Pocheon Middle School "Special" class

We needed some English Artwork to display at the upcoming festival. These are some of the pictures that we'll hang up. Actually only about 18 kids out of a school of 500 got to even try to make the art work. They chose the 18 best, most likely to create excellent work. Kind of like having a competition, but only letting the top 1% of your school enter. Anyway... this is the result of an early morning english art class. I was really impressed at how well they did!

(1st years project)



This is the first year kids project. They had a "main" topic (Summer/Fall/Birthday/Vacation/etc) and then they wrote down as many words as they could think of that were associated with that topic... (Summer - Sun, Skirt, Icecream, Hot, Sun) then make a shape and instead of using lines, use words.

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(2nd year project)

This is the second year students project. They created their own comic-book super-hero. They wrote about their powers/abilities, and who they would help, and fight against, and what their name would be. The picture at the top is their super-hero's symbol.
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(3rd year project)

This is the third year's project. They used their names, and then thought of things about themselves that began with each letter of their name. For example some of the kids wrote things like "J - Jamboree; I am a party animal!", "L - Lovely; I am a lovely girl", "U - Unique; I am the only one like me in the world". Then they tried to make a small picture that represented what they'd said.

Class in the English Lab

This class is in the computer lab. The kids were still coming in.

Me: Who is coming?
Kids: (speaking Korean)
Me: In English!
Kids: Is, Sanghoon, is, yongoh, not come! (yongoh = English class)
Kids: (Arguing in Korean)
Me: He's not coming now? Or he is coming? Say "He is coming"
Kids: He is coming!
Me: We will wait for him then. Sit down please.

Introducing the topic to the class. It's a lot of repeating and gestures and they still only got the idea of a computer game in English.

Panning around the room while they are playing the game. It's called "Bookworm Adventures" It's a really cute game, and the kids love it. You spell words to fight against monsters. Longer words do more damage. You go up in level and get special treasures and abilities.

I'm trying to teach the kids to memorize a few phrases in English to use in the classroom. They usually say "Teacha! Teacha! Hep!". She's saying "Teacha, can, I, can you, can, can you hep me pleez? This what?"

Girl: Lex, is crazy?
Me: What do you say?
Girl: Can you help me, please?
Me; Yes. OK, now what is it?
Girl: Lex, light, what?
Me: Likes what? You mean, oh oh oh! OK.
Girl: What Lex, light?
Me: Can you see this?
Girl: Yes
Me: That means, he is getting burned.
Girl: Bund?
Me: Fire. Yea, like "fire is burning"?
Girl: ok, OK!

Where is she?

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My street. I live above a chicken soup restaurant. Next door is a duck restaurant. The next shop down is a dog meat restaurant.

This is my "Villa". I don't know why they call it that. This is the typical housing for people who are starting out, or who don't have kids. This is, obviously, my bed and windows.

Panning around, this is my bed and desk. You can see the laundry room behind.

This is the enterance/kitchen. You can just see the outline of the bathroom door between the kitchen and the front door.

My two standing closets, and a pair of chests that my friend gave me, stacked on top of eachother. Also a massive plant of some kind that so far I have succeeded in not killing.

This is my tiny kitchen. It's a bit hard to cook in here, because there's not really any counter space. Or storage space. Or space to turn around. But so far I've been pretty sucessful in making decent food.

The secret to my social sucess here in Korea... (just kidding... kind of) an

actual oven. Other western teachers envy the luxury of a real microwave and oven combination. I've had several westerners over for dinner, making roast chicken, casseroles, muffins and other baked goods.

Behind my house there is a small hill with a really beautiful walking path, picnic tables, and exercize equipment. When I'm not in a hurry I walk this way to get to my school.

Pocheon Middle School had a festival to celebrate their fall semester. It was a really big deal for the kids. They hung up all the art work and projects the kids have done for the last year, and had two days of games, competitions, tallent shows and class presentations. It was quite fun, but very noisy. This is the first year class, banging orange noise makers that are very popular in Korea.

The pictures and little houses on the table were all made by the kids. Not in *my* classes, obviously! I was surprised at how good a lot of their work was.

They had a competition for jumping rope. They had different classes, and groups of kids, all jumping. They counted how many times they could jump before someone made a mistake. These kids got up near 40 I think, I can't hear what he said exactly.


It's difficult to tell what they are doing at first, watch through to the end. One student is running across the backs of his classmates. There are actually 3 classes running at once, this is the first year class. They won. The kids are yelling "il-ban-fighting" (First years, fighting!)