Saturday, April 17, 2010

Thinking out of the Box

Most of my students (actually most of the students in Korea) love automated responses. For example, when you ask a student (any student) "How are you?" you will most likely get "I'm fine, thank you. And you?"

The student could have a broken arm, and that is still the response that you will get. It is easy to say that this love of the "I'm fine." phrase by Korean students is the bain of all Native English Speakers here in Korea.

I'm no exception. This semester I've made it my number one goal to get the students to say how they really are feeling, not "I'm fine." I'm glad to report that it is working for some students. I'm going to leave you with a story of one successful conversation I had with one of my students Friday.

I started the class like every class by asking the students "How are you?". Of course I got the "I'm fines", but I had a few "I'm good," "I'm tired", "I'm hungry." mixed in there. One student piped up and said: "Teacher I have tiger power!".

"What? You have tiger power? Why do you have tiger power?" I asked.

The student gave me strong arms (think muscle man) and repeated "Tiger power, teacher! You know!"

At this I told him that I had no idea what he meant by tiger power, and admitted that I was pretty confused. He explained what he meant in Korean to the students (hoping someone could help him tell me what he meant by tiger power). His explaination garnered a ton of laughs from the students, so I know that what he was talking about had to be good.

Someone shouted out "Teacher, breakfast!" followed by a chorus of tiger powers. I still had no idea what he meant.

Finally my co-teacher stepped in and translated for me. "Jennifer," she said "do you know the cereal with the tiger on it? He ate that cereal this morning, so he has tiger power."

The light came on. The student had eaten Frosted Flakes. He indeed had tiger power! I told him that was "Great!" that he had tiger power. He didn't get that part!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Spring is here!

All work and no play means...

....you can leave your boots anywhere?? I was on my way to work, when I came across these lonely pair of boots this morning. There were no feet (drunk or sober) to go in them. Ahhhh Korea....Spring has finally decided to stop on by, and boy is she pretty! The Cherry Blossoms have popped and I wanted to show all of you who are not in Asia (so everyone who reads this blog??) how wonderful it is here right now. I've decided that if I could live in a world where cherry blossoms blossomed all year long, I would be one very happy lady. They are BEAUTIFUL! Its too bad they only last a few days...

See what I mean?? Amazing! It's like snow has fallen and only landed on the pretty trees.

This lady didn't really appreciate them this much this morning, or me taking pictures of them for that matter. But I guess I wouldn't if I had to lug three shovels up a huge mountain to go pick/plant some thing all day long either!


On a side note, we've been keeping pretty busy lately with work and such. The kiddos for some reason are extra cute this year. Perhaps its because we know we are leaving in a few short months (the end is in sight type of thing) but I don't think Ed and I have enjoyed a group of students more.

I've got kids making mini-dramas about their English book cartoon characters, 'Steve' and 'Yu-jin'. Steve and Yu-jin are having quite the love affair---that is when Steve is not beating Yu-jin, like he was today. Its very Days, trust me! Let me know if you want all the gory, lovey details. I will provide them for you!

Ed's students are dancing in class and freaking out over boy bands. So I guess thats not too new, but still its enough to make him (and me) giggle.

I wanted to take some pictures of the azaleas for you all, but my foot, back and nose are saying no way to any sort of hiking (or physical activity for that matter) so I'm hoping they (the flowers--and my foot and back and nose for that matter too!) will still be around by this weekend. But don't worry! I've been keeping busy cuddling with Eddie--so everything is all good!

How is your spring turning out??