English....

English is an interesting language.  Maybe all languages are but teaching English has definitely put it in a new perspective for me.  Hopefully sharing these thoughts of my frustration and lack of understanding with English grammar won’t incriminate me as a teacher.  Sometimes I think I get more frustrated than the kids when I try to explain a grammatical rule.  I often find myself telling them I don’t know why you need to say it this way you just do.  Maybe that makes me a bad teacher and I shouldn’t be sharing this…  But overall it has made me much more interested (albeit extremely frustrated at times) with my own language and I find myself constantly wanting to learn more about why things are the way they are in the English language.  I find myself researching how to explain exceptions to rules and why you need to use an article here but not there.  The “just say it like this because I said so” method works with my little ones but not so much with the older ones.  I don’t know if American schools should focus more on teaching the rules of grammar or not.  If they did I think I would need a few grammar courses myself before I could teach it properly.  Unless you are teaching grammar to other people does it really matter if you funny understand all the little rules and exceptions?  Using proper grammar in writing and speech is one thing (and one of my ultimate pet peeves now!).   Explaining rules and exceptions to students who are not fluent in English, and rules that I don’t even fully understand myself, is not nearly as easy as I once thought it might be.  I’ll be honest I don’t know the difference between a short action verb and a long action verb.  I don’t know why you put –ing on the end of a verb after the word ‘is’ (no you may not say ‘he is wash the car.’) or an –s after “he sits” but not “they sit.”  You just do.  There are countless more examples I could give of grammatical questions that come up with my students all the time that I just can’t explain to anyone, let alone an ESL student.  Sometimes I think I am learning just as much as my students, but I suppose that’s often what happens as a teacher.  At least I hope it is because I sure don’t know much now!

January Weekend

Once again it's hard to believe how quickly this month has gone by and we are about finished with the last weekend of January already.  For the past four weeks we had been teaching winter intensive classes to some of the elementary students meaning we had to teach a 50 minute elementary class during part of our usual morning kindergarten time.  The elementary students were on winter vacation from their regular elementary schools so they could come for some extra English academy time every day for three weeks (exactly what every kid wants to do during their school vacation, right?).  We are both thankful that is over now though so we can go back to the regular schedule with our kindergartners for the last five weeks of the school year.

This weekend was actually filled with a couple disappointments in that both days we set out with a mission and both times were unsuccessful...  But in the end we didn't mind too much because there's always next weekend!  We had heard about this supposedly very delicious, American style breakfast restaurant and were dying to try it.  Unfortunately, as has happened more than a few times over the last eleven months for us, the directions we found online were outdated.  We did eventually find the restaurant (after walking around Gangnam for nearly an hour in the frigid wind chill) but the wait was much too long for what we had time for.  So no American style breakfast this weekend but we have promised each other it must happen very soon!  And now we know how to get there too! 

On Sunday we set out to make a Costco run for a few groceries.  However, Korea has a law stating that all large chain supermarkets must be closed on the second and fourth Sundays of every month.  This is supposed to encourage people to support the smaller local markets in their area a couple times a month.  If a large company like Costco chooses not to follow that law they have to pay a pretty hefty fine.  However, for a while Costco was choosing to pay the fine instead of close because apparently they made more money even after the fine than closing their stores for two days every month.  But as we discovered today, they have apparently changed their mind or the government has told them they can't anymore because they were closed today :(  So I guess we will be going back another day!  Instead we ended up going for a walk through Seoul Children's Grand Park near our home which was nice.  Since there were very few people around we could actually go for a leisurely stroll when we wanted to, unlike yesterday in Gangnam where you better be moving with the crowd in the same direction and the same pace at all times! 

They still had a few of the animals out in the zoo at the park

 Everything else was very frozen!!

One More Year: Officially Offical

Well it's official!  Today we signed our contracts to stay at our current jobs until March 1, 2014.  We had planned on that for a while now but today it became officially official!  Sometimes we wonder what the school will look like next year... it seems like we have been losing more students than gaining, all the Korean teachers are leaving after next month, and sometimes we wonder what the boss is thinking, but all in all we are excited to have one more year teaching the kids here.  The other news that comes with signing the contract is that I know the exact dates I will be able to go home for a visit in the spring!  We are hopeful that all the kids will come back when the new school year starts in March.  I found out today that one of my favorites will be leaving next week :(  but I suppose that is something that just comes with the territory of being a teacher.  It's hard to believe that we have been here long enough to be officially committing to a second year!

