Before the actual festival began, all of the students had to take the TTP test. TTP stands for Triple Three Project. It is the goal of the English Department that by the time each student graduates, they will know 3,000 words and sentences. For about a week, all of the students have been pouring themselves into studying a list of 50 possible sentences that they would be tested over. During the test, the principal came to my desk and said she needed my help. She brought me to her office, which I had never seen before, and asked me, since I am her English teacher (she warms my heart!), to help her perfect the opening speech she would give to kick off the festival. I read each sentence to her and she repeated after me to get the pronunciations down and where would be good places for her to breathe. Then, she read each sentence to me so I could tell her where she needed different intonation. Korean is a very monotone language, so the fact that our words ride and fall is very hard for them to master. She is a star student and I really enjoy working with her. She is so appreciative of my help and gets really frazzled when she doesn't have time to practice with me on Wednesday mornings.
For the morning portion of the festival, Dionne and I were the judges, along with various other Korean teachers, for a speech contest, a singing contest and a skit contest. The speeches were done by one or two girls from each homeroom class and were all fully memorized. It brought me back to my elementary ELP days when I had to memorize a speech about Annie Wittenmyer for a famous Iowans showcase for our sesquicentennial in third grade. The amount of work the girls put into these projects and the courage they have to get up in front of the entire school and recite a three to four minute piece in what is a second language (or third for some!) is truly amazing to me. The singing contest was mostly Christmas carol medleys sung by large groups, but they wore costumes, worked out choreography, handed out candy and one group even had candles! So creative! One girl, with an amazing voice, sang "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic. She was awesome! The skits were done by the first year students. One group read the lines in English while another group acted out the skit onstage. I coached one of the teams. They performed Little Red Riding Hood. When we were practicing after school on Friday, they kept pronouncing the words: Riddle Led Liding Who'd, among other difficult sounds for any Korean to form. After a little work and some really cute actions, costumes and musical enhancements, I am proud to say that my group won the first prize! I was sooo proud of them!
Then, we had a break for lunch. At lunch, we were greeted by the principal and vice principal asking us what we thought of the festival. They were so proud of their students (as were we!) and loved being able to share this with us. Dionne and I marveled at how lucky we were to have been placed in the school we were. Many people are not placed in the best of situations and each day, I grow more and more thankful for my place here.
On the way back from lunch, Dionne and I caught up to many of the other teachers from our school. They were taking pictures in front of a big rock with Korean writing all over it and asked us to join them. Then, as we were walking down the hill to return to the building, they stopped us again to take pictures with us walking down the hill. We taught them a new phrase: action shot. They were obsessed with getting a picture of about five of us walking and kept giggling and repeating action shot, action shot, action shot. Adorable Korean ladies. I so enjoy them!
The afternoon was filled with various English games that were fun to watch. I sat next to the principal while she gave me commentary on what was happening and asked me questions about phrases being used that she had never heard. The whole day's competition was both for individuals and each homeroom class, much like wrestling or track meets where there are both individual and team winners. This really caused a lot of team camaraderie and spirit to be displayed. When all of the final awards were presented at the end of the day, each class that won a big prize was awarded a large sum of money (90,000, 70,000, and 50,000 won for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places respectively) to be used for, I assume, some sort of class party. I was impressed that the school would shell out that kind of money to the winners! Then, each of the winning classes posed for pictures. Dionne and I were dragged into the pictures with one of the winning teams and when I forgot to put up the requisite peace sign, the students all me sure to point out my gross oversight and show me the correct peace sign technique!
Walking home after school today, I stopped into the kimbap shop to grab some dinner before the man comes to fix my internet (I'm stealing wireless from someone nearby and the land line internet man is half an hour late!). Literally every table in the shop was filled with EB students and they all excitedly greeted me as I entered the shop. They always get so excited to see me in public! One group even invited me to sit with them while I waited for my kimbap to be made. I'm really going to miss these little buggers when I'm on winter break in a week!
Here are a couple of pictures I snapped of the girls in the kimbap shop:
I will never understand why they look so somber in pictures! Moments before they were smiling and laughing like the little school girls they are. Regardless, they make this job amazing. I love my students and my school!
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