students work in pairs to answer the questions that I posed so that they had a chance to talk with each other and think about their answers in Korean before having to formulate their responses in English. This worked a lot better and the students had great responses to my questions. I also added a final slide into the presentation about American Thanksgiving and again taught them the college football chant.

Teaching Football Chant

These two classes were a great learning opportunity and I think that I definitely will allow the students to work together in groups again when I do a class like this. They are in classes all day long and study all night long and don't have a lot of opportunity to discuss things with each other during the day. Most instruction at SGHS is done lecture style and I could tell that the students really enjoyed my change from lecture style to more group work.

I have also become responsible for giving announcements to my homeroom class. I go to the class each morning and afternoon. The regular homeroom teacher brings me a list of announcements to let the students know about and then they have self study and reading time.

Students settling into Homeroom

Homeroom Motto

This week I was invited to lunch twice with my teachers, to dinner with the other native English speakers and on a walk to a temple. It was great to visit a new place and interact with my co-workers outside of the school.

Gilsang-sa Temple

Gilsang-sa Temple

Pizza Night with Professor Lee this week was a good opportunity to talk about some of the similarities and differences between the Korean and American educational system. Students in Korea are all on one track towards the best schools in the country. There is little room for individuality and exploration. Students just study and go to school all day and night and many go to after school institutes where they study more and work on their English skills. I think this is the major difference between Korean and American systems. In the U.S. we have the opportunity to discover what each of our individual strengths are and how we can make a future with those skills. Many students here want to work at corporations, for the prestige of it more than for their self fulfillment and interest in the job. It was almost sad to hear from the Korean students all of the pressure they face getting into the best schools and getting the best jobs. It made me grateful that I have been allowed so many opportunities to try things out and stop things I did not like and try other things out instead. I when I meet with students for counseling sessions (more to come, after I actually have one), I will try to keep this social pressure in mind when asking students about their ambitions and talk to them about why they want to do certain things with their lives. I wonder if they are at all concerned with personal happiness or if it is all for the prestige of being able to say you attended a certain university and work at a particular company.

Cultural Difference: Homeroom teachers are like parents to their students. They help them with their personal lives, address issues in the dorms, help them study and get into college. Homeroom teachers in the U.S. are just placeholders until school begins and just let students know announcements. Sometimes schools have eliminated homerooms altogether.
Sharing is a huge part of Korean culture. Food, drinks, everything is shared here among friends. You can order huge bowls of many kinds of ice cream that come with many spoons so everyone eats out of the same bowl. Drinks come with two straws for both people to share. 

Culture Shock: Students were watching TV on their IPod and the teacher came into the class and hit each one on the head. This was a cultural shock!
 Cultural Similarities: Family pressure, while in the U.S. not every student has to go to Harvard there are often family expectations to live up to. Many students in the U.S. feel like they have to do a certain job or go to a certain school because their parents went there. While the pressure is not nearly as intense as it is in Korea, I think many American students feel pressure to live up to family expectations.

Challenges: Trying to get teaching time is a challenge. I will be teaching a 5 day unit plan in a few weeks but in the mean time I am asking random English teachers if I can take over their class a couple of times a week so that I can increase my teaching time. Most of my time is spend observing classes and preparing lessons in the library.

What would I change in the classroom? I would have block scheduling and less lecturing. I would have group work and ask students to do projects where they create things. There is so much emphasis on testing here all of the work and energy that teachers and students do is to prepare for tests. I would like to give the students an opportunity to make something like a historical poster or mobile, something where they don't simply have to memorize facts and feed them right back to me for credit.

Classroom Management: While I have not had to deal directly with classroom management yet, since when I was teaching the other teacher walked around and redirected student's attention to me I have observed a lot of it. I have seen teachers hit students to bring them back to attention or scold them, take away their IPods, and just tell them to be quiet. When students fall asleep in class teachers have gone over and nudged them awake. In other cases I have seen teachers just talk over loud students. There are a lot of different approaches to keeping the students attention focused on the task at hand. In general, the students don't have serious behavioral issues and most pay attention and focus on the lesson being taught. Often the teacher speaking does not have to deal directly with the issue because their co-teacher is walking around the class redirecting students. 

