tuesday, february 13th was my last day teaching the first grade students at my elementary school. at the beginning of the school year i was excited to teach the 1st graders since i had taught kindergarten the previous year and it was a lot of fun. back then i taught around four to eight students at a time. in the elementary school, however, i usually had an overwhelming eighteen students at once. at first this was really difficult, and throughout the year the first graders were definitely the most stressful and tiresome group to teach. not because they were trouble, but due more to the fact that they are little bundles of energy and it's very hard to keep up with them. it sometimes took a lot of effort to keep lessons from falling into total chaos. as the year progressed, i figured out how to better handle them, and they turned out to be an awesome group to teach.

on that day, my korean co-teacher ally and i had to give them a placement test to determine which english class they'd be in for the following semester. those blue folders on their desks are used to curb any temptation to cheat on the test.

from left: (front row) peter, taehee, taewan, ana, mike, cindy, hannah, hayeon, and seunghyeon. (second row) ginny, junggeun, seongjun, charles, hyeokjun, and jenny. (third row) vincent, yaechan, jihee, me, and alissa.

from left: (front row) molly, juny, yoonki, dongseok, hoyoung, yaerim, dohui, and sarah. (back row) yoonjin, joey, yaechan, inseo, me (back), yuna, sujin, julie, and amy.

the girl in the bottom left is molly, she came to the school in the middle of the year and could already speak english really well. i always tried to keep her included in our activities since she was the new kid, and i think she was doing really well. when i left a lot of the kids gave me goodbye cards and hers was really cute. she wrote, Matt Teacher, I want to play with you every day. Don't go. When you going? byby. from, Molly

from left: (front row) sarah, lina, younghyeon, grace, julia, katie 1, ray, amos, philip, dohyeon, and kwanghee. (back row) doyeon, dawon, subin, rosa, and me.

from left: (front row) juwon, kwanji, seungki, wonseok, wonmyeong, and brian. (back row) soyoung, sumin (back), dayeon, ga-young, domin, sae eun, and katie 1 (back).

from left: amy, sumin, subin (in back), younghyeon, grace, ga-young, dayeon, soyoung, sarah, sae eun, katie 2, lina, and katie 1

those girls were cute, after the class they didn't want to let me leave so they literally held me in the class against my will. it wasn't until the next class started that their teacher finally made them set me free.

tagged: 1st grade elementary kids korea school students