Winter Intensive Courses

Students in Korea have a break for about a month during winter. Can you guess what parents do with their kids? That's right -- they send them to hagwons like mine.

Intensive winter courses are offered at every hagwon (I think), and they're really great because they kill two birds with one stone -- they keep kids off the streets and they're a good way to bump up their English skills in one month.

I have only one class that could, by a stretch, be considered "intensive." Though the kids are all the same, we are using a different book than in December. To be fair, it pretty rough stuff. Monday through Friday, they have a class at 2:00 with one teacher with one book, then a class with me at 3:00. Between the other teacher and I, the students have a ten-word spelling quiz everyday, and a test each week. Ouch.

Then there are the speeches. Everyday, two of the seven students give a four-minute speech on a topic that has been chosen beforehand. For non-native speakers of English, oh man, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. Surprisingly, they've been doing very well, all things considered. They've been learning English since their immersion Kindergarten days, so in spite of being only ten or eleven years old, they feel pretty comfortable. I have one girl who doesn't even use notes when she speaks.

On January 27, the new session starts, and I'll lose most of my afternoon classes as they either level up, merge with another class, or move to a later time. I'll definitely miss them. The upshot is that I'll have a new batch of kids to give English names. I love doing that....