5 1/2 days and counting

"It's December 17th," one shy 5th grader states.

"Right! And how many days until Christmas?" I ask.

"Uh...(counting on fingers in Korean)...eight!"

"eight...?"

"It's eight days!" she exclaims, knowing candy is close now.

"Good! Eight days until Christmas," I confirm, pulling out a mini candy cane. "This is for you. Thank you for your help today!"

"Thank you, Ms. Bryant," she quietly says over her classmates envious groans.

And that's the extent of my teaching the last two days. Then we turn on the Harry Potter and the kids are pretty happy with their end of the year English class. Here in Korea, religiously affiliated holidays are fair game to teach in school. Plus our winter vacation coincides with the date of Christmas so it makes sense to count down to winter vacation as well as Christmas. Last year I made an advent calendar and introduced the idea of counting down days with candy. I think it's a great way to start class with a reminder of how to say the date in English and doing a little counting. For a lot of my students, this is still very difficult. In fact, only my 6th graders are expected to know months and ordinal numbers in English. Today and tomorrow I'll teach a Christmas themed lesson to 150 adorable 3rd graders. Next week will be more movies & Christmas songs. The kids are so burned out this time of year with tests, open classes, and end of the year cleaning in their homeroom classes that they need a little rest in English class.

As of December 25th our school has a 5 week holiday. We come back February 1st for 2 weeks of cleaning, graduation, and evaluations, then another 2 weeks off before the 2010 school year starts around March 1st. I may or may not be placed at the same school next semester, that information will be given out Feb 27th or 28th. Yes, the day before school starts.

So the big news: I was chosen as one of the top 11 teachers in Jeju for 2009! Every foreign teacher had to submit a video evaluation in late spring of last year and ours was chosen as one of the best. So what does that mean? We get a letter of commendation from the Jeju Provincial Office of Education and if we re-sign our contract we'll get a raise. I don't plan to re-sign next fall, though, so unfortunately it doesn't affect my pay. Also, the video that my co-teacher and I made for the Korean National Education Office is on the EPIK (English Program in Korea) website. Only the first 3 minutes will play (there's some glitch in the player) but you can check it out at www.epik.go.kr. Go to "Teacher's Resources" at the top, then "VOD" on the left hand menu. We are "dong elementary school" from Jeju. Apparently my name is Bryant Kafissa Ann. Ah well. No one can pronounce it, anyway.

It's been snowing here for the past few days. Maybe we'll have a white Christmas in Jeju!

Merry Christmas!