Back to school

Well I taught my first new class today. It was much the same as always. I think it's about 15 Celsius outside today. I walked into the classroom that was about 30. My glasses fogged up for crying out loud! And all my students were sitting there in their winter jackets looking like they were ready to climb Everest!

Tomorrow it'll be 25 Celsius and they'll turn on the air conditioner so that it's 10 degrees in the classroom. The modern Korean is a creature of extreme temperatures.

Other than writing on the whiteboard and hoping the sweat running down the trough in my back hadn't yet made a big stain on the ass of my pants, I had other concerns today. The new management, (Peter), gave me a new textbook. It has no publication date or author's name on it so I can only suspect that somebody has suggested this to earn some extra dough. Possibly somebody at the school or a friend of somebody at the school. Regardless of who wrote it, it's not very good. It's designed for ESL and I'm teaching EFL. It's pretty much the same lame stuff they've learned over the average 10-12 years they've taken English classes at hagwons or in public school. So you'd think they'd be good at it. This is in part why this same crap is suggested. They WANT the students to get good grades. But they're not very good at it because it was boring to them THEN and it's boring to them now.

However, I have a better book with better lessons that I have been using successfully for years. I have lots of extra copies of my lessons too so it would save me some money on copying. Also, I won't have to create any new lessons and print them out at the store where I do my copying. I went there yesterday to copy out a new introduction Mad Lib I made for this week and there was some problem using my zip drive. I've used it many times in their computers but over the winter vacation they installed some new "security" programs that won't allow me to use my zip drive on them.

What we did was turned off the new anti-virus "protection" program, (I forget what it was called. Some new Korean thing. NOT Ahn Lab I don't think), and my zip drive worked fine. But today when they turn on their computers that program will tell them that there are new "viruses" recognized. These fake programs "recognize" viruses just to keep the buyers feeling warm and fuzzy thinking their computer safety is increased when actually their speed, RAM, and efficiency has decreased. It's just another example of the mentality that complicated is better. It seems to be very popular in Korea particularly with electronics.

Anyhoo, if I use the curriculums I have already designed I will be able to bring in copies of all my lessons to photocopy instead of printing out new ones which would require me to use my zipdrive, which has been identified as evil by their new anti-virus program. Most likely because it doesn't like English. No kidding.

As far as that class is concerned, I'm going to see if I can divide it in half. There are 45 of them and they get two hours on Tuesdays from 11-1 and one hour on Wednesdays from 11-12. What I'll suggest is cut the class in half and I'll teach half of them on Tuesdays from 11-1 and the other half on Wednesdays from 11-1. I'll have one extra hour a week. So instead of 11 hours a week I'll have 12. I think I can live with that. And instead of one class of 45 I'll have two classes of 22. MUCH easier to work with, (and the class won't be so dang HOT).

But I have to talk to Peter to change the book, and I have to talk to the dean of the physiotherapy department, (this class's major), to get permission to change their class hours. I have THREE two-hour classes on Thursday that I think I might have to do the same things with. I sure hope those classes have reasonable numbers!

That's par for the course around here though. I have been doing my teaching AND administration since I came back here. It's just easier that way for everybody. I tried telling Jung how to do things more efficiently but we always ended up arguing. That's most likely why he quit. But I am glad he quit. For him as well as me.

The nice thing is I got a schedule WITH ROOM NUMBERS! For the first time ever! I was very happy about that. Peter even gave me a map of the campus AND something else I've been asking for forever, a school calendar. Now I know when holidays and sports week and scheduled events are taking place and I won't be going to class and finding it empty any more. So things are looking up here I think. I'll know better as we settle into classes.

And you can be sure I'll let you know.