Day 2

I slept better that night than any previous night; my sleep was not disturbed, I woke up at 700 after five hours of sleep, still buzzed. It was a good start to the day. I left early from my motel; my plan was to go check out the aquarium. However, once I got there I found the place to be overrun by hordes of screaming children. Don’t mistake hordes of screaming children as something that can be ignored or passed by with little consequence. I’ve been at aquariums during field trips before in the States, usually not a big deal; this wasn’t just a class of kids, this was several schools, there were easily several hundred kids running around the beach and inside the aquarium—not my idea of fun.

Today’s walk to Avalon was much more successful, no need to resort to plan C today. Instead I spent that money on a pizza at Pizza Bingo. I’d say I ate there 95% because of the name and 5% because I haven’t eaten pizza in weeks. For 6,000 Won, it was a good deal for a pizza equivalent to a Medium, however I got what I paid for and only wound up eating half; I did however enjoy my Coke. To make up for the lack of pizza consumption I commandeered their loft eating area to catch up on my life events thus far into Korea. There is an interesting thing about restaurants in Korea. In the US they are spread out onto a single floor. In Korea, the space is about the same but they often spread out in a different direction, up. The same is true for their apartment buildings, some of which are taller than buildings in downtown Seattle.

Today, Thursday was filled with more observing. This time I sat in on some of Lori's classes. She has a much different style of teaching than James. James likes to bring things to class, freestyle (even though the freestyle is all planned out) and simply use the book as a crutch. Lori's method involves predominately using the book, often times she is seeing the lesson she is teaching for the first time as she is teaching it. But after watching her classes, she is able to pull it off and you wouldn't be able to tell unless you told you that she didn't know what she would be teaching that day until she started class.

I also had my model teaching today. A model teaching is where I stand in front of my fellow teachers, head teacher and vice director to teach a fifteen minute lesson. I chose brainstorming, and did not feel like I did a good job. Apparently, I did well enough, I was complimented for writing things down on the board, and critiqued for both the organization of the class and how I spoke. I have a tendency to speak fast and use words that are far too advanced. All in all, my impression of their impression of my model teaching was that I did a satisfactory job; I was the only one who was not satisfied with my performance, and I demand satisfaction.

Tomorrow I will be teaching half of James' last class. This should be interesting.