Teaching Toddlers

by rowenalunablack

Being surrounded by adorable Asian kids sounds like incredible fun, and it is. Like any job, teaching is greatly rewarding at times. For my first couple of days, I observed the head Korean teacher, Betty, as she taught the English classes. I also spent some time in the classes of Leisa, the other native English teacher at the school.

The first class Betty introduced me to was ‘Green Class,’ a group of eight well-behaved five year-olds. To welcome me, each of them drew my portrait and penned the signature of their English names on the bottom. I learned that for one hour each morning, I was to be graced with the presence of Piona, Brian, Andy, Alice, Anny, Stella, Anna, and Ellie.

The second class I was to teach each morning was ‘Yellow Class,’ a group of six very young people ages 3-4. I did not speak Korean, they did not speak English, and we were all in for an especially colorful year.

After the lunch period, I left the ‘kindergarten’ building and was lead into the building next door, where we were to teach after-school classes to elementary and middle school students. There, I taught four classes a day and Leisa taught another four classes a day. The classes alternated so that both of us actually had six classes. Some days we, the native English teachers, taught them conversation, dialogue, and writing, and other days the Korean English teachers taught them grammar, reading, and writing.

Wall of the Kindergarten

Each class had a couple of books that we were to cover for the first twenty or thirty minutes of class. The rest of the class was for conversational lessons designed as we wished. While I had studied education and spent time tutoring and observing elementary and middle school classes in college, I had never taught. Thankfully the school outlined my responsibilities to me in plain English. My first and most basic task was to accomplish classroom management. Without a level of mutual respect and a set of rules, I could not hope to ever teach. Over the first couple of months I vividly saw how vital classroom management was. Only once the school year had ended in January did I realize I had finally corralled my classes into some degree of control.