End of June continued w/ my tiny friends

Trip to the Incheon Zoo

Well, I can’t leave out my tiny little friends in my June update. My class still manages to shock and impress me pretty much on a daily basis. I tend to spend my break times sitting with my class during their Korean class time. I have better conversations with the kids in my class than I do with almost all of the teachers in the school and they are far more entertaining than anyone else so I really actually enjoy their company, most of the time. The other day I walked into the classroom to the kids learning Chinese. No, that is not a typo and yes, these 5 and 6 year olds are learning to read, write and speak in English and Korean so why not throw Chinese into the mix!

Melisa runs up to greet me and I ask her if she is really learning Chinese. She tells me yes and then proceeds to climb on me like a jungle gym as she normally does. Her answer wasn’t convincing enough for me so I ask again if she’s really learning Chinese. “Yes,” she says again as if what she really wants to say is, “obviously, why WOULDN’T we be learning Chinese.” Luckily sarcasm isn’t used in kindergarten. Still not convinced I ask her to say something to me in Chinese. “Ni hao” she says in her tiny little voice, “that’s hello.” Then she continues and says, as she counts on her fingers, “hello, English, annyeong, Korean, ni hao, Chinese.” It wasn’t much, but just the fact that this little itty bitty thing was carrying on this conversation about languages with me was so impressive.

The month of June was filled with parent participation classes for each age group. I mostly went from class to class with the musical English teacher just to show my foreigner face and brag about my English speaking ability. She had a little skit prepared that involved the parents in song, dance and roll play. I was just told what to say and then the kids and their parents were supposed to repeat after me. I felt quite foolish and a little like a ventriloquist’s dummy, but whatever makes the parents happy.

We took a field trip to the lettuce farm to pick some lettuce. Not the greatest idea during the start of the rainy/ monsoon season. I think it rained for 5 days straight and then they picked the first nice day to take us to the farm. Most of the kids were wearing dress shoes or sandals and were told to go through the muddy path to pick their lettuce. Most of them came out practically crying that their shoes and socks were all muddy. One girl kept asking me to clean her shoes. “I don’t have anything to clean your shoes with,” I told her. “On the bus clean my shoes, please.” “I don’t have anything to clean your shoes with on the bus either.” Then I heard a little more whining. I stayed out of the mud and just directed the kids, but I also didn’t get any lettuce out of it. Oh well, the price I paid for clean shoes.

Dirty shoes

So, Rainbow Class didn’t have any March, April or May birthdays so we all were long awaiting June. Angelina and Kevin had birthdays in June so they both wore their hanboks to school for the birthday party. We went to the gym to sing songs and take lots of pictures. Then we ate the best/ worst meal of the month. This is the fourth time I’ve tried to teach afternoon classes after they had cake for lunch and every time is equally torturous. Luckily this only happens once a month, even though I really enjoy the lunch filled with dokbouki, chap chae, fruits and rice cakes.

This is the closest we could get to smiles and it was their birthday party!

Finally a smile!

Still, looking super happy to be here...

Well, I'm happy for the birthday party!

Angelina, show me what you got! (I swear I didn't add, and look absolutely miserable while you do it! She was really mad they made a boy escort her on stage and not her friend Kelley)

Blowing out the candles.