How would I apply this experience to my teaching in the U.S.? I will try to use this experience as a basis for encouraging students to learn about the world. There are so many things going on outside of St. Louis, Missouri, and the U.S. So many people want to know Americans and learn about our culture. I hope that I can teach my students to have a deep respect and appreciation for other cultures around the world.

On a last fun note, my Korean buddy April invited Crystal and I to go to Lotte World with her family! It is basically an indoor/outdoor amusement park. There were rides, games, shopping, restaurants, and an ice skating rink. We had a great time. I love having the Korean buddies, we get to talk about so many things that we can't with our teachers. It is just an opportunity to share gossip about Korean life, dating, and marriage. We also have a chance to visit fun places that the average Korean visits for fun, rather than just the traditional tourist destinations.

We also had dinner with April earlier this week, Shabu Shabu (Japanese sort of fondue) and of course shared dinner and ice cream afterward.

Midterms at Seoul Global High School High

This was my first week at my high school in Seoul. I noticed a lot of cultural differences that make schools here much different than at home. This week students had classes Monday and Tuesday then focused on Midterms Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday--yes even Saturday these kids are in school!
Here are some things I noticed about midterms at SGHS: Midterms are held in gym. Students sit in rows by homeroom. They take the same test for 50 minutes. One subject test given at a time. Girls sit in the front of the rows boys in back of the rows. There is a lot of studying until the test begins. After the test students run over to check their answers and notes.The school uses the honor system for test. Teachers do not watch students take the test, they trust them not to cheat. The Proctor is the teacher who created the test they stay in the room to give new answer sheets or answer questions. Homeroom teachers return at the end of the test to sign tests and answer sheets.





Motto in front of test area “An honest man is the noblest of word of God”

Student Observations during Homeroom:

•  Self study before midterms
•   No teacher present
•   Students work alone or with the help of a partner, very quiet
•   About 27 students in classroom
•   Students come in and out of class as needed for bathroom or drinks
•   Some listen to music quietly
•   No use of cell phones even when teacher is not there
•   Students seem to have a lot of self motivation and self control
•   A couple of students were sleeping/ resting 

Differences Between U.S. high schools and SGHS

There are 3 grades, level 1, level 2, level 3. The school year is March through February. Students and staff only get off a total of 3-4 weeks spread throughout the year, 1 week for Chuseok (Thanksgiving), afew days for Christmas, a few days between semesters, and a few days at end of the year.
Teachers are more like professors in U.S.They have masters degrees or PhDs. They teach 3-4 classes and only 2-3 daily.  Teachers have a lot of preparation time during the day  about 3-4 hours.  There are two tracks for students, Korean university bound and foreign university bound. Teachers change classes for the most part students stay in the same class and teachers move into the rooms. There are 430 students at the school. Students have to take an entrance exam. The school focuses on humanities and social studies. Students have to wear uniforms. Students have to go to school every other Saturday morning for homeroom and activity time. Students live in dorms at school and can return to them at 5:00pm after school to continue studying. The school day is 7:50-4:30. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all served to students the meals are homemade in cafeteria.   Classes have a motto, a Korean flag, and the school motto in front of the room. The classes and school are brightly painted, green walls, orange chairs, purple and blue walls. Students clean the classrooms and teachers' offices at end of the day.  Teachers co-teach classes with native English speakers. Students pay tuition at all schools in Korea.

Overall, this week was good but there were some challenges.

• Finding out we won't be teaching as much as we would at home
• Working on Saturday mornings
• The busy pace that some teachers have when they need us without a lot of prior warning
• Midterms this week kept us out of the classroom, but gave me a lot of time to prepare my lessons for my unit, so this is a challenge and a positive 

Seoul Global High School is a great school and I'm looking forward to learning more about it and the students.