Jessica Teacher

Monday held my first day in the ECC world of english school. I followed Isaac around for the first two days. I was replacing my New Zealand colleague so he could travel to China, Spain, and finally settle in London. (ENVY!) On Tuesday I was a one man show. The hardest part was learning how to communicate with the Korean students and to what extend they understood my English. I am the english teacher in the England kindy class. They are the youngest in the school, and in their first year of english. They are korean age 6, western age 5. The class loves dodge ball fridays, hiding from me in the playhouse in the dark, and when I ask them “How are you?” the standard response is “I'm fine, thank you. Oh-la-la!

Zeki is the main character of the class. His favorite words are “monkey” and “monster” which he can never say without his impression of the noun. His art work is amazing, yet never on task. He cannot be guided, and his work is too amazing to make him stop. I think he is the next Kandinsky.

He is also the first that I made cry. It broke my heart and made him pinky swear that he would behave. You can imagine how long he kept up his end of the bargain

Lucy is the smartest of the class. She usually leads the class in the songs, which she knows better than Teacher. With my tone deaf ears I'm okay with giving her free rein of singing time. She is always wearing a princess crown and tutu dress. When we play freeze in PE she pirouettes and plies with grace.

Julia is cute as can be with her sweet voice and curling pigtails. She has taken a liking to Jack, and spends most of the time following him around trying to hold his hand. If Jack gets out in a game, Julia will dance in my face until she is out also. Clever moves at age 6, yet I don't think Jack has picked up on it yet. Typical?

Ian never ceases to amazing me. He wiggles his bum around the room, curtsy when you ask him questions, and would prefer to stand on his chair all day than ever sit in it.

Jessica Teacher is also the Science Teacher at ECC Pyeongchon. I'm pretty sure they got the memo that I studied art and design in school and not organic chemistry. But I suppose I can make a paper airplane just as well as my pre-med counterparts!

These nine raging kindy students fill my morning with surprise and excitement. In the afternoon they get a bit older and its a whole different ball game.

My afternoons are spent saying “Are you speaking Korean?” and “Repeat after me.” I start with 7 year old boys that cry and climb on one another, and finish with a hellish class of 13 year old boys that spend most of the class throwing papers, screaming Korean curse words, and using their cell phones. On my first week I was given the opportunity to teacher the class with all six students eyelids folded up. Luckily in the middle I have classes of students that will play games and compare bits of culture against my American ones. Their english is quite good and with a bit of hand motion and cell phone translations we can hold discussions various topics.

Overall, I think I have found success with my students. They are still coming to class and I receive a cookies and yogurt drinks as gifts on a regular basis. Whenever I see the kids outside of school there is always a screaming korean accented version of “Jessica Teacher!”