First Day of Training at Avalon and First Impressions

Finished my first day of training at Avalon.  I observed four classes with different ages and skill levels, learned about the different levels and types of classes, and got a look at my schedule starting next Monday.  The school is a LOT bigger than I thought; there are five foreign teachers including me, plus an equal (or greater) number of Korean homeroom teachers.  The school is split into two campuses, of sorts, in adjacent buildings, with the elementary school students in one building and the middle and high school students in the other.  Each building also has its own manager and support staff, including front desk people and assistant teachers (all Korean) who make copies and such.  The elementary school campus also shares space with an Avalon Math hagwon with its own teachers.  Needless to say, it was a big shock walking into the faculty room and seeing over a dozen people there.

For the skill levels, elementary students are divided into Dash, Jump, Glide, and Little Nokjiwon classes, with Dash being the lowest level.  (Nokjiwon students have lived in English-speaking countries before and are generally near-fluent.)  Middle schoolers are divided into Horizon, Mountain, TOEFL, and Nokjiwon.  Each of these levels has a beginner, intermediate and advanced sublevel (with the exception of TOEFL, which is from 1-4, and the nokjiwon classes).  The youngest students are in fourth grade, and the oldest are in middle school.  The high school classes are all taught by the Korean teachers.  The Korean teachers also usually teach the grammar and reading classes, while the foreign teachers handle speaking, listening and writing.  The kids either come on M/W/F or T/Th, with special classes (such as debate) on Wednesdays.

The work day starts at 2 pm, and from 2 - 3 pm is class preparation.  Lunch time is anytime after 3 pm until 4:15 pm, which is when the first class starts.  (There is a free lunch room in another adjacent building, but the foreign teachers I went to lunch with said that usually only the Korean staff eats there and that the Koreans and foreigners don't generally mingle.)  Classes are 65 minutes long with a five-minute break between classes, so from 4:15 - 10 pm it's straight classes (4:15 - 5:20, 5:25 - 6:30, 6:35 - 7:40, 7:45 - 8:50, 8:55 - 10 pm).

My schedule looks like it has some positives and some negatives.  I don't have a 4:15 - 5:20 class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I finish at 8:50 on Friday, though Mondays and Wednesdays I have the full 4:15 - 10 day.  I don't have any of the lowest level elementary school students, though I do have middle school school students from Horizon Beginner (HB) to Mountain Intermediate (MI); no TOEFL at this time.  I will be bouncing back and forth between buildings, however, which is only going to get worse once they finish moving the elementary school campus from the 2nd floor of its building to the 6th floor.  Those five-minute breaks are basically going to be nonexistent for much of the evening.  The school also has intensive seasons in summer and fall for a month each when the kids are out of school; then the workday changes to 9:30 am - 6:30 pm and my daily class load changes from 5 to 6.  I'm not looking forward to it (though I will be paid overtime), but there's no point worrying about it now.

First impressions are generally good; most of the kids I met today were very well-behaved and had surprisingly good English.  The people seem nice, though I've probably already forgotten half their names.  I was worried about jumping into a new school with new students and staff and a new way of teaching, but I feel more comfortable that I'll be able to make a somewhat smooth transition.  Here's hoping I can pick it all up quickly!

Bucheon Wandering

Jana and I met up at Bucheon City Hall station today to explore the area and look for a place for me to stay.  After wandering through the very large Hyundai department store, we had lunch at the food court of the eMart across the street from the department store.  We then went in search of somewhere to stay, asking people on the street and in a few real estate offices.  (Well, Jana did all the asking; I just stood there and smiled and nodded like I knew what they were talking about.)  We finally ran into a very nice ajusshi (a polite term for an older gentleman you don't know) who actually took us up to a goshiwon on the 7th floor of a nearby building instead of just giving us directions.

