6.01.2009

Words, words, words.

Last night -- I shit you not -- I had nightmares about grammar.

Trying to understand Korean grammar. Trying to explain English grammar. Pronunciation.

All night, I tossed and turned and went in and out of a light sleep, only to wake twenty minutes later muttering aloud about the correct way to form your mouth to make a strong 'w' sound.

I'm not making this up.

The result was me sitting on my kitchen floor at 7 am this morning, fully dressed, barely able to hold my head up and wondering how I was going to make it through all the small adjustments I had decided, in my sleep, I wanted to make to my lesson plans for this week.

Why all the sudden changes? Because I sat on the other side of the table from me last night. And it wasn't fun. In a solitary 3 hours, my teaching philosophy changed more than it has for probably the last three months. A lot of this is just trial and error for me, as well. So I've also recently seen the results of my teaching for the last few months. As in, there are certain phrases that several of the boys have used to me, since I taught those phrases to them. I'm able to see what sticks and what doesn't, and from there, assess what works and what doesn't.

It was another long-ass day at work, consisting of me teaching five classes and, in between, rushing around to finish making worksheets and notes, photocopies and presentations to push the lesson plans forward for this week. I was pleased with the results, and the boys seemed to respond to them as well.

I'm planning something that could go super-awry for the extra after school class I have to teach this week. I had to miss one session with my good class last week because of the business trip, so the poor lads have to come in three times in one week. I don't want to make them do overly serious stuff all three times, so I told them for the extra session, we'll do something fun. It involves food coloring and I'm a little afraid. We'll see.

Now, I have to study my Korean for Drill Sergeant C, who I meet again tomorrow night. I promised I would be able to respond to all of his questions in Korean without looking at my notes. Why did I do such a thing? I also want to surprise him by learning a few extra verbs. Prove I'm not as stupid as I look (or at least convincingly pretend not to be).

And why is this now my entire life?

Words, words, words. That's really all there is.

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