Happiness is a Warm Desk

By Karl

Deskwarming. That's what it's called here. And that's all it really is. Keeping the desk warm.

So, during the "Summer Vacation," while many of the students are enjoying the summer weather (if you can really enjoy it) and many of the teachers are...well they're not here... there are days when foreign English teachers are still expected to come in like any regular paid work day. Now, there are Koreans who come in too, but they are given specific tasks. As a foreign English teacher I'm expected to "deskwarm." In reality this means using my time to plan lessons for the coming semester. Except I'm at an elementary school and let's face it, there isn't a whole lot I can bring to the table. Really, how many variations of Bingo can I use? And it's not like I can give them a research project.

Coming up with lessons for 5th and 6th graders can be a bit tough when lessons are limited to conversational language. Since they don't learn grammar it's hard to teach them rules (since I can't explain the rules because they don't learn grammar). This means I spend about an hour trying to come up with fun activities that will help them learn. This leads to longer periods of headaches (usually from hitting my head repeatedly on the top of my desk). This then leads to searching online for any new ideas that I can re-engineer and take credit for. Which leads to more head pounding and more headaches. After a while I just surf around online and try to amuse myself. All the while ensuring that my desk stays nice and warm.