just another American teacher in SK

I laughed out loud when one of my co-teachers told me that her students ask her, “When can we be in Teacher Nancy’s class again?”      

Let’s face it ~ they aren’t fascinated by my stellar presentations of “conversational English”.  They look forward to the “baton-free” atmosphere, which means “nap time” for some of them, and personal interaction time for others. It irritates the co-teachers that I make it a point to talk to every single student in the class.  They tell me that I am wasting time ~ I should be “teaching them”, not talking to them …

Isn’t that the whole point?  The students have to talk to me in English ~ that’s why we call it “English Conversation” session …  Unfortunately, 3 of the 4 co-teachers respond to the students in Korean without a corresponding translation back->to->English, which adds nothing to the “conversational” aspect of the class … but I keep talking to them in English anyway, and accept any sort of response they offer in English, which is sometimes pretty … um, interesting.

Anyway, I was pretty amused by the co-teacher’s comment that the kids look forward to “Teacher Nancy’s” class … I don’t doubt it.

Much to Bill’s credit, we have a fantastic library of reading material at home ~ and I desperately miss going into the study and choosing a random book, and relaxing in a cozy chair.

I can watch tv on my pc ~ it was really fun for a while, but I’m over it.  I do enjoy receiving an occasional English language newspaper, which I read thoroughly from the front page to the classifieds.  I’ve tried audiobooks, but it’s just not as satisfying as sitting down with a solid hardbound book …

I desperately need to find a library with a collection of books in English.  There are, of course, English bookstores in Seoul but I could potentially spend a small fortune buying books that I won’t be able to carry back to the States.    hmmmm… what to do?