KinderSurprises

I'm not sure if I mentioned on here what my job is this time around in Korea. Just in case I didn't, I'm working in a kindergarten. A very exceedingly new and interesting experience. I have six little girls who I try to teach the basics of English to for two hours everyday. I suspect you will be hearing a lot more about them. It is a new school, so while they are growing their classes I also teach some of the older children, that is also fun.

Now finally after two months my kinders are starting to be able to communicate little things to me. It is such a feeling of accomplishment when we manage to understand each other on something that is outside of the routine classroom stuff. Like today they managed to tell me that they have a small iguana at there normal kindergarten - the one they go to before their specialised English, ie me!

Anyway, I also discovered today that even at their young ages they have learned the art of flattery and sucking up.

A few weeks back we were doing the face for our weekly theme and I took my glasses off to show them my eyes - they are green, which is incredibly rare in Korea - Korean's all have black/brown eyes, and most foreigners have either brown or blue eyes. (Strange because green eyes are relatively common in NZ - or maybe it is just my family...) Anyway that apparently intrigued them because whenever a new student arrives (there were only three then) the first thing they tell the new student about me is that I have green eyes.

So today, they come into class and start saying "Teacher off" and making motions with their hands like they are taking their imaginary glasses off, so I obliged and took mine off. They looked at me for a moment and then said "Teacher beautiful." And then they all held out their hands and shouted in unison "Sticker."

I nearly fell off the chair laughing and I did not reward the sucking up with stickers. But I did tell them that they were all beautiful too.

The power stickers is a marvellous thing!