one of the most fun aspects of my times in korea was all the kids i got to hang out with teaching for two years. this past year teaching in the elementary school was a lot of fun, and i think among the three age groups i taught, the third graders were my favorite. my theory for this is that i'm basically still a third-grader at heart, so we were all on the same level.

this is just one of four groups of third graders that i taught. these kids were amazing at english and also just all around great kids. in the front kneeling from left to right is ethan (he was going through an english name identity crisis and thus sometimes known as ernie) and eddie (he always did well on the tests and i knew he was good at english, but he preferred making only animal sounds). in the back from left to right there's kristine, ally, jessica, soo kyung (barely visable in the back), jenny, sojung, christina (a really cool kid making double peace signs in this shot), emily, lucy, daniel, jay, steve, jimin (aka julia, she really like me and bless her heart she cried when i was leaving), seungyeon, and bert (in this picture looking very much like the outcast he seemed to be).

ah, i sure do miss the power to completely ruin a youngster's day by walking in and giving them a test. well, this test was super easy and just a review of everything we'd learned all year. like most tests, about eighty percent of the students got a 90 or better on it, and the other twenty percent of students got less than half right. from front to back and left to right that's koki in the first row, columbus in the second, yeonyeong and dohyeon in the 3rd row, and kwanjin and junseong in the back. look at columbus (i know, hilarious choice for an english name) and how he looks like he's thinking really hard. notice how it doesn't so much look like someone who's thinking but more like someone who's trying to look like he's thinking. he'd always goof around in class and i'd find myself in the bizarre position of scolding the discoverer of america and telling him to stop talking and pay attention. he wasn't very good at english, but during the tests he'd make all these faces to show how hard he was trying. then of course the test would come back and it'd be all wrong. oh, columbus. someday perhaps he'll hit upon that discovery that if you at least try looking at the teacher and listening just a little you might start to get what's going on.

in the front row from left is sara and hwanhee, in the back it's suyeon and selena (although she spelled it salina, is that a possible spelling?)

meanwhile, i wasn't really all that mean by giving the test on the last day. it only took about twenty minutes, and i let them goof around for the last half of the class. here's a video of hwanhee demonstrating this game that was all the rage for a while among the 3rd graders. here's a short little lesson you need before watching, the only thing you'll hear hwanhee say is 야! (ya!) which basically means hey!. and at the very end when hwanhee starts chasing minkyu around the room, you'll hear sara hilariously cheering on i suppose the general idea of a classroom chase with very nice! good! good!.

tagged: 3rd grade elementary korea school students video