ga-young was the first grade student at my elementary school that everyone simply adored. she is not only a charming and happy little girl, but also an undisputed genius, especially in english. in our class we studied a series of books called backpack, and with the first graders i taught the starter level, which comes before level 1. it's pretty easy stuff like colors and numbers mostly, designed for students with no previous exposure to english. she did all the exercises cheerfully, but in perfect english explained to me that at her english institute she was on level 5 and enthusiastically exclaimed, i like to make sentences! the previous year i'd taught backpack level 3 so i quickly tested her knowledge. i'd say soda, she'd quickly come back with a can of soda. cherries, a bowl of cherries. bananas, a bunch of bananas. olives, a jar of olives. amazing. and unlike some of the other kids who were good at english, ga-young had never visited north america or lived outside korea before.

she is also an amazing artist. she made a book as a present for her mom, it was about 12 pages long, all written in almost perfect english, with full page color illustrations. we teachers had a hard time trying not to show favoritism towards her since she was always amazing us and without fail a joy to teach.

ga-young loved english so she really enjoyed my class, and i was honored when she said i was her favorite teacher.

it's hard to see but it says the best teacher is moveing away! notice the heart-shaped balloons are crying, how sad!

tagged: elementary korea school student