A new semester already!

Wow.  We have been here for a month and a half already.  It's mind-boggling how quickly time has flown, isn't it?

Last week was fairly easy for us at Welton School.  We taught for only half the week.  Thursday was a national holiday (and Ben's birthday!), so we got to stay home.  Friday we went to work, but we only had to decorate our classrooms.  I tied for best decorated (with Ben's help)!

Monday marked the start of a new semester for us and the kids.  Our seven-year-old classes from last semester graduated, so now my old class is a seven-year-old class, and we have a bevy of new six-year-olds who don't speak a lick of English.

I got to stay with my homeroom class from last month, but now I'm down to just seven students.  That's fine with me!  Less homework to grade and more one-on-one time with them.  For my afternoon kindergarten class, I get to spend two whole hours with the brand new six-year-olds.  They're really cute, but I have one whose mom is "famous" in Korea, and she can be a little, well... entitled.  It's a struggle to get her to understand that she has to stay in her seat, much less pay attention in class.

With my new six-year-olds, I've adopted a "star" system of reward and discipline.  They start out with a number of stars, and if they do something that breaks the rules (get up without permission, hit, talk excessively in Korean--still working on that one, or disobey), I make a loud buzzer sound and take away a star.  Call it my version of operant conditioning.  I guess I was wrong when I said I would never use my psychology degree!

In the afternoons, hardly any of the teachers have breaks.  We have many more elementary students signed up for this semester, so our class sizes are larger, and we have more classes.  I teach four elementary classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and five on Tuesday and Thursday.  Needless to say, by the end of today we will be ready to crash.

The high point of this week was speaking with my boss about my teaching style.  He sat in and observed two classes of mine yesterday (one kindy and one elementary), and I was concerned as I had never received any feedback from him.  He had almost entirely positive comments for me!  I feel much better about how I manage my classroom now, and he even called our recruiter to thank him for introducing us to him.

So all in all, a fairly good week.

Take care everyone.
Rebekah