Ok, so Tuesday was the last of the English Speech Contest taking place at my school. I was quite excited because it was finally the grade 3's turn and they are my favorite grade. I had two classes first and second period and then I had the Speech Contest. One of the grade 3 teachers was the MC and myself, Mrs. Kim and two other grade 3 teachers were the judges. The principal made his speech at the beginning of the contest like he did for the other three grades. I found this to be the most boring part because I didn't understand a word he was saying. Once he finished giving his 10-15 minute speech the grade 3's sang a warm-up song. They sang the alphabet song, which is a good song for learning teh ABC's, but parts of it go a bit fast. Here is a video I took of them singing the song.
Once they finished singing the warm-up song Mrs. Kim and I had to explain the criteria of how they were being judged to them. I said it in English and Mrs. Kim translated it to Korean for them. The speeches were actually really good, of course some were better than others. My favorite speech was by far Tae Ho and his partner. Tae Ho speaks remarkably good English and he wrote the entire speech himself completely flawless. He wrote on the subject of poverty in Africa. The speech was so well written and spoken I couldn't believe my ears. Tae Ho was alot stornger than his partner, but he deserved to win the most out of all the rest of the groups. It was my job to ask each participant two interview questions. I asked Tae Ho's group why they chose this topic and here is roughly the answer he gave me (remember he is the third grade): "I brought in this magazine of which I was reading when I stumbled upon an article about poverty in Africa. The article really touched me and I wanted to make a difference in poor peoples lives, so I decided to write a speech on the topic." UM, WOW, I literally stood there with my jaw dropped for like a minute before I asked the group my second question, which was, why did you choose Africa. Again, Tae Ho takes control and blows me out of the water. Keep in mind he doesn't know what questions I'm asking ahead of time, so he came up with his responses on the spot and he didn't even hesitate while giving his answers. I was so blown away by his answers I had to declare his group winners just for his amazing answers and spoken in clear English. Since I'm suppose to get responses from both partners and Tae Ho's partner didn't respond Mrs. Kim asked me to ask him an interview question on his own at the end of the contest. This poor kid gets dragged up on the stage by himself to answer the one interview question I have for him. My question was, besides Korea, what other country would you like to visit. It literally took this kid 5 minutes to come with an answer to such a simple question. He could have said any country and I wouldn't have cared I just need a response. Finally, after much hesitation he said Africa. I was going to ask him why, but I didn't have all afternoon.
Once the English Speech Contest had finished I had to teach my last class of the day, which was with the grade 4's. I was late for the class because the Speech Contest ran a little late. I was glad that the grade 4 English co-teacher was finally letting me teach the classes all by myself. Once I finished teaching for the day I just chilled in my office and watched some TV and made a presentation for my grade 5 lesson next week.
When I was leaving school I decided to take a picture of the new paint job out school playground equipment got. The painters were in on Tuesday painting some posts and the playground equipment, so now it looks far more kid friendly and like a playground you would want your kids to play in.
After school was finished I headed over to Tracy's to hang out before I headed to my second last taekwondo class. After taekwondo since we had no classes on Wednesday a bunch of us decided to head over to Rock Bar for a few drinks and laughs. Rock Bar is a pretty dirty bar, but they serve $1 pints of beer, so it is the place to hang out. Most people hung out until about 10:30-11:00 and then they all headed home. I was determined to stay out late because I didn't have to teach on Wednesday, but the tired bug hit me around 11:30, so I decided to ditch out and catch the last train home.
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