Today we had our opening ceremony and then leveled the students. Sonja and I arrived at 9:20 because Sonja told me Jenny said we should be there early. I don't remember hearing that. We went down to the basement of the library where the ceremony was to take place. Students were still filing in but Jenny was on stage speaking Korean. When she saw us peeking in she said "Hi Rick". She may have also said hi to Sonja. We walked in - I said hello to everyone and we went to the front to sit down. The other four trainers from the high school group were there. We weren't sure if we were late or what. At about 9:30, Jenny stopped talking and they all got up and left. Turned out we were early and we had entered the orientation for the high school group in the middle!
After they left, our group entered as well as the three other trainers from our group. Woops!
After the orientation we leveled the students by interviewing them and divided them into even groups of 12 students each. Of course, the students complained - some thought they should be in a higher level. 3 students who work at the same school are in the same class and don't like each other so they want to move to other classes. I was able to deal with one of my students who didn't like that she was in the lowest class, but I think Jenny is going to move the other students from the same school to different classes. That means instead of an easily divisible class of 12, we're going to end up with one class of 11 and one with 13. I hate uneven numbers. It makes it really difficult for pair work!
I ended up with the lowest group today. Some are very low. Some are not too bad. Some of them are not even English teachers. One guy is a PE teacher. Trying to get them to answer questions was like pulling teeth, though they did well with group and pair work as long as it had a clear language focus.
After class Sonja and I went for a walk. I wanted to go to the stationary store and get more memory cards and some pens. I bought memory cards the other day and have used them all. I write Korean words or letters on one side and the English on the other side. I've been studying the alphabet again and trying to learn some key vocabulary like "beer", "excuse me" and "how much?"
From the stationary store we took a walk through a different neighborhood. It was very quaint and filled with all kinds of little shops.
It was dinner time and we started looking for places to eat. Sonja said she wanted pork. I don't know Korean pork restaurants. I only know beef and chicken. She also wanted beer. And it was hot, so we wanted air-conditioning. I also wanted to sit in chairs and not on the floor if we could.
We walked for quite a ways and I was not sure about any of the restaurants we passed. Most didn't seem to serve pork, and those that did looked hot. We finally just walked all the way back to campus and to the row of restaurants nearby. I was sure one of them was a pork restaurant.
Sure enough, the last one in the row was pork barbecue. I didn't know what to order, so I just pointed to a picture that looked like bacon on a grill. It was 5,000 won. The young woman serving us, told us for two people we wanted three orders. It turned out three meant exactly that - three strips.
It was okay. The pork was kind of fatty and we had to sit on the floor. I was starving though, so I would have eaten anything at that point.
I'm now in my cool room and exhausted. I really hate to go to sleep this early (it's 7:10 p.m.), but it is too hot to be outside and I don't know what else to do.
Maybe I'll turn on the TV and see if there is anything entertaining on.
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