My Students

I think I am in heaven. The last week and a half I have been working with ten students at a winter camp. I themed the Winter Camp "The English Camp Olympics" (because the winter olympics are coming up), and I taught them about the olympics, and each day we cover a different English speaking country that participates in the Olympics. Also, we play at least one game/day and I award gold/silver/bronze medals to the first/second/third place teams. Each team works together for the whole two weeks as a "country." On the first day, each team had to create a country, and a flag that represented their country. My four countries are: Yu Island, JaeSoHye, Kite (both of the girls in this team have "yeon" in their name, and yeon is korean for the word kite), and Big Bang & the Chocolate Factory. The girls had to create governments and a capital city, a motto, and tell how many people lived there.

My 10 winter camp students are easily the most wonderful and easy to work with students in the WHOLE WORLD. Today, instead of playing the games I had planned, or doing the lesson on New Zealand that I had planned, one student, Yujin said to me, "Allison, today, can we just talk. I like talking with you. It's very fun."

So we talked. For two hours. Me and 10 of my students spent the whole morning just talking. It was amazing. If only all my days could be like this I think I'd never leave this country ever. These girls actually want to learn English. They really really want to learn. It blows my mind.

Then, at the end of class, Yujin said to me, "Teacher, when you go home, we walk together. Come get me at library." So when I was ready to go home, I walked downstairs to the library and got Yujin and Hee-Jin, and we walked together down the street, and they told me about the people that are on the won bills.

I love these ten girls more than I think most of you can understand. They make me so incredibly happy, and all I can ever hope for them is the most success in the world. I will take pictures of my class tomorrow or Friday and I will post them. I think I will cry when I leave or when they graduate, whichever comes first.

I love being a teacher. I love it so so very much.