My Class Schedule

Now that I’ve completed two full weeks of classes, it seems like a good time for an update. Every day I begin teaching at 9:40 am; each day I teach the same kids, but the subjects vary. According to my contract, if I begin teaching after 10 am I should arrive an hour beforehand, but since it is earlier I need to be at least half an hour early. It is nice to have a little prep time in the morning, plus the buses bringing the kids tend to arrive at around 9:30. I have been showing up at about 9 or a few minutes after, but our arrival doesn’t seem to be monitored very closely. Just as long as we are there for our first class and are prepared it probably will be fine.

Each class lasts 40 minutes, and in the morning there are no breaks in between class periods. If you have back to back classes (which is common), then you need to bring all of your materials so you can quickly head to the next classroom. After my 9:40 class I have another at 10:20, followed by a 10 minute snack time. It is our job to send the kids to the bathroom to wash their hands and to get the snacks from the kitchen. At 11:10 I have another class, and three days a week (M/W/F) I have class at 11:50.

Lunch is always at 12:30, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I am in charge of monitoring a class during that time. If the teachers have lunch duty they also get free food! At first I was thinking that I would want to do lunch almost every day to save money, but you often spend more time working than actually eating. Teachers need to get the food from the kitchen and distribute it to the kids (which can be a challenge with Korean food, notorious for its many side dishes). After they eat we walk them to the bathroom so they can brush their teeth (we have to get their toothbrushes and toothpaste from a cabinet as well). The next class begins at 1:10, so there isn’t much time to relax in between. It is still nice to get a free meal, but I think I will be fine with lunch duty just once or twice a week!

One of our classrooms

The students getting ready to go home in the afternoon

A Korean teacher at the school is away now (for two weeks), so on Monday and Friday I am picking up one of her classes after lunch at 1:10. Aside from that I have a break every day until 3 pm. It is nice to have time in between classes to grab lunch, prepare, or just take a break. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, however, I am off from 11:50 until 3. For now it’s fine, since I am still getting the hang of things, but I’d imagine in a month or two I may prefer to have had a shorter break in between classes and just get off a bit earlier in the evening.

Starting at three every day I have two classes back to back, from 3-3:40 and 3:45-4:25. On Monday and Friday I have two more classes after (4:30-5:10 and 5:15-5:55), and Wednesday three more (my final class ending at 6:40). On Tuesdays and Thursdays the class that ends at 4:25 is my last one. 

Those are pretty light days, although I also have what is called phone English on Tuesdays. I have to call students at home and ask them four or five questions that I have selected. The questions typically relate to what we have been doing in class, but if it doesn’t take much time we should try and keep up a conversation with them so they can practice speaking, especially over the phone – which can be difficult for both young people and non-native speakers. As far as I know Phone English will be ending in January. The other teachers told me that it is just a temporary promotion, and if that’s true then my schedule will soon be a bit easier.

The phone English takes place between about 5 and 6:30 on Tuesday, plus a few more calls Wednesday after class. So when it is all said and done I end the day at about 6 pm on Monday and Friday, 6:30 on Tuesday, 7:30 on Wednesday, and 4:30 on Thursday. Complicated I know! Here is a list of the schedule I made in Excel – oh and I almost forgot…my schedule may change from month to month, so I can’t get too used to it!

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9:40-10:20	NY	NY	NY	NY	NY
10:20-11:00	Princeton	Princeton	Princeton	Princeton	Princeton
11:00-11:10	snack (P)	snack (P)	snack (P)	snack (P)	snack (P)
11:10-11:50	Yale	Yale	Yale	Yale	Yale
11:50-12:30	MIT		MIT		MIT
12:30-1:10			lunch NY		lunch (Yale)
1:10-1:50	NY (sub)				NY (sub)
1:50-2:30
3-3:40	PG 6	PG 2	PG 6	PG 2	PG 6
3:45-4:25	Ivy	Ivy	Ivy	Ivy	Ivy
4:30-5:10	Odyssey		Odyssey		Odyssey
5:15-5:55	CNN	Phone English	CNN		CNN
6-6:40		Phone English	Tokyo
6:45-7:25			Phone English

Oh and here is a little guide: New York (NY), Princeton, Yale, MIT, and Tokyo are classroom names, and the others – Playground (PG) 2 and 6, Ivy Masters, Odyssey, and CNN are names for the class level or the students’ books they are currently covering. I’ll post more about the kids soon!