Wow. Just, wow.

So I figured it would come. I thought it would come sooner, but I knew it would come regardless. No, I don't miss home yet. Not exactly. I'm actually just really really frustrated with my job. Bear with me as I explain why.

1. I feel ineffective.
a)My classes have 40 students. In any given class the only thing the students have in common, level-wise, is that they are in the same grade. Aside from that, there are some students who understand literally NOTHING I say the entire class. By that I mean, they don't know what is your name, they don't know how old are you, nada. zip. zilch. zero. Then, there are some students who understand everything I say, and do the activities perfectly and speedily, and dear god I can hardly keep up. And then there is the other 70% of the class who are somewhere in the middle, wading amongst English words they recognize but can't use and understand but can't recreate on their own.
b) I see each student only once/week. I see each class only once/week. This means that I see all 630 students every week, but only one time/week. So, I can't remember anyone's name. Additionally, the students get only the most minimal practice of any of the work I do in our class. They have my class for 45 minutes once a week. 45 minutes is not nearly enough time to learn anything. Imagine if we had taken a Spanish class in high school for 45 minutes 1x per week. Now imagine if we had taken that class at age 13. Now imagine if we had taken that class at 13, with a teacher who literally speaks no more than 50 words of English. Most people learn nothing in their high school Spanish classes, so just imagine if this were the situation. This is precisely the situation in my classroom.
c) I have no idea how to discipline the students. Aside from stern looks, I don't discipline. I had assumed my co-teachers would handle the discipline section of the class (I was under the impresion that's how it was done at all the schools with native english teachers). Unfortunately my teachers don't really do much punishing. As such, my students have nearly free reign. I can give minus points, but I'm fairly hesitant to do that, because minus points directly factor into students grades. It's interesting because outside of school I'm a hardass, but in the classroom I can't figure out the appropriate way to handle discipline situations, and so I just don't do anything. It's beginning to get out of hand.

2. My co-teachers don't help me.
a) Upon arrival, I was told that I will not be using the books that the students use during the rest of their English classes. As such, I have to create my own lessons from scratch that probably has nothing to do with their lessons in their other classes. This is particuarly difficult and frustrating because they are learning multiple English lessons in a single week. 4 days/week they have English with their native Korean teacher, plus once/week English class with me, and most of them 2-5 times/week have English classes at hagwons, or private academies the girls attend after school. As such, they are learning up to three entirely different grammar points or ideas simultaneously. Now, which grammar point do you think they are least likely to remember? The one they receive 4x/week, the one they receive up to 5x/week or the one they get once/week? Obviously, mine.
b) Co-teaching supposedly implies some sort of teamwork or partnered approach to teaching in the classroom. Typically, in my classroom the only teamwork we do is her being present. I have 4 co-teachers, and typically none of them do much of anything. My primary co-teacher usually spends the majority of her time reading a book, and occasionally looking up to tell the students to pipe down or maybe, when times get desperate, translate something I say. The other ones will walk around and occasionally prompt students for answers, but that's about it. I should have been more assertive when I came here, but I just wasn't. I simply did not lay down the ground rules, I did not encourage more participation from the co-teachers, so now here I am.
c) I don't get any feedback on my lessons. The teachers usually don't talk to me about how a week is going in terms of lessons. I usually can tell when something sucks and I try to alter it, but really, I wish they would let me know. Unfortunately this is not the Korean way.

3. My students clearly do not fully respect me as their teacher. Generally they are relatively good, with few behavior problems. However, I've seen them with other teachers, and I have seen them with their homeroom teachers. There is no talking while the teacher is speaking. There is no note passing. Or not nearly as much anyways. Instead, I can consistently count on 2-4 girls holding their own conversations apart from the class, anywhere between 2 and 10 girls asleep, and another 10 passing notes. Gah. I want to rip my hair out.

It's a drag.

There are some really disappointing things about my job.

Other days it's wonderful. Today was a really good day. It was apple day (a day where you give an apple [korean: sagwa] to say you are sorry [korean: sagwa, you see the reason?] to someone. The students all received an apple and wrote notes to other teachers. I don't really understand everything that happened (no English, you see), but I saw that girls were posting notes on this board, and one of the notes said, "allison, I love you!" and it made me so happy I thought I might cry. Seriously.Me posing with some apples next to the board with my note! *^.^*