Thursday, 27 August 2009

Lesson plans and quail eggs.

At dinner today, I encountered something which appeared to be green olives, and was informed by a well-meaning friend who thought I was vegan, that they were in fact fried whole quail eggs. Well, in that case, I suppose I'll eat them all the same. After all, I do eat chicken eggs, and I'm not about to give special treatment to quail just because they're cuter. The eggs tasted almost exactly the same as chicken eggs, with a slightly more rubbery outer layer when you first bite into them.

We've been divided groups of 3 or 4 to create example lesson plans together today. Tomorrow, one person from each group will present the group's lesson plan.

My group has 4 people and is rife with conflict. Lack of flexibility and poor communication strategies abound with my group-mates. We have, however, managed to produce a 50-minute high-school oriented lesson plan that I am reasonably satisfied with. Tomorrow morning, we'll present it. Hopefully, all goes well.

In other news, I am anxious to move into my own place, and to have my own personal space. But it's not all bad here. Sometimes, I feel incredibly frustrated, and sometimes, I feel completely content and happy. I'm making a lot of friends in the dorm; it took me a bit, since many of the orientees are what I would call narrow-minded and immature, but I've found at least 5 or so people whose company I regularly seek out, and whom I am beginning to consider friends. For those of you who know me well, you know this is an accomplishment for me, especially in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable place. If I can continue to push myself outside my comfort zone, then perhaps my luck will continue, and I will make friends just as easily when I arrive at my school.

Peace.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Pamela...I'm glad to hear that things are going well. I was just wondering, what kind of lesson plan you guys use. What is the content? Do you teach English in a similar way that we take foreign language classes, or is it like a traditional "English" curriculum would be here (i.e. literature, grammar, writing, etc.)? -Justin

menstrous said...

It depends a lot on the level of the students, but it's not taught like any of the "English" classes we took in school. Most of the Korean students learn English with an emphasis on reading and grammar skills from an early age from their Korean English teachers... but that's not what I'm supposed to teach. Basically, the goal of my classes will be to get the students to utilize the grammar and vocab they already know and get them to actually /produce/ English, in complete sentences, if possible. Most of them, even at high school level, will have a lot of trouble with word order and pronunciation, and won't be very confident in speaking or writing English, even though they are very good with both listening and reading. The goal of having 500 native speakers shipped into the city is, essentially, to get the students to feel more confident expressing themselves in English. My job is to find fun ways to practice speaking and writing in different contexts.

... does that answer your question? :)