The school year, as I've mentioned, in Korea goes from March to February, as opposed to September to June at home. Here's a breakdown of what the school year looks like:
March-April: first half of first semester (teaching for almost two straight months)
April/May: midterms (read: off for one week. You may have to go to school, but there is certainly no teaching going on)
May-July: second half of first semester
early July: exams (read: sometimes upwards of three weeks off. Again, we are expected in the school, but at this point, the teachers are prepping the kids for exams and need the "extra class time", so English conversation class is bumped)
July-August: summer vacation (this lasts about a month, but for me, it seemed to last forever. At this point, since I was so new, I completed some lesson plans, showed them to My Man, but had nothing else to do. Some schools insist that teachers come in during summer vacay even when the kids are gone, but once I was done my mandatory one week of summer camp, I was off for about four or five weeks. Nice-uh)
August: At this point, we were back at school, but it took a good month to get officially back into the swing of things. The kids were still in summer vacay mode, and I taught very few classes. Again, I was new, so this could have something to do with it, but I spent a LOT of time on the lesson, "Getting to know your new English teacher". If they are speaking English, I'm doing my job, so we sat around and they asked me questions. Sweet job for a month.
late September: midterms (another week off)
December: whole month of not much to do (the kids are ramped up for the end of the year, the holidays, and the snow. They don't want to do anything, so we play games much like the past tense game I posted. They do learn of course, but it looks and feels very fun).
late December: final exams. This is very confusing, being that the year doesn't end until February, but here we are writing finals. This means a LOT of time is spent in the classroom with the homeroom teachers, mastering the exam questions (read: no English class). I was off in the teachers' office for the entire month of December, pretty much. Though we taught right up to Christmas Eve and returned on December 26 or 27, it was a relaxed environment.
January-mid February: winter vacation. I was off for one whole month and in Thailand.
February: the last two weeks of this month will be in the classroom, AFTER the students have "graduated" from their respective grades, and two weeks BEFORE they start the new year. They'll be pretty, pretty unmotivated, but I'm sure I have some tricks up my sleeves.
* Note: Chinese New Year is this weekend = four day weekend. THEN the weekend after next is right before the new school year starts = another four day weekend. February has been very, very relaxed for me.
It's not unique for schools to only be "in session" for very limited amounts of time. Schools in Ontario are very similar. But when I compare my schedule to a) others who work at public schools (read: non-vocational) and to b) private schools (known as hagwons here), it's pretty spectacular.
Now for a little glimpse of my school. Here's one of the women who cooks us lunch (when I eat there, which is rarely anymore), and what the caf tray looks like after a meal...
On very special occasions, we are fed high-quality Korean food like this stuff...
- hoards of kimchi
- Chinese noodles and bulgogi (strips of beef in sauce)
- kimbap (rice rolled around egg, radish, ham, carrot [?], and rolled in seaweed)
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