Grade 5 English Speech Contest

Today was yet another good day at school. I had one grade 3 class first period and it was kind of sad because I won't see or teach them again until the fall semester :( I will teach some of them at the summer camps, but I will miss them nonetheless. Second period was spent judging the grade 5 English speech contest. The principal addressed all the students at he beginning before the contest started. He seemed to talk to the grade 5's for longer than he did the grade 6's. I had no idea what he was saying, so I took a picture of him instead. It's a bit blurry, but you get the idea. Left: Picture of the principal giving his speech. Right: The grade 5 students assembled in the gym.

I was given an introduction speech to present to all the students at the beginning of the contest, which was followed by a performance from the grade 5-5 class. They did a dance routine to 'Summer Nights' from the movie Grease. Since my camera batteries were charged today I videotaped the performance. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. The ending is especially cute!

The grade 5's were just as hard to judge as the grade 6's, but a few stood out more than others. My favorite presentation was by two girl students who did their speech on Dinosaurs. They had great pronunciation, good speaking and content and their attitude was awesome. They sang a song at the beginning of their presentation and had sound effects throughout. I really enjoyed it. I hope they win the contest. Afterall, the winner gets to go to English camp for free. I would just like to apologize for how dark the pictures turned out. The gym wasn't well lit and I can't figure out how to lighten them on my computer. At the end of the speech contest a grade 5 boy student sang 'Ave Maria.' This is the student that lived in North America for a year. He was also a contestant in the contest. I videotaped his performance as well. It was really good even though he messed up a couple times. He was really nervous, but he sounded great.

After the English speech contest I had two grade 6's classes too teach. I actually like teaching the grade 6's most days because they are quite the interesting bunch. Today they seemed far more attentive than they did last week or even at the beginning of this week. Perhaps, it was the classes I was teaches. Unfortunately, this is my last week teaching the grade 6's as well, so I won't teach grade 6 again until September. On top of that, the grade 6's I teach now are all moving onto middle school in September, so I may never see any of them again :( After lunch I had the rest of the afternoon off, so I spent a good hour or so working on some worksheets for my grade 4 lessons next week. They are starting a new and rather easy lesson, "What Time Is It?" I just made a wordsearch from an online program that basically makes the wordsearch for you. I also printed off some blank clock worksheets where the students have to draw the minute/hour hand on according to the time given or they have to write down the time based on where the minute/hour hand is poining. These worksheets should be good for at least three of the four lessons I teach the grade 4's next week. This is just proof that I do work hard at school. Once I finished the grade 4 lessons for next week I watched some episodes of House, facebooked, checked my email and chatted on MSN. To show you just how bored I got around 2:30 p.m. when I finished the grade 4 worksheets I decided to take a picture of myself in the office working hard...notice how my computer is on face book. Like I said, I was working really hard...Yeah Right!

Now for some exciting news. Well it's exciting for me. I received my e-ticket and passenger itinerary for Cambodia today. I'm officially off to Cambodia August 2nd-8th, so those days can't come soon enough. Now I'm off for a run and then heading to bed early (9:00 p.m.) because I have an earlier morning than usual and a very late night ahead of me tomorrow. I have to take the bus to school because Mrs. Kim has a vacation day, so 6:30 a.m. wake-up call and then straight from school I'm heading into Seoul to party with a friend. Those nights last until the wee hours of the morning, so you won't hear from me until I surface at some point Saturday afternoon.