First Day at My New Job!

Today was my first day teaching at Dankook University as an English professor. All in all, I think the day was successful.

I was woken up with a skype call from my sister and my grandad wishing me good luck. It was really nice to talk to them and have them remember that it was an important day for me.

My classes are large, approximately 40 in each class, with a couple classes that have fewer than 40. The students seem ok. Today was just an intro lesson to give them my info, the textbook, class rules, etc. I also teach a night class for life long learners and I was really impressed with them tonight. I had heard that the life long class is hit or miss; sometimes you get students that signed up on their own free will, and others who's company forces them to take an English class. All my students participated and we took up the full 2 hours. It seems they all want to learn, so that's good. I am the youngest person in the room, and I'm the teacher, so we'll see how this plays out. In Korean culture, age is associated with more respect. I already had one lady call me out on my age and while I had told myself that I would say I was 32, once put on the spot I couldn't lie about my age. The difference between 28 (Korean age) and 32 is small when the pupils are 50+. Oh well!

I have more preps and more teaching hours than I expected. I have 6 different courses that I'm teaching: 5 bridge writing, 1 professional writing, 1 bridge speaking, 1 listening and pronunciation, 1 life long learning, and 1 psypsy, which is a conversation class. Coupled with 2 hours of volunteer tutoring, I have 21.5 scheduled work hours, not including all the time I'll spend prepping and correcting online homework.

My colleagues seem great so far. One in particular has been giving me lots of advice and help with lesson planning. I owe her big time! Everyone is really dedicated to their jobs and committed to becoming better teachers. Such a change from working at Bugil, where being a good teacher is frowned upon! It's nice to have the respect and liberties in my classroom.

I have a desk in a shared office, where lots of the teachers from the department have a desk. The Korean English teachers that I have met in my office are really friendly. One even studied at McGill! He was quite excited to share in the Canadian connection. As real, tenured professors, they are all conducting research and publishing in journals. After discovering that my background is in neuroscience, and specifically second language acquisition, a couple of the teachers have asked if I would read over and edit their papers. It's so nice to be in an institution of higher learning again!

Anyway, that's all for now. Time for bed! Tuesdays are a long 12 hour day for me. As of right now, the decision to move on from Bugil seems to have been a good one. I'm happy at my new job!

Jennika