Baking Weekend

It was a pretty nice weekend in Seoul (for winter) and we both spent quite a bit of time outside.  It got above freezing both days and I was even able to wear one less layer of clothing!  They are predicting 1-2 inches of snow tomorrow though...  Yesterday I went to the outdoor baking market with my friend (a frequent baker) who was able to show me around a bit more from experience.  We both wanted to get a few ingredients for our future baking and did a whole lot of walking around the area.  Eric spent quite a bit of time out and about exploring parts of our neighborhood that we haven't got to yet.  Since it got so cold right after we moved we haven't gone too far to explore the other side.  He discovered we're actually not too far from another subway line which will be much more convenient than having to transfer at times.  We both did some of our own baking this weekend too.  He made some very tasty homemade pizza rolls for dinner one night (with homemade bread) and I used the crockpot to make a very delicious, but also extremely rich, chocolate lava cake.  Did you know you could make cake in a crockpot?  I've been wanting to try this recipe for a while to find out if it really works and it was a big success (according to the two of us)!  It is definitely a chocolate lover's dream!  Though I think I will take most of the leftovers to work tomorrow so we don't eat all of it and I have another reason to bake another dessert soon :)  I guess it might become common for a while to post about our newest baking adventures while the novelty of actually having an oven in our home sticks with us!  We're not sure how we ever lived with just a two burner stove for ten months...  But I think we will try to avoid ever having to live like that again!

My purchases from the baking market: cream cheese, powdered sugar and cocoa powder.  I have so many ideas I'm not sure where I will start next.  My friend and I also bought a bag of cinnamon to share that didn't get in the picture.

 

Crockpot chocolate lava cake.  Incredibly gooey, fudgy and chocolatey- what else do you need?

 

Thankful for Weekends

It seems like at the end of every week we are more and more thankful to see the weekend begin.  We love being with the kids all week for sure, but at the same time the nine and a half hour days during the week can be long.  When the feeling of being able to relax and do what we want, but never have time for during the week finally arrives come Friday evening, we are pretty happy!  We definitely enjoy having two days to feel refreshed before starting the week over again.  This is the first time either of us have had a job where we simply can't just take a day off because we want to.  There is no calling in sick, you have to show up to work first to prove you are sick, or personal days to pick and choose from.  So we are definitely thankful for our weekends!

The Korean teacher who usually takes a few of my youngest kids who have just started kindergarten and teaches them in another room for most of the morning was sick today, leaving me with all ten of them in a small classroom by myself.  If I was just running a daycare this could have been a very manageable job.  But I knew I had a lot of work to get done with my group that has been there all year so I attempted to keep the younger ones happy with paper and crayons while I taught reading to the others.  It didn't go so well and I finally realized it would be much less frustrating for everyone involved if we simply had a day of reading books and playing with play dough and white board crayons.  It did make me realize how much my kindergarten group has grown in the last ten and a half months.  When I look back to last March I realize that all five of the ones who have been there just about the whole time acted just like the two and three year old I have now- won't sit down, can't hold a crayon, push, fight, don't listen, etc.  I didn't realize how much they have grown and how far they have come until I really saw how they all acted today compared to the new babies.  It's getting close to the end of the school year (the weeks go by so fast I know the end of February will be here in an instant) and now I know how teachers feel when they see how much their students grow in a year.  I only hope all of my kindergartners will come again next year so I can watch them grow for one more year, and see how much the new little ones will grow over the next year.  I can't help but show off these pictures of Tommy.  All of the kids have grown in maturity, abilities, and physically but I notice it the most in Tommy when it comes to how much he has grown physically.  He turned four this week and sometimes I'm sad he doesn't look like the little baby he was when I first started teaching him, but I am thankful he at least still tells me how much he loves me! 

