Today was Katie's birthday! She's one of our newest teachers (from the Cananda!) and we all met at a jjimdak restaurant to celebrate before work. Jjimdak is a chicken dish (chicken = dak) with noodles and veggies, cooked in a spicy sauce, with the option of cheese melted on top (an option that we obviously took advantage of). The server in the restaurant originally turned the 11 of us away, saying that he didn't have enough room, but eventually he let us in as 2 different groups. It was quite a lovely lunch, which was kinda ruined by that fact that we then had to go to work...
At work, we were supervising placement tests. The students take these tests every 4 months or so and the Hagwon takes these very seriously and are quite strict about time etc., during the period. The tests contain over a hundred multiple choice questions that include a vocabulary selection, reading comprehension, grammar, and listening comprehension. The listenings alone took half an hour to get through and the full test lasted, depending on the level, an hour to an hour and a half. During the test, the teachers paced the room (which is 2 rows of desks) and handed out white-out tape where necessary. Once their time was up, we would check for homework completion and use the rest of the time to do some sort of language exercise with them (I got one of my classes to write a quick 'speech' on whether they'd rather be a dinosaur or have one as a pet. I though it would be fun and entertaining, but they actually struggled to find two reasons to support their decision.).
In my first period, one of my kids developed a nose bleed. I discretely gave him the remainders of the tissue box that was under my desk and he proceeded to stuff them into his nose. He eventually signalled to me that he was going to leave and I gave him to OK. A few minutes later, the slipped back into the room and collected his things, quietly explaining that he was being sent home early. I was quite impressed at how quietly he was being... It's unfortunate that a moment later, one of the other teachers came in a loudly announced that the boy was being sent home, which made the rest of the class look up from their test and turn around to see what was going on. This was, of course, during the listening section of the class, and I can only hope that they didn't miss a question because of the interruption! At the end of the period, I wiped down the desk where the boy had been sitting (and cleared away the bloody tissues).
The next class came in and, wouldn't you know it, the girl who sat down at the same desk had a runny nose! She quickly ran out of her own tissue, which was soggy and falling apart, and proceeded to use her sweater to catch the drips. I went to grab my tissues, but it was empty from the nose bleed incident! I watched her struggle for a bit, as I contemplated what to do. In the end, I e-mailed the desk teachers and asked them to bring me a new box of tissues. One of them appeared, asking for clarification of what I wanted. I handed her the empty box and asked for more. She looked a little confused (we wouldn't normally request a box of tissues in the middle of a period) but accepted the request and returned with a box. I placed the box beside the girl, who gratefully took some, and continued my pacing. At the end of the period, I again wiped down the desk with a wet wipe. Yuck.
Not the most exciting post, but hey, wasn't the most exciting work day!
No comments:
Post a Comment