One of the joys of my job is my afterschool class, Sarangbang. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, I get 13 5th and 6th graders from 6-8 p.m. We have a text that we work out of that teaches phrases like, "What will he do?" "He will go swimming." We also have a reading curriculum where each week, we read one story on Monday and Tuesday, and then on Thursday they have a reading quiz. (This week it was Goldilocks.)
However, the real joy of Sarangbang is that I am the head teacher in this class, and therefore, get to do whatever the frick I want. This has yielded some interesting results, since I have had no prior teaching experience, but it has also yielded some purely joyous moments.
Last week, I did an exercise with my kids were I wrote Who, What, How, Where, When, Why on the board. Then, the class had to give me an answer to put under each of these column headers. I would then create a story using the answers they had given me, and they would repeat the story back to me in their own words. Here's what this activity yielded:
First, we have, "Miss Kayleigh will fly using her wings to Seoul tomorrow to see her father." Second, "Mrs. Nam (my coteacher) will run to Beijing right now using pigs legs for the Olympics." Third, "Kim (a girl in class) will fight right now in Miss Kayleigh's home, using her head because she is happy." And lastly... and get ready for this one... "Big Bang will sing right now using spoons in the English classroom for Miss Kayleigh's wedding." I'm sure there's no doubt in your mind that the kids lost their minds over this one! Ever since this episode, I have been lovingly called "Big Bang's Wife"... and insult was added to injury when my cell phone accidentally rang in the middle of class a couple days later, because what is my ringtone? None other than Big Bang. Perfect.
One of the favorite activities for my Sarangbang class is a review game where 3 students stand with their backs to the board, I write a vocabulary word on the board, and then their teammates have to take turns describing the word, in English or Korean, until their teammate can guess the word behind them. (My coteacher monitors the Korean so that they don't cheat!) This game was working reeeeaaaaally well, until one little smartypants figured out a new tactic:
If you couldn't tell what was going on- the boy in the middle, Rooney, figured out that it's not exactly cheating if you spell out the word on the board using other English words. Sneaky little guy... you hear me reprimand him with, "No acting," because they're supposed to be using only words, not writing the letters in the air... sneaky little guy!
Finally, one of my favorite moments happened with one of my Sarangbang students during the school day. We were teaching the sentence, "What's he/she doing?", using a cheer. The cheer went, "Nami Nami, Sis Boom Bah," or, "Jinho Jinho, Sis Boom Bah,". Nami is a female character from the curriculum and Jinho is a male character from the curriculum. We split the class and told the girls to cheer for Nami and the boys to cheer for Jinho. All of the sudden, Justin, from my Sarangbang class stands up and says, "But I love Nami!!" Classic.
Justin
So, there's some Sarangbang stories to warm your heart- I'm sure more will be on their way!