                         March 2012                                                                    January 2013

Baking at Last

So we both got to try our hand with the oven today (I was first)!  Chocolate chip cookies was the first thing officially baked in our oven followed by Eric's homemade breadsticks.  Both very tasty and so much fun to be able to make ourselves!!  It was quite exciting when the house started smelling like cookies!  We have plans for plenty more this week, particularly for breads and dinners!  I know with such a small freezer I must contain myself because we definitely don't want any of our precious baked goods to go to waste before we can eat them!

I knew I better share some of the cookies before we ate them all in a matter of days so I took some when I met up with some friends this afternoon before we went and saw Les Miserables.  Eric and I actually went and saw the movie last weekend because I was so anxious to see it after continuing to hear how good it was.  I love musicals but I guess I have only really seen funny ones...  Not knowing much of anything about the story beforehand, this was definitely a tear jerker of a musical.  The second time tonight was even more of a major tear jerker than the first time!  Definitely a great musical movie but tissues are a must (even if Russell Crowe can't sing very well)!  We have discovered that humor does not translate well from English movies to Korean subtitles (we often find ourselves to be the only ones laughing at times!), but apparently emotional musicals translate quite well because both times I saw the movie I could hear the tears filling the whole theater.

The oven at work... It's cooking our lunch during this moment.  It still has no permanent place but the table is working for now.

Finally!

We have officially purchased an oven for our home!!!!  We are so excited!  We have always seen a few different convection ovens to choose from at Costco and since we finally decided today was the day to buy one after work, that's where we headed.  It is of course small but it's oven and it looks like it will bake cookies and breads and muffins and cakes and brownies just fine!!  We don't exactly have a place to put it so for now it's on our makeshift "dining room" table, but we figure that will be good enough until we can get out this weekend or next and find a small table just for it.  We will give you a full report with pictures on how the first things we bake turn out tomorrow.  For now we just wanted to make the announcement that we finally got an oven!  And are fighting over who gets to use it first... :) 

(I always get up earlier on Saturdays so I know I will win.  Although he usually stays up later than me on Friday nights...)

Four Seasons

We had a pretty low key weekend as we continue to rest up from our trip and do all the unpacking and reorganizing that comes with it.  I did take the opportunity to capture the last photo I needed to finish off my four seasons in Korea collection.  It's hard to believe but we have already been in Korea for over ten months and as you can see, we have officially seen all four seasons.  These are the trees on the road in front of our first apartment building.  We are excited to see what they look like printed, framed and hanging next to each other on the wall.

Back to Korea

After a completely wonderful vacation home to America for Christmas, we arrived back in Seoul late last night and were welcomed with snow, both on the ground and still falling from the sky, and the normal freezing temperatures. The three flights we had to take to get from Portland to Seoul were all much nicer than when we went over which was nice.  We got in late but were still able to take a bus and taxi right to our building so we were able to avoid dragging our suitcases through the snow.  The nine days at home went by much too fast but we are so thankful we were able to make the trip home for Christmas.  We were able to pull off keeping it as a Christmas surprise for some which was fun too!  We did a lot of shopping (which made packing to come back a bit stressful!), eating American made food, seeing friends and family and had a really great Christmas.  We were able to spend a great time with my family on Christmas Eve and his family on Christmas day, definitely the best way to spend the days around Christmas.  All around it was pretty much a perfect trip!  If only it could have been longer...  

Although it is hard to come back after getting to spend time with so many people we hadn't seen in ten months, we know this is exactly where we are supposed to be for fourteen more months.  It's hard to believe ten months have gone by already.  I am planning on going home again in the spring to be in a wedding and, of course, see as many people as I can once again.  It was great to go back to work today and see all the kids again (and eat much healthier food!).  I even got another two students in my kindergarten class bringing me up to a class of ten ranging in age from 2-6 and literally ALL English levels.  It keeps things interesting for sure!

We missed out on celebrating the new year this year.  As we crossed the International Date Line in the plane we went from the evening of December 31, 2012 to the mid morning of January 1, 2013.  That's a little strange to think about but I guess we will always remember how 2013 began for us!  We did see a beautiful sunset, the first of 2013, during our layover in Japan.  Pictures from our trip home will be uploaded to Shutterfly in the next couple of days

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year as well!  It is one we will definitely always remember for us!