Don't get me wrong. I do a lot of work, and I work hard when I am working. But there is a lot of downtime as an English teacher in Korea. A LOT. We are contractually limited to 18 teaching hours a week. Anything beyond that and the school has to pay out the behind, so my school treats extra hours like an ebola outbreak. An hour translates to one 40 minute class. Yet we work 8:30 to 4:30 every day. If my math is right, that means we're teaching roughly 10 percent of the week (I don't teach math). So what do I do with all those other hours?
Number 1: Lesson plan.
This is a no-brainer, of course. With all the extra time, there's no excuse for not being on top of your duties. But there's only so much lesson planning you can do. I'm finished with my official curriculum classes. For the year. That's through December.
My situation is atypical. Not in terms of free time, but concerning what I'm actually teaching in the classroom. My head-teacher has requested that every other lesson I teach non-curriculum material. Sounds cool, but it's pretty tricky. Since the desired effect is to develop the Korean kids familiarity with western culture, I started with western related things. Realistic greetings, western food, extreme sports, etc. After a while, and with two western teachers planning these extra classes, the idea-pool gets shallow. In my last three lessons I've taught fortune telling, the sign language alphabet, and origami. I always tie in some kind of key language that I think could be useful (future tense, parts of the hand, and geography respectively (don't ask me how geography and origami are related, I don't want to explain it)) but it's come to the point where I find an activity I want to do and assemble the language around the activity. Maybe not the most effective method of language instruction, but I'm working within the directives handed down to me.
The fact is, the kids don't care. And they don't need to. They know as well as I do that these "elective classes," as I call them, aren't applied to their grades and are, generally, nihil ad rem. This leaves me with a conflict of interest. Do I teach the language that I think they need to know, or do I try to keep them interested. I make a solid effort to do both, but I definitely favor the latter. Particularly because if they're not interested, then trying to teach what I consider critical language is just lost on a bored, rowdy classroom. I've had it happen before, and it's not fun for me, it's not fun for them. Their retention is nil and I leave feeling deflated and frustrated. Thus, origami is good for everyone.
I forget what I was talking about. Oh, right...
Number 2: Practice origami.
I'm getting really good.
Number 3: Facebook
I hadn't been on facebook for months before I got to Korea. I use it a lot more now, but I've kind of forgotten how. I'll use it to organize soccer games or get in on trail rides. But sometimes I'll open my homepage and just stare at it. "What am I supposed to do? Why is this a cultural phenomenon again?" The loop opened up and I fell right out. Sometimes I'll aimlessly click around and wonder why I'm looking at a friend of a friend of a friend's wall. "Who is this person, and how did I get here?"
Number 4: Streaming TV
Like I said, I'm watching the Jets play the Dolphins right now. I do a lot of TV watching, but this isn't limited to my downtime. In case you didn't know, I'm got a touch of the A.D.D. Lesson planning in the awkward silence of my office just kills me. I need some noise, some distractions to try to block out. Thus, I watch the Daily Show daily, sporting events frequently, and have watched I don't know how many episodes of Top Gear. Fantastic car show from the U.K. if you're not familiar.
Number 5: Keep up on current events.
I've never been so informed about events around the world. A lot of the websites out there are yellow-journalism garbage more concerned with their hit counter than reporting events in an accurate and unbiased fashion, but you take what you can get.
Number 6: Blogging
Sporadically.
Number 7: Playing with my new Kindle
Before I got the kindle, I felt like I couldn't read because busting out a book is a conspicuous way of saying, "Look! I'm doing absolutely nothing work related!" But now with the Kindle, I can just put it on my desk and read away. Pretty handy. And If anyone asks, I'm using the built in Oxford English Dictionary to snuff up on some etymologies. Cuz an online subscription to that thing ain't cheap. It also has free 3g, various games, email, and a web browser. Kin-dle! Kin-dle! Kin-dle!
I probably do more stuff, too, but I'm gonna go practice some more origami. Got to get this frog mastered.
Do boayo!
