meeting the mentor teachers

After fighting with the ethernet cable yesterday all evening, there's finally wi-fi available at Jeonju University. Today, we started off with a lecture on teaching through songs and chants. The lecture was quite helpful and I am definitely going to incorporate music in my activities/lessons to help my students learn the key phrases/vocab.

After class, I met my mentor teacher (Mr. Shin Hwa-sub). We both agreed on exchanging lessons to learn Korean (for me) and English (for him). Mr. Shin has been teaching math at the elementary school (Galdam Elementary) for 5 years and he wishes to work his way towards teaching English in school. I think it is great for him to pursue an advancement in the education system. Galdam Elementary has about 60 students total and I will be the first TaLK scholar that the school has had. So, the pressure is on for me to set the bar high and give the school a positive impression of how much fun it is to have a TaLK scholar.  I'm so glad I have a friend who is teaching in the same city and it looks like we won't be living far from each other. I went with my mentor teacher to the immigration office and filled out my application for my alien registration card. Then we headed back to Jeonju University and we'll meet again on Monday to go shopping for things I will need in my apartment. I actually have another mentor teacher (Jeung) who I can also contact in case I need help with anything. So it's good to know that one mentor teacher won't be too overwhelmed.

I won't be meeting the principal and vice principal of my school until Monday when my mentor teachers show me around. Imsil is quite far from Jeonju (about 1-1 1/2 hr) by car. There's many things I have to say to my mentor teacher and vice versa, but because of the language barrier I'm doing a lot of hand gestures and lip reading. It seems that when I write down what I am saying, Mr. Shin understands and then we can communicate better. I have a 600, 000 won settlement fee for my place since I am the first TaLK Scholar. So I will need to buy a bed, sheets, blankets, etc. Fun stuff. I look forward to Monday because that's when I will actually be able to visit the school and meet everyone. The only down side is that I don't have a co-teacher, which means I am going to be teaching all by myself. So there won't be a teacher in the classroom with me who can translate in Korean if the kids are acting up or such. However, that might be good because if the korean co-teacher uses Korean, the kids will have the tendency to listen and rely on the co-teacher's translation and ignore the English. So, the more English they are exposed to, the better:) Overall, I am happy with my mentor teacher and I look forward to my adventurous experiences in Korea.