Tomorrow is a big day for us. For the last five days we have shuffled around from class to class and had the rudiments of Korean culture, language, and education jammed into our brains. We’ve once again had to go through the nerve-wracking experience of choosing where to sit in the lunch room, as well as choosing a seat in lecture.
The lectures themselves have been useful. Four classes a day, 90 minutes each, two before and two after lunch. Classes on Korean culture. On teaching elementary school. On teaching reading, on classroom management, on lesson planning. On EPIK life and life on Korea. On making one’s English comprehensible.* Once, notably, we went rowing on the Han River and learned takkyeon, a traditional Korean martial art.
The payoff for all this, of course, is that we’re hopefully prepared when we hit our classrooms next week. And I’m incredibly nervous.
As always, my nerves wax and wane. Some hours I think I’ll be brilliant. Others that it’s going to be a nightmare as I stumble through a boring lesson in front of a group of bewildered students, while my principal, no-doubt an older, distinguished, very stern-looking Korean man looks on in disappointment and vague disgust.
Tomorrow is when the real work begins. We’ll start with presenting a lesson, and while I DO feel pretty confident about this one – I’m one of the only people here with teaching experience, many of the rest of these lunatics signed up without even a teaching degree – it’s still a nerve-wracking experience knowing your first outing teaching a brand new grade level (I drew elementary for this assignment) and subject (I’ve never taught ESL before) is going to be watched and judged by an experienced stranger. My partner and I at least have the happy duty of going first, so we’ll get to set the bar (naturally I shall set it very high).
Later, though, we’ll meet a bunch of officials – the officials responsible for selecting us in the first place. Most people are meeting the heads of their Provincial or Metropolitan Office of Education. I, however, am not working for a POE or an MOE, I’m working for a private school. So I’ll meet my principal directly, tomorrow. Most people will be meeting them in groups – usually a dozen or so teachers are assigned to one province. I will be solo. My Korean is all-but nonexistent, although I am improving at comprehension, at least. So yeah. It’s nerve-wracking.
Intellectually, I feel more prepared than anyone. I know I’m an okayish teacher when my heart’s in it. Sometimes maybe even a good one! But my heart still pounds when I think about tomorrow, or when I (gulp) think about my first day or week in front of an actual class!
This is normal, I think. Consider students. Is there any one of us who wasn’t nervous on the first day of school, right up through 12th grade, into college, and beyond? Even though we can be masters at going to school, after more than a decade of it, we still feel a bit of trepidation. Will I do well? Will I make friends? Will I make some mortifying faux pax that will tar my name in infamy for the entirety of the coming year? What if I can’t find all my classes?
So I’m not too concerned about the fact that my stomach is turning somersaults. Totally normal feeling, nothing to be afraid of.
But man, sometimes I wish I was still in the warm, cozy confines of Wydown Middle School.
*My English is apparently a nightmare for foreigners to attempt to parse. I talk too fast, use too many idioms, too many hand gestures, and too many changes in tone. Koreans don’t like changes in tone – theirs is a monotone language.
Gwangju Dreaming 