First Day of Classes

As requested, a quick update on my first day of classes; two sessions with the new first grade, and three with the second graders (that's 10th and 11th years), which took place in the school library--a very nice facility on the first floor of the "new" building.

There a classroom area in a back corner, where I previously had noted the occasional study hall being corralled. This is actually a pretty sweet teaching space, as it includes a laptop running Vista with Office 2007 , and is hooked up to a SmartBoard. I will be teaching here until the English Only Zone is completed.

So my intro lesson with first grade is the same as last semester: I introduce myself with a bit of biography, ending with a trio of self-descriptive similes--I am as smart as Einstein, as funny as Jim Carrey and as kind as Mother Teresa. Students have to write three of the same about themselves, and then read one out loud to the class. Today's winner: I am as silent as an assassin.

The second grade intro lesson is "What I Did On My Winter Vacation" since they already know me. After a PowerPoint highlighting my vacation activities, students had to write three sentences about something they did over winter break--following the structure I outlined.

The three classes contained a little over a hundred students, and I would say about half confessed to doing nothing other than going to "academy"--mostly math hagwons--playing computer games, sleeping in and/or watching TV. The most popular vacation-type activity was skiing trips to Vivaldi or Phoenix Park resorts. Next most commonly, students went to Jejudo or visited relatives in the countryside. A few went to Japan and one spent a week in Shanghai with his friends.

I don't really know that this has any particular significance, I just thought it was interesting, a data point. However, in glancing through the Vivaldi Park website, I did find this intriguing guest attraction: