I had completely forgotten about this!! Throughout last week we had our annual "Golden Bell" challenge, an English test at Hae Song conducted by my coteacher Ms. Lim and myself. The 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grades participated. Each grade went on a different day, and they all got markerboards and would write their answers and raise them in the air; last one standing wins. The questions ranged from spelling, "what am I?" riddles, and some true or false questions.
If any of you remember my schedule, I teach and see everyone from the 3rd grade up but I also run my immersion classes and have a group of about 5-10 students from each grade that I see 4 times a week. Initially, I was not happy about this class. The curriculum is still a little dry, but these are my babies and the classes that I enjoy the most now. It was just a matter of making the curriculum fit what I wanted to do - it has definitely improved with time!
Anyhoo.. I have to say I couldn't be more excited about how the immersion kids did. I tried to keep a loose eye on them throughout the Golden Bell Challenge and from what I saw I thought they did great. In fact, out of about 100 kids per grade (roughly), I maybe have 5% of them in my immersion class. I am happy to say that the 3rd and 4th grade winners were both members of my immersion class!! The 3rd grader, Julia, has actually lived in the States for the majority of her life so I wasn't flabbergasted to see her win. My 4th grader, Jason, has learned all his English here though. It was very exciting. Generally speaking, I usually had one of the immersion kids in the top 5 or so in each class.
Sometimes it feels as if my teaching style is throwing a bunch at a wall and hoping some of it sticks. Some days it feels great, rewarding, and fulfilling. Some days it feels slightly less than that. I am happy to say that those rewarding days where I actively see them learning are beginning to outnumber the days where I feel I have fallen on my face. As long as they have fun, which feels like most of the time, I am happy though!
That's all to report from Hae Song. Other than that, school is going great!!
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