Welcoming the 2014 American International Education Administrators (AIEA)

WHAT IS AIEA?

I have had the privilege of hosting a number of guests at my school this year!

Today's visit consisted of seven professors and academics from the U.S., visiting through a Fulbright program called the American International Education Administrators (AIEA) Program. They were accompanied by Fulbright Korea's very own Education Advisor and English Program Manager, Vincent Flores! Our visitors all come from different international departments from their respective universities and are interested in understanding Korean students more in order to better serve them and gain more insight into how to promote study in the U.S.

AIEA WITH MY STUDENTS & ME

The students go wild when one foreigner visits the school.
Having eight Americans come to the school on the same day and interact with them was a very special treat!
What you don't see in this picture is the group of students, whose faces are plastered against the classroom window
as this picture was being taken, all curious and maybe a little slightly jealous of this particular class 

SO WHY YEONGDO?

During their two-week stay here in South Korea, this group of AIEAs will visit many universities up and down the peninsula, with Yeongdo Girls High School being the only high school in the program's itinerary. When Sookhee, my co-teacher, learned about this, she became extremely curious as to why our school had been included at all (I personally chalked it up to a random casting of lots within the realm of the Fulbright building), and was very concerned about whether or not our guests would find the visit productive.

The downside of her worrying: She asked me nearly everyday WHY the AIEAs were coming to our school
The upside of her worrying: She set about preparing for the visit with humorous rigor and exactness of detail

She planned a day that included a classroom observation, campus tour, and a Q&A session at the end of the two-hour visit. I am incredibly blessed to have this woman in my life!

LESSON FOR THE DAY: EMOTIONS

Sookhee and I waited for our guests to arrive within the school gates and escorted them immediately to my classroom. I strode slightly ahead of the group, wondering how this A-class would perform for the day. Historically, according to my class notes, they have been a very sleepy and apathetic-looking class. 

Thankfully, today the class was in full attention when I entered. They were sitting straight, all facing the front of the classroom, and all strangely quiet despite their very obvious excitement. I loved it! Already five minutes late to my own class, I quickly set up my lesson for the day on 20 basic emotions. 

Photo from KAEC | Look at my attentive students! (Except the one with her head down....)

Photo from KAEC | I had to do a fair bit of acting on top of the illustrations I already had

Photo from KAEC | Moving around the classroom as per usual

CLASSROOM OBSERVATION

After  I taught the lesson, I broke the class into smaller groups with the help of my co-teacher.

The students excitedly chatting away in anticipation for our game as our guests sat in a row in the back of the classroom

Students preparing for our game

CLASSROOM ENGAGEMENT

Remembering my own experience of visiting a Korean high school for the very first time, (and how we were able to mingle with the students during their class time), I asked our guests if they would like to engage with the students themselves instead of merely observe my teaching. From their vantage point in the back of the room, all they could see of the students were the backs of their heads. 

Not really ideal, especially considering the purpose of the visit. 

So, we changed it to this: our guests each chose a table of students to join for the game. This was a bit of a gamble since the students could, in my opinion, either maintain their exceptionally engaged attitudes for the day or shut down out of shyness and perhaps embarrassment of their English level in front of other native English speakers. 

Once again, my students made me proud. They welcomed our guests warmly, smiled and laughed with them, and, most importantly, smiled and laughed with them while speaking in English! I was in heaven as I floated around from group to group, observing how alive my students were and how eager they were to practice their English. 

My co-teachers could hear the chatter from my classroom even outside of the building. One of them
guessed that the chatter and laughter may be coming from my classroom, but the other quickly said that
it couldn't be because my students were a quiet bunch! Surprise!

WHAT WAS THE GAME WE PLAYED?

The game portion of the lesson was rather simple:

• Break the students into small groups
• Give each group strips of papers with different emotions written on them
• Each student takes a turn randomly picking a strip of paper from the pile and
• Acting out each emotion while the
• Other students try to guess the emotion

One of the professors wearing one of the school's pairs of blue guest slippers.
Everyone - students and teachers alike - have to change into these slippers
(or their equivalent) once we enter the actual school building. For many of our guests
it was their first time experiencing this slipper change policy

Two of my fellow English teachers looking on with amazement at my transformed class. Haha!

 SCHOOL TOUR WITH STUDENTS AND CO-TEACHERS

We had two groups each led by a former YDAC participant: Go Eun and Jeong Min

Q&A WITH KOREAN STUDENTS

Yeon Su, another former YDAC participant, helping arrange the class where we would do the Q&A

Our principal meeting one of the professors - the only one in the group who speaks [fluent] Korean!

Our lovely principal greeting our guests, and explaining how the school has been
positively impacted by the three ETAs they have had enough funding to invite into the school.
A short speech that nevertheless moved me, especially as I near the end of my contract as the third ETA to serve YGHS

Four students joined us for this afternoon's Q&A: Go Eun, part of last Fall's YDAC team,
and Jeong Min, Yeon Su, and Yu Jin from this Spring's YDAC team.

Watching the school introductory video, something they said they had also done at all of the universities they had visited

Students enjoying their time to answer questions about their lives at school and outside of school

THE AFTERMATH

Later, I heard from my co-teachers that students from my other classes (and even students from the other grades I don't teach) were asking why our foreign guests only visited one classroom, and did not also visit them. They were very jealous of this particular class, and did their best to shout their hearty hellos and flash their own warm, excited smiles as we made our way through the hallways. One of the guests commented on how celebrity-like they felt because students were going crazy.

Their jealousy was a bit tempered when the girls heard over the grapevine that one of their classmates had managed to get Vinnie's contact information (his job largely involves helping Korean students study in the U.S.). He was a big hit!

Thank you for coming to visit our school! I don't know just how productive this trip was for our guests, but I hope they enjoyed it as much as my students and I did!