Orientation Day 3

First up on the chopping block for the day was Making Your English More Comprehensible. Essentially, we had to learn how to simplify our instructions in order for maximum comprehension amongst students. Projecting, slow speech patterns, and body language can make a significant impact on how students understand what teachers are saying. There was a big movement away from teacher oriented classrooms in the 90s, which meant teachers were no longer solely lecturing students. Communication and engagement were now prominent pillars of the education system, particularly in English classrooms throughout Korea.

The following class involved observing an English teacher and his co-teacher teaching a lesson. It was fast paced and loud but engaging at the same time. We ended up playing a fun Pokémon game to practice some key expressions and vocabulary taught within the lesson. I’m not a huge Pokémon player, but I held my own in this particular game. Meaning I ended up with a grand total of 2 cards at the end.

The final class of the day was our second lesson planning lecture. My lesson that I have to demo in front of 15 classmates on Saturday revolves around the topic: How much is it? In simple terms, I am teaching students the phrase “how much is it?” in conjunction with two other phrases, “I want this…” and “it is …. won”. The ellipses represent an item being bought, such as a shirt, and its subsequent price in won. One of the challenging components of this lesson demo is that my partner does not have a background in education. There has certainly been a learning curve for both of us, but I have confidence in our abilities to knock it out of the park come Saturday.

After dinner I attended my one day class I had mentioned in a previous post. Drum roll please…. I took a cooking class! I got to make kimbap and tteokbokki, or rather I helped chop and stir while the actual chef made the dish. For those who don't know, kimbap is made from cooked rice, vegetables, and dried seaweed. Tteokbokki is simmered rice cakes in a spicy broth with fish cakes and scallions. The food was absolutely delectable. The kimbap was salty from the seaweed and chewy from the rice. The tteokbokki was nose-runningly spicy yet also had so much dimension in flavor from the onions and fish cakes. There were 6 groups, and we got to taste each one’s food that had prepared. I’m partial to my own group’s dishes, but they all pretty much tasted the same.

Kimbap inside: rice, lettuce, egg, carrots, ham, yellow pickled radish, burdock root

Rolled kimbap

Tteokbokki