I'm way behind on writing up the seven of nine days of winter camp I've taught so far . . . I have pictures of the guys doing stuff, and stories galore . . . but for now a small story will have to do.
Oh, before I get to the story there's one other interesting thing that happened today at camp. The students I'm working with are NEW freshman--technically they're still middle school students right now--and the Korean education cultural organization of the winter break period threw me a curve ball today. Let me explain.
The winter break is not a consecutive block of time off from school. Korean students go on winter break and then after about 5-6 weeks they come back to school for 2-5 five days, and then they go on 'spring break' . . . yes, that's how it works. Don't ask me why they don't just finish up EVERYTHING school related before they break at the end of December so that they can have an uninterrupted vacation--err, cough! cough! I mean winter classes time--they just don't do it that way. The students and teachers all come back to the school for a few days to do whatever it is they do, and of course have a graduation ceremony. (In fact, one might say that there is no such thing as a 'vacation' in Korea for students. The teachers give the students winter and summer homework assignments--yes, I just said they give them HOMEWORK during the 'breaks!')
What does all this have to do with my winter camp? Well, today I had SIX students in my class, SIX! Originally 25 had supposedly signed up but I have only been getting 16 or 17 every day. I altered my lesson plans accordingly and things had been going well up till now. The thing is I had been told (yes, shocking, I was told this would happen a week ago by my co-teacher--yes, she is that AWESOME!) that some students might not be in my classes this week because of graduation ceremonies but for some reason it didn't register in my head that this would actually happen . . . but it did.
Anyways, losing 10 students is not actually that big a deal. It's especially not a big deal cause the remaining six are actually the ones with the best attitudes and who have been trying the hardest. Yes, I pretty much won a kind of teacher lottery! Woohoo!
Alright . . . . let me tell you my story about winter English camp Konglish . . .
Today the guys brainstormed topics for the demonstration speech they're going to have to perform on video tomorrow. Before setting them loose to choose their own topics we did a group brainstorming of possible topics to help them get a sense of what I wanted them to think of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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