Friday, 05 June 2009

A successful day comes to an end

Last year, for some reason, the school suddenly put the special education students in my classes. It seems they attend most subjects with their own class group, but then they are taken out to special education for some. English Conversation was one of those classes that they skipped. To get back on track though, one girl was really excited about having English with me took a liking to me.

Because this girl’s classroom is right next to the office she comes in and greets me at least once a day. Every now and then she will have learned a new English word or phrase like “How are you”. The fact that she completely sucks at English doesn’t seem to faze her once bit.

I use to give her a sweetie every now and then, but decided that with the number of times she comes in to the office she will have to start earning her treats. Currently I’m working on her counting. Today I had her count all the way to ten without anyone helping her. Did I mention she was special education?

She got her reward but was not satisfied and asked for a bit more of the bread that I was eating. Having had some already, I thought it only fair that she would have to do something big for more bread.

It took her almost fifteen minutes, running around the office, asking anyone who would listen, what the numbers were. After letting her suffer I sat her down and wrote the approximate pronunciations using Hangeul. Normally I don’t like using Hangeul, but with her it is just about the only way to let the stuff stick. While she was enjoying the second treat I asked her to say it again, fixing small pronunciation problems, but for the most part she was still OK.

And there we go people. The best part of my day was making a middle schooler count from one to fifteen. As my reward I get to go home, change my clothes and go work on more blisters trying to learn basic sword strikes.

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