Thieves and Bush

I'm waiting on getting the internet hooked up at my place, so until then I'm spending lots of time with smoking,computer game Koreans. ugh.

Last week I posted about a student Tim who stole Anita's chocolate milk. It seems as though I have a little lying cheat on my hands. As it turns out he was caught stealing from the Family Mart downstairs the day before the milk incident and was sent away with a warning. The day after the milk he didn't come to class. James 2 said that he was in the "supermarket" with him and "food in coat-no money-snack in bag-no pay". I sent him to the korean staff to let them know what supposedly happened. Half way though the next class, Kim, my korean "councilor" came to my class to see how Tim was for the rest of the class. As it turns out after he got caught stealing he came up to the school and talked to Kim and he sent him to class, but he must have taken off on the way. I bet he was embarassed cause all the kids knew what he did. He tried to walk home, but got very lost. He was missing for 5 hours and his mother was freaking out. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that. The day after that he wrote all the answers to the test on his desk. I have one more day with him as a student. I can handle that.

I've mentioned before that I'm teaching senior1 and with that comes the start of essay writing. There is this one kid, Sang-hun, who is hillarious, by the way. The other day he wrote an essay and I had absolutely no idea what he was saying. I had to ask him what about half of the words were. I kept seeing the word "Boshi". Boshi is how Koreans say "Bush" because there are no words in Korean that end with a unpronounced sound like the "h" is in Bush. They need to put a vowel sound on the end so often English words are pretty funny. Nice-uh. Home plus-uh. So George Bush becomes "Georgie Bushie". This kid was writing about George Bush. I laughed so hard and now all the kids keep saying Boshi Boshi to him. I've nicknamed the kid Sangy. He hates it, but I'm sure he secretly loves it.

In that class I have a few kids whos mothers or older brothers write their essays for them. I kept bugging Jacky about it saying that he's a great writer and that he can do it without help. He said his mother didn't do it. (I didn't believe him for a second) The handwriting is completely different, the words are big and there is no way that he would know them etc etc etc. His mother called the school and I got a talking to about it. The whole thing is rediculous. Fine if the kid wants to cheat, then the only thing thats going to happen is that he's not going to learn. I tried to explain that and I don't know if they really get it. Whatever. He's not my student anymore after Monday.

I do, however have Senior1 again with the new classes, so this means that I have a whole new batch of kids that I have to teach how to right those dang essays. I really hate it. And as soon as they're done learning (it will take about a month to teach them)all the classes will be leveling up to the next grade. I also have a Junior 6 class, which means that as soon as they're finished J6 they move up to S1 and I'm going to have to teach them how to write essays too! That means 4 S1 classes in a row. I'm not happy about that.

I'm also beginning to be trained on how to teach the first level classes (basic 2) because Jenn has been pretty much the only one who teaches those classes cause no one else likes teaching that class. They're the youngest ones and the come in with next to no English, so its pretty challenging and repeatative, which most teachers don't like. I don't think it will be that bad. She's been teaching me stuff that she's been doing for the past 3 years that she's found to work for her. I really want to do a good job with these kids. I like when they can be in a routine and know what is going to come next and what is expected of them etc. They're so much more excited about English and learning when they're that age. The older ones just hate it. They resent you and it can be so difficult to get them to do anything.

They've started some new classes called "U" classes. They're basically like the senior classes, but they don't take as long to complete them and the age levels are different. I'm not really sure of all the details yet. It should be interesting.

5 new classes start on Tuesday. I always get a little bit nervous at this time. There is so much potential for it to be really good or really bad. I'm sure it will be somewhere inbetween those two extremes. I just like how things are right now with my kids. I know what to expect and they know how I like things to be done. I guess I'll just have to train these new ones the same way.