Ugh.

Some of you (my mother in particular) may have noticed my recent lack of blog posts. To be honest, I've been hesitant to write about my experiences lately because most of them have been negative and a bit stressful.

...But since it's all part of the package, I suppose it won't hurt to air a few grievances! For starters, teaching isn't exactly the rewarding ball of fun I had hoped it would be. The idea behind the EPIK program is a sort of cooperative teaching effort where the Korean teacher is the primary teacher and the native speaker is the assistant in the classroom. In practice (at my school at least) this is not how it works out. My co-teachers essentially use it as an excuse to lessen their workload. It's somewhat of a consensus among the staff that they don't have to participate in my classes and they generally sit in the back of the classroom (if/when they decide to show up) staring off into space until the bell rings. This is very stressful for me for two reasons.

First, discipline is a HUGE problem. It is very difficult to discipline Korean middle schoolers across a cultural/language barrier - even more so because I am 22 year old white female (a.k.a. I command no respect in Korean culture so kids don't feel any compulsion to listen to me). In many of my classes, I have 40 screaming individuals who eat, talk on their cell phones, play their game boys, and chat through the entire lesson. I often feel as if the co-teacher, who also has no interest in my participating in my lesson, is hanging me out to dry! I'm convinced that if I got more respect from my co-teachers, the kids would follow suit. Unfortunately, they generally set a terrible example.

The second problem is keeping the kid's attention when they don't understand me. The middle school I teach at is very low level. Even after 5-6 years of English, some kids don't know the alphabet (how this is possible I'm not sure) so it's hard to teach them at the expected level for their grade.

To learn to deal with this situation, I've had to develop a thicker skin and not care as much if I don't teach an amazing lesson, or if the kids behave badly. I'm quick to take responsibility for everything which has left me feeling terrible the last few weeks, but the more I'm realizing the impossibilities of my situation, the more I'm relaxing and taking joy in small victories - 10 kids paying attention, or having 15 minutes of class go well. For the most part, I don't blame the kids. They study a ridiculous amount of time everyday and it's not their choice to learn English. By the time an ungraded English conversation class rolls around, I think that I, too, would like to sleep and chill out with my friends. C'est la vie.