So, I'm teaching the oddest schedule this semester - all "morning" (I start work sometimes at 2 p.m., sometimes at 3 p.m. but if you are eating your first meal of the day while you prep, then it's obviously "morning") I teach speaking (really listening, but that's another blog post there) to young kids - three levels of kindergarten and second and third graders. Then as I move into my afternoon (so, around 6 p.m.) I start teaching older kids more interesting things - mostly reading, but also one grammar/writing class.
It's the last class that is the funniest. I'm teaching an SSAT class - to be honest, I don't actually know what an SSAT is. However, the kids range from 13 to 17 and these kids are all teenager. And not just any kinds of teenagers. The five girls are quintessential American teenagers and the two boys grew up in Paris and are the most amazingly French teenagers ever.
I will be spending the next five months trying to control hormones, and for once they aren't even my own. The flirting is incredible. Before I even had a chance to teach them, the boys had complained to the bossman that the girls weren't studious enough and teased them.
Boys, boys, boys. Seriously? You need to look again because you are clearly being flirted with. Clearly, and loudly, and oh, so obviously. All those comments on your adorable French accents? The requests for you to teach the girls how to say things in French? The girls aren't commenting on your lack of English skills, you goofs. They are trying to get into your pants. Well, okay. Possibly not that far, but at least all cuddled up against your lips. I have never in my life seen such flirting.
Keeping everyone's mind on grammar is going to be a challenge. But, my god, I've never had so much fun teaching. These kids are hysterical! They are all rather rich, spoiled, private school kids and yet, so fun. Between them we have four attendees of Seoul Foreign School, one of the school on the American army base, and two who attend the Seoul French School (obviously the boys that my entire class of girls find so delectable.) A couple of the girls, though really one in particular, never stops trying to shock me. The things that come out of her mouth! I can barely keep myself from laughing, it's just so funny. She has no idea that I was the most evil teenager in existence and am now an English teacher in a country where the expats are just ridiculous. I am not sure I can be shocked anymore. And certainly not by a 16 year old girl, who certainly has skills in the shocking department, but is no prodigy.
It's actually perfectly balanced. All morning I nearly expire from the cute of kindie. Then I have the personally enjoyable experience of teaching novels, which is my favourite thing to teach of all. And I finish it off by biting my lip in order to not spend an hour and a half laughing at my students, because they just are that funny.
It's going to be an interesting semester.
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