For all my talk yesterday of not wanting to bother with a goshiwon unless it was necessary, this one seemed nicer and more comfortable.  The rooms were still tiny, but were bigger than the ones in Seoul (by maybe six inches, but still an improvement), and they had a room available with a large window that took up most of the far wall.  Seeing the place in the day might have also helped; we visited all the places around Konkuk University at night.  The manager was quite surprised when we came in, and honestly didn't know how much to charge us for only five days (since the rooms are usually rented by the month).  She made an offer of 80,000 won for the five days, but when I showed my reluctance she lowered the price to 70,000 won.  I wasn't expecting to say yes, but it felt like a good place, it would let me explore the Bucheon area, and the price was right.  I'll have to use the public bathroom and showers, and I'll be their novelty foreigner for a few days, but I will have access to free rice, kimchi and some other side dishes in the public kitchen!

I signed a small agreement and paid upfront, and then we had to go.  Jana had a private lesson back in Seoul and we'd taken a bit longer than we'd expected, so she had to rush off.  I took the time to map out the route to the goshiwon very careful, taking notes on directions and landmarks and walking back there twice to make absolutely sure I knew how to find it again.  I wandered around some more on my own to take some pictures of the numerous sculptures, and eventually made my way to a movie theater on the 5th floor of a department store connected to the Hyundai department store.  There wasn't anything I wanted to see, but I suspect it will be nice to have a movie theater right across the street from my school.  I was getting hungry around 5:30 pm, and the department store had two conveyor-belt sushi places, but it felt a little too early for dinner, so I headed back to Incheon.

It's been automatic for me to refer to Incheon as 'home', but very soon it'll be Bucheon I'll call 'home'.  I didn't pay much attention to the area when I came for my interview - why bother if I don't know how the interview will go, I figured - but it feels like a place where I could be quite comfortable.

Goshiwon Exploration

I went out to Konkuk University station on the east side of Seoul to meet up with Jana and consider the possibility of staying at a goshiwon from the 19th to the 24th.  What's a goshiwon?  Well, it's a very cheap, very Korean place to rent a tiny room for a while, usually by college students looking for a quiet place to study for a month or so.  What do I mean by tiny?  The room is as long as the bed, which is tucked under the desk at the far end, and is as wide as the bed plus the chair at the desk.  A window about the size of a hardcover novel may or not be present.  They're a step up from the capsule hotels in Japan, but not by much.

Since they usually rent the rooms by the month, the rates were fairly high for just five days.  The first goshiwon wanted 20,000 won per night, though we talked the second place down to 15,000 won per night.  The manager wasn't there at the third place, but Jana called him and got an offer of 50,000 won for all five nights for a room without a window, or 70,000 won for a room with a window.  She suspected that his not knowing I was a foreigner had something to do with the lower price, but there was no way to know for sure.

The manager at the first place had commented, as Jana translated, that he usually didn't rent rooms to foreigners because they were too picky.  My first response was, "Well, maybe I'll show him!"  My second response, however, was, "Why?"  Sure, they're cheap and it would be a novel experience, but don't need to live in a windowless closet for a week and be the subject of curiosity and scrutiny as the only foreigner there, especially not to prove something to some stranger.  I'm sure I'm experiencing some American entitlement, but my finances are in good enough shape to afford a modest level of comfort, so I see no reason not to stay somewhere more comfortable.  A little bit of culture shock was probably involved as well.

Also, it doesn't really make sense to me to stay on the east side of Seoul when my new job and apartment will be in Bucheon, which is on the west side of Seoul.  Jana and Soee both live in the Konkuk University area, so they knew about a lot of these places.  They were really hoping that I'd find somewhere I like in the area, so I was sorry to disappoint them, but it ultimately didn't seem worthwhile.  I can visit Konkuk University any time I like, but it would be more useful to get familiar with the Bucheon area.  Besides, why haul my luggage from Incheon to Konkuk University to Bucheon when I can go from Incheon to Bucheon to somewhere else in Bucheon instead?

Jana and I are going to look around Bucheon tomorrow.  It would be nice if I found somewhere reasonably comfortable to stay for a decent price then; if not, there's plenty of hostels and guesthouses and such I can book online in Incheon or Bucheon, so I'm not worried about finding a place to stay.  It's finding a GOOD place to stay that's the trick!