Open class

I recently had my first experience at open class, it seems to be something that every English teacher does at one point or another.

For everyone not teaching in Korea, open class is when teachers from close by schools, including your principal and faculty, are invited to attend your special class (eeek). In this particular instance, it was one of my co-techer’s, Mr B's turn to teach and I was asked to assist with the class as I am the NET for our school (Native English Teacher).

Although Mr B is one of the youngest teachers on our staff, he is highly respected by the boys. He seems to have struck a perfect balance between terrified and loved all at the same time. When the boys misbehave, I simply suggest that I will send them down to his office and they instantly keep dead quite. In fact one boy got down on his knees and said "no no teacher sorry". It seems half the female teachers came along purely to see the good-looking Mr B, and a lot less for the actual class.

The classroom all set up - ready for open class

The lesson itself was the furthest thing from a typical English class. All the boys were groomed and silent, unrecognizable from the normal tyrants I teach everyday. I had previously spoken to some of the attending foreigner teachers about how badly behaved some of the boys could be, yet I felt completely let down by their angelic behavior during the open class.  Their manners were exemplary and almost sickly sweet.
Nobody smacked or hit each other. The ENTIRE lesson.
I was like a gob smacked parent- what was going on? We should have guests more often! 
In fact the whole thing was getting quite serious, until a boy got up and started rapping about the Japanese occupation. (huh?)

Generally, I think the class went well. The strangest part for me was that I was actually co-teaching for a change. Which despite what a lot of EPIK information may suggest, does not actually happen in my school. I caught myself in a strange moment when I realized I had never actually seen Mr B teach until that moment. Essentially, like all the teachers in the audience, I was seeing his class for the first time. Strictly speaking we are supposed to teach together every day.

During the open class

After the class, all the teachers were asked to fill in a feedback form and took turns giving us advice on where we had excelled and more to the point where we should improve. It was quite a nerve wrecking experience and I was not even for my own class. I honestly must admit that I'm not sure if they enjoyed the class or not as 90 % of it was in Korean. It was all about bowing, nodding and hoping for the best. If my co teacher was pleased then so was I!  

I had to take a moment to admire the Korean education system. I cannot imagine an open class back home in South Africa where a facilitated discussion on improvement was regularly suggested and celebrated among the surrounding schools. This was especially apparent when all the teachers were invited out for dinner afterwards. There seems to be an atmosphere of striving for improvement that I have not seen at home. I suppose this is why it is considered one of the best education systems in the world.

As scary as it was, I really enjoyed the experience!

These are indoor shoes - students in Korea have different shoes for inside the classroom and for the rest of the day.