Training Course

Hey, so I haven't written on my blog for a bit, but I'm back now.

I went on a training course in Daejon.  It was an Epik course so there was a variety of other foreign teachers there, probably somewhere close to 250.  Although I did not interact with all of them I was placed in a class with people that live in the same province as me and there were more than 20 people in that class.  I liked the set up because it meant that I could make friends with a bunch of people that I may well see again.

The course started last saturday, so it meant getting up at the ripe time of 6am, which I have to say is a pain in the neck on your day off.  My Principal drove me to Changwon and from there I took a bus along with some other teachers to Daejon.  The bus journey was uneventful, for the most part, but I did have a good time talking to new people. But once we did finally arrive in Daejon the bus broke down, yet not far from where we would be staying. We were forced to wait for another bus of teachers to pull back around and come and get us however, so that was a bit of a pain.

Therefore when we arrived, we were late, so some of our classes were either pushed back or cancelled.  Amusingly there was one of the organisers who had limited vocal power, so she was unable to garner enough attention.  So she asked Tim, a Brit to call out what she was saying, however she was telling us irrelevant stuff and we all burst out laughing at the stuff ups, but she took it personally and took a certain disliking to Tim after that.

We had a chance to settle into our rooms, unfortunately though we had to share, two to a room.  I got a snorer, which proved to be a pain throughout my time there.

However during the course of the week we had 12 hour days, taking in many classes in various things and there were also three classes of Korean, which although was at a lower level than perhaps I required I still found various parts usful.  I would have preferred to have more Korean classes however.  The classes on the whole were pretty good and helpful in places.  Although I am still generally new to teaching, I have at least had some experience so the basic stuff I have already picked up of my own acord.  But to help counteract doing the basic stuff over and over, I was in a class of people where there were only 3 people who had never taught before.  So everybody else had anywhere between 4 months and 8 years of experience teaching in Korea.  So each of our classes were aimed more at allowing people in the class to share their experiences and although I have little to bring to the table I feel any of my criticisms or advice was logical and I'm told also useful.

I cracked wise for much of the week, but people seemed to like me, which is nice.  One person commented on the fact that I was going somewhat over the top on my talking, but to be fair I guess I was just enjoying having other people around me that understand what I'm going on about.  I sort of revelled in it, that's over now.  I'm back in quiet Tongdosa.

During the course we had to do a short version of a lesson, but still prepare a lesson plan for the whole lesson.  Luckily the group I was in picked out the family and Barry already had the partial makings of a lesson that we could use.  We tweaked it and produced some other stuff and then presented it at the end of the week.  It was pretty good and watching other people do theirs game me ideas.  So hopefully we helped one another in that.

Finally, there was the 'Talent Show' by which it was rather a class performance.  All week I had had no interest in the concept or in performing it. However, when it got down to the day to do it I got up on stage with the other people and performed the chacha slide.  Other classes did other things and some of them were really good, but I guess the difference is that our class had the whole class up there, where as the others only used a selection.  Then finally the Epik staff did a dance that they had been working on all week.  It was strange, but it was really good.  I'd like to get a copy of the dance, just to watch it again.

So I have come away from the training course with new ideas and new friends and hopefully both of those will help to make my life in Korea anywhere between tolerable and good.