My first day of teaching!

Yeah! I survived my first day of teaching:)

It was a complete rush of emotions from 3:30 until midnight. I went thought just about every emotion you could think of in one day. Happy, excited, anxious, nervous, confused, joyful, and my favorite of the day would be the feeling of accomplishment and achievement. Maybe those two are not the same type of emotions, but you know what I mean, right?

From the moment my first student walked into my classroom at 3:50, I felt a rush of panic and a feeling of "oh my gosh, there is a student who is here to learn English from ME." I was just a student in a class a little over three months ago! How did this happen? I had to take a breath and calm down. After the twelve students came into my class, I pulled myself together and went through the syllabus, attendance, a welcome letter, and I introduced myself. I probably sounded pretty stupid, but I couldn't think of anything else to say. "Hi guys, I'm Miss. Mendick but you can call me teacher ( teacher is what they call their Korean teacher at their school). I told them I am from the United States and one of my passions is traveling. One kid loved the fact that I was from New York. He couldn't get over it!

My 4-7 pm class was full of 5th and 6th graders. They were pretty quiet at first, but by the time the last hour came around and it was time for projects, they were talkative and were engaged into the project. My 7-10pm class was full of 8th and 9th graders. They were quiet the entire time until the project too. It was like dead silent. No one wanted to talk even if I called on them. There were also only two girls in this class who were shy, so I am going to have to get them to participate more. Two boys in this class were making jokes the entire time in Korean and I had to finally say, hey what is so funny? I like a good laugh, tell me the joke! (in a funny tone) They knew they were not paying attention and got the hint that I was picking on them because of that.

All in all the first day went well, but I am looking forward to meeting more kids and to gain more experience. I want to be the perfect teacher right now and understand that is not going to happen. I have to take one day at a time and improve each day. I am also trying to set goals for myself for each day too. Whether it be to make the class more fun, talkative, or even spice up the lesson. I need to do this because at 9 pm these kids want to go home and go to sleep. If I can find a way so that they want to be in the class and participate my goal will be accomplished and my job will be that much more fun. I had a fantastic first day:) Time for round two: the second day! I will meet all new kids and try my best to put my personality out there more. This is my goal for day two.
Love,
Kristen