Intensives Wrap-up

This is another post that is long overdue. Every summer and winter, while the students are on vacation, my hagwon opens up special classes in the morning so that the kids can attend hagwon not once – but twice a day. These special classes are called intensives – and I don’t think there could be any better name.

They truly are intense as we have to arrive early in the morning to teach for 4 hours and then have to stick around to teach in the evening as well. It takes its toll after awhile. Actually, these intensives felt especially draining this time. Quite likely it was because I had just got back from Canada – and was thrust into waking up early and teaching for many many hours. However, if I do recall correctly, August was a busy month – and I think all the social occasions only worsened my levels of fatigue.

This is all in the past now, though, as I’ve been finished intensive classes for almost three weeks. And, yes, it feels fabulous to sleep in again. In spite of all my whining, I did enjoy the time spent with the kids in the morning. Seeing them everyday allows you to develop relationships with the kids – and that’s special.

That said, I didn’t feel particularly attracted to either class – or at least not as much as I had in the past. The first class was angels – and I loved them for that – but just so sincerely quiet. It is hard to have fun if you’re not getting much of a response. The second class had a few more characters but with more characters comes more behaviour problems. This was a class that really kind of unraveled at the end. I had a hard time reining them in to finish the book.






Yet, I would still say that we had the best class party ever on the last day. I brought in Mr. Bean and snacks – and everything flowed like clockwork. Usually there’s some glitch – either with the food or technology – but this time was fantastic. The kids thought Mr. Bean was hysterical and I couldn’t help but laugh too. I’m glad that we were able to leave on a high note. I hope that those three weeks were as meaningful to my students as they were to me!





I’ll be sure to post more about life here next post. I’ve got some pictures of different people leaving so that’ll be up here soon.

Until then,

-Paul