2 posts in 2 days!
its funny how some classes go brilliantly, and others just bomb. I love love love my Monday-Thursday night Learn to Speak class. The students are fun, they talk, and there's a really good classroom atmosphere. The class has quite an age range, and sometimes thats bad, especially if you've got older guys, because they get very controlling, and of course because of Korean Confucianist culture, no one is going to challenge an older male. but in this class, the older dudes are friendly and relaxed so it all works very well.
and then there's my Tuesday-Friday Learn to Speak class. painful as all hell. granted, they're lower level, but there's zero atmosphere, they don't talk, and it's so discouraging. I go in there each class, full of enthuasiasim and with activities all planned out, and i walk out of there hating teaching. ugh. one guy makes me especially angry. i'm pretty sure he doesn't want to be there, he was more than likely made to come by his company. he just sits there slouched in his chair, clearly disdainful towards everything I am doing. I don't know if its a general hatred of English, or of the fact that he's being taught by a younger, white female (each of these factors alone is bad, but all 3 together! oh the humanity!). and last week this class invited me out drinking with them. I had to go, if would be super bad for my evaluations if I didn't. and that was painful too. they only wanted to talk to me,not to each other, and their limited vocab meant talking about things like "your hobbies" or "your weekend plans" etc for 2 and a half hours.
But then on Wednesday, I'm going for dinner with one of my best and most fun classes, and Tynessa teaches them to so she's also coming. yay!
Today's lesson: in question-making activities, DO NOT allow students to "make any questions you want to about the teacher" and them allow them to ask them in front of the whole class. Two of the seemingly shy girls had two questions for me: have you ever been attracted to women? have you ever had a crush on any of your coworkers (who they all know). now of course I answered no to both, but they're personal questions, so I got all red-faced and embarrassed (hey, there were 15 of them and only one of me) which of course got them all gossipy. ugh, never again. Lesson learned!

and, one of the joys of living near China, its yellow dust time of year!