Speech Contest

The owner of my school decided we should have a speech contest for December. Aside from the obvious irony of a school named 'Reading Town' having a speech contest, this contest was very poorly planned and all the teachers, myself included, expected it to be a disaster. However, despite our pessimism everything turned out fine and it was actually an enjoyable event. I'm still amazed at how wrapped up in these children you become. When my students stepped to the mic in front of a room full of people I may have been more nervous than them.

Before the contest began. The contest lasted two days, Thursday and Friday.


My students mugging for a picture. Korean people in general love having their picture taken and nine times out of ten with give this same obligatory 'V' sign.


Lynn, my manager, preparing to start the contest. She served as emcee for the two days and was forced to kill time between contestants by making up ridiculous questions. A job I would not liked to have had.


Thomas, who was quite sick at the time, giving it his best. My favorite thing about this photo is the girl in the bottom right hand corner who is clearly not paying attention.


I'm disappointed in the way this picture came out, but this is another of my students, Sarah (who always spells her own name wrong: Serah) doing her speech. Sarah, it should be said, is the slowest writer in the world. It seems that each letter she writes is a masterpiece that must be perfect.


Michelle always draws really cute pictures of me and her with captions that read "'Michelle is very beautiful' Jocob said" or "Jocob is very good teacher. I love you.". Unfortunately, she is moving to America next month and will no longer be in my class. By the way, the misspelling of my name is intentional. None of my students seem to be able to spell my name correctly. This is possibly due to the fact that over time I've discovered that to Korean children my name sounds very much like the letter 'J' plus the word 'cup'. So, it's become my custom to teach children to pronounce my name in this fashion. When given a test or book report that requires the students to write in the teachers name many of my kids simply write a capital 'J' followed by an illustration of a cup. Much to the annoyance of the librarian, I am sure.


An anxious crowd awaits. Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera died and I was only able to get pictures from the first round of speeches. Several more followed. As I said, it turned out to be quite fun and we got to leave work early on Friday, which is always a bonus.