It's bordering on crunch time here in Seoul as I work endlessly on my assignments and portfolio, in between my lessons, in order to have everything done before Friday of next week.  Even with a day off in the middle, this has been my most stressful week yet.  Having spent most of my time here at Seoul Global learning and planning for economics, I had neglected my portfolio which remained bare until this past Monday.  I have been scrambling to put it together and have made some decent progress, but, as always, I fear it's not good enough, and the thought of turning it in is making me slightly ill.  The only thing I can do is just keep working and reworking until it resembles something I can be proud of.

We had Thursday off this week for the Korean SATs.  Once a year the third year students in all of South Korea take the test that will literally determine their lives.  The student's score on the KSAT will be the deciding factor of whether or not they may possibly be accepted into one of the top three schools in Korea (again, called SKY collectively).  SKY is the only choice for the students at Seoul Global High and on Wednesday, the entire school turned out for what I can only describe as an educational "pep rally" to cheer on the third year students.  It was pretty amazing.  The band played on the soccer field and the second and first year students created a human tunnel for the third years to walk through as they were being cheered on to the big sign at the end of the tunnel with "Seoul National University" written in big letters waved in front of them.  There were lots of hugs from the teachers, I saw some students crying, it was a pretty enormous spectacle for a test.  And I had to keep reminding myself when I was watching the rally, that all of this was being done for a test.

For our blogs this week, we are supposed to discuss motivation. I thought that was well timed after witnessing the events of the week to help keep the students taking the KSATs motivated and focused on their goals.  While I felt the students pressure with this grand gesture (which was apparently a first at SGHS), the students seemed to respond positively to it.  Although I am against the pressure these students are placed under to pass one standardized test to determine whether or not they are deemed intelligent enough to attend the college of their choosing, I hope the pep rally helped the students on Thursday, I know it is their goal to do very well.

More specifically were were asked to discuss intrinsic motivation and what we have done to encourage this.  For my own classes, I think it was important to first know a bit about their background, how much they had already covered in economics and to start at an appropriate level so as to not bore them or make them feel like I was "dumbing down" the lessons.  I asked my CT about my lesson plans and would further ask her to point out things that the students already knew and what I should pay more attention to.  As time went on, I would try to vary the lesson plans so the students would stop being bored (and falling asleep).  I gave the students choices for the review by telling them we can either play online activities or we can continue with the textbook handouts...this seemed to help their motivation to participate and cooperate with the activities.  There were no tangible rewards given in class for winners of the online activities (candy, points, etc...) so I believe this would be considered intrinsic.  In class when I felt the students were not paying enough attention to important formulas or definitions, I would remind them of how important the information was for future assignments, scaffolding or the final.  This would motivate most students to pay more attention and take better notes or question items they did not understand.

So as I look forward to my last week of teaching and last week of seeing the students I hope that what I have learned will follow me back to America where the students lack the self motivation that Korean students have.  I hope I am able to encourage participation, cooperation and good behavior with students who are not weighed down with the stress of the KSAT and whose future options are quite a bit more open and free.