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!