Today is the first day of classes! It's hard to believe this is my 4th and final semester at Suwan Middle School! By now, I've learned all sorts of tips, techniques, and tricks, so this semester should be the best.
I've got a new schedule, of course. I teach 11 9th grade classes per week, and 8 7th grade classes. I won't be teaching any 8th graders, because I taught them last year. The school has also switched the time schedule as well- we're beginning 10 minutes earlier this year, and eliminating 6th period on Wednesdays. We'll make up for this by having 7 periods on both Tuesdays and Thursdays.
We've got so many new teachers this year! Including myself, there are 52 teacher. I'm teaching with 6 different English teachers: Hyeon-hwi (my new handler/co-teacher: 6 classes), Han-su (4 classes), Ms. Jeong (6 classes), Mi-hey (1 class), Young-ran (1 class), and Chi-won (1 class). It will be difficult to stay on the same page with all the teachers and grades, so I'm going to have to work at being very organized.
There's a ton of kids now. We've got 33 homeroom classes for 3 grades, about 30-32 per class. We also had to extend the lunch period by 30 minutes to make sure everyone's got enough time to eat! If I'm lucky, I'll learn 10 new names by the end of the semester.
My new 4th floor office is pretty nice. It's got heat, so that's an improvement from last year. I share with 10 other teachers, though I'm not exactly sure what they teach.
The focus this year for the 9th graders has switched from speaking to writing. Now, the students will have some short answer and/or essay questions on their tests. We're considering buying a new book for them with a variety of writing activities, but it will depend on cost. I don't know too much about this yet, but will probably find out more in the next few weeks.
Spring is always the best semester- there's so many things happening! Field trips, sports day, Children's Day, Buddha's Birthday, and the many "democratic" days in May and June. There's a lot going on and I know I'm going to be so busy!
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Fourth and final? Does that mean you are going back to the states this summer?
ReplyDeleteYes, I'll be going back home in August :(
ReplyDeleteThat is a LOT of work for your final semester here. Seongdeok got 84 new staff members in total this year and I have two new visiting coteachers (one of whom was a coteacher with a friend of mine over in Sangmu). I think our whole district got flooded with students cause we're also starting ten minutes earlier now and have the extended lunch as well. One more week left for me so I should be getting things settled before my exit from Seongdeok.
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