just another American teacher in SK

I’m going to dedicate this post to telling you about my school and a little bit about the Korean education system.

The Korean public education system is divided into three parts: six years of primary school, three years of middle school, and three years of high school.

I teach at the Ganghwa Boys Middle School.  I don’t know how many schools are in the Ganghwa area, but there are about 15 teachers at a variety of public schools and private hagwon.  (Simple math would suggest that maybe there are 15 schools, as there is one native speakers per school, but some teachers have multiple schools … like I said ~ I don’t know.)

The school is a 30-minute walk from my apartment, a route that takes me down series of winding, narrow streets and up a steep hill. The school is typical in appearance,  very large and completely void of ambience.  There is  a large open field (ours is covered with Astroturf) which serves as the athletic field and the general assembly area.  A second building houses the cafeteria and (what I assume is) the gymnasium or auditorium.

The middle school has about 800 students and about 35-40 teachers.  The teachers maintain cubes in a central area and move from room to room.  The students also move between classrooms and go ape-shit nuts for ten minutes between every class.

The school day begins at 8:00 AM.  There are four class sessions in the morning, a 60-minute break for lunch, three afternoon sessions, followed by “cleaning” time.   I have 21 classes (7 sections of each grade level, with an average of 40 students in each class), plus a “teacher training session”, and 1 hour each day of after-school activities (ASA).  The additional English conversation sessions begin at 4:30, so my day usually ends around 5:30.

The curriculum is standardized, as is the criteria for textbooks and instructional materials. The exception is the “Native English” class ~ the Korean English teachers use textbooks and follow a standard plan, but the only guideline for the foreign teachers is “teach English “.  

The school calendar has two semesters, the first running from March through July, and the second from September through February.  There are month-long breaks in August and January, but the  “optional”  10 days at the beginning and 10 days at the end of each break are attended by practically all the students, which reduces the “vacation” period to the remaining 10 days.  National holidays warrant a day off, but most of the holidays in 2009 fall on the weekend (just my luck)!

The hierarchy is Principal – Vice Principal – Head Teacher – Teacher.   I “report” to the Vice Principal, through a co-teacher who has been assigned to coordinate my activities. (more on co-teachers in a later post)  In my case, the VP was formerly an “English teacher”, so we can communicate on a very basic level, but my primary co-teacher attempts most of the translation.  There are also 3 other “English teachers” that I co-teach with (one for each grade level) ~ none of them are fluent in English language, but their role is to translate for the students in my classroom when they don’t understand what I’m saying.  It’s important to have an effective co-teacher in the classroom, but the “English only – no Korean” rule is tough to enforce when you have a Korean “English teacher” omnipresent to speak to the kids in Korean.

OK ~ I fear this post is getting a bit boring.  If you have any additional questions, please comment and I will address them in a later post.  

Thanks for checking in ~ I’ve got a crazy schedule this week, with social events and additional classes, but I will try to keep up!

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