Just a random week

On Tuesday of this week I taught a short lesson on greetings with my grade 3 middle school boys classes. I want to move them away from standard greetings such as the all too common, "How are you? I'm fine, and you?" I introduced some more casual greetings like, "How is your day going? What's up? What's going on?" These aren't things they'll learn in their textbooks but it will help them sound more natural when speaking English.

After the short lesson, we played a game that involved the Korean version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. It's called Kai, Bai, Bo in Korean and is used to solve most any dispute that the students may have. Well, the boys classes are super into competition, so the game quickly got wild and loud. At one point, a boy did a soccer style victory slide across the floor of the classroom to celebrate his rock, paper, scissors win and to taunt his opponent. I gave chocolates to the winning team, so the classes were more energized than ever. The students are finished with their curriculum and tests, so motivating them to learn or do anything productive in the classes is challenging, to say the least. Chocolate is a good motivator.

This week also saw all-time highs for covid-10 infections in Korea. With over 5000 cases per day, we are firmly into another wave and the strain on hospitals is becoming dire. Predictably, the 'living with covid' phase the government initiated some weeks back was completely premature and a terrible mistake according to doctors and anyone not hyper-focused on economic results. Even with this new spike in cases, the government said they would not reinstate previous restrictions not wanting to 'lose the progress that was achieved'. But I ask, what progress? We have more cases now than ever. 

Unsurprisingly, after a few more days of pressure and high case counts, the government backtracked and has implemented new social distancing restrictions on the population. Fewer people are allowed to gather at restaurant. Instead of 8 people, only six can dine together. Still too many, I think. There are reports of a digital vaccine passport being required for entry into certain businesses like restaurants and cafes, but I'm having trouble finding current information on the requirement.

Winter has definitely arrived in Korea. This week, the mornings have been cold, around 2° or 3° each day. It warms up a little throughout the afternoon but still chilly. Classrooms are being heated but also ventilated. So heating units are on and windows are open. I am living in a chilly bizzaro world.

On Friday morning, as I was gathering my things for my first period class, my co-teacher asked if I knew about the schedule change today. Of course, I did not. An extra class was added to my schedule at the end of the day. Surprise! Hope you have a spare lesson prepared. It's always been a nightmare scenario that I'd have no lesson planned for a class. Luckily, after nearly two years of teaching, I have enough material to draw on in these scenarios. 

With the surprise bonus class, I had four classes on Friday. And it was unusual in that I had four unique lessons to teach. Usually, I repeat lessons throughout the week, so it's easy to get into a groove. But with four unique lessons including one surprise class, I was definitely pushed to my limit. 

It's the weekend. What will happen next week? Stay tuned.