Unexpected Inappropriate Moments are something that happen no matter where you teach, when there isn't a language barrier these moments can become teaching moments. A teaching moment is an unplanned moment where you can use a situation in your classroom to teach your students a life's lesson. These can happen a few times each semester if you are on the lookout for them. When I was teaching Special Education in the States they were even more common because the students would often do and say inappropriate things. In Korea the students are generally very well behaved and respectful at least they are to me, but it needs to be said that I spend time making sure my students know that I will not accept certain behaviors, mostly disrespect and not following my directions. Some teachers seem to have problems with their kids, but I rarely do, I think my Special Education background has helped me to excel in classroom management.
Anyway back to my original point, when you can easily communicate with your students you can turn Unexpected Inappropriate Moments into teaching moments because they can fully understand what you are saying and they can get the meaning, when your students don't speak the same language as you do this becomes more difficult. Their is also the cultural differences that make this even harder, how do I know what is appropriate and inappropriate? There have been many times where I thought the students where doing things they shouldn't be and have been told its normal in Korea. Things like touching each other in non violent ways, ways that might be considered somewhat sexually inappropriate in the states are common place here. Teachers are even encouraged to hug and touch students. Even tickling is used with younger students in some situations, these things all seem a bit odd to foreigners but many of them make the students feel more comfortable around you, I still can't and won't touch and female students but I have found that tickling my younger male students when they are talking or misbehaving gets them back on track quickly. I'm still not sure why, but it works. Also when you talk to students they will often put there hand on your arm, this is still awkward for me but I have learned to not jerk my arm back and to just roll with it. When I first started I would pull my arm back and they found this to be insulting.
As far as the picture goes I was taking pictures of some of my students and one of the more rambunctious ones flipped me the bird, I was so stunned by this I started to laugh and quickly changed my face and pretended to be upset,even though I thought it was hilarious. I didnt send him to the principal but I did make him stand with his hands over his head for the remainder of the class (about 4 minutes), this is also an acceptable form of punishment here that would likely get you fired in the States. I thought about sending him to my director but I feared he would have been treated to harshly if I did. At the very least he would have received a demoralizing lecture were he would be screamed at for 5-10 minutes and quite possibly he would have been beaten with a stick for this. Either way I didn't want to be responsible for these actions, so I handled it myself.
I realize this is a picture I probably shouldn't be posting but I can't help it, its just so adorable.
