In the Battle of the Sexes, a Voice of Reason

As I've mentioned in the past, Korean boys and Korean girls DO NOT like to work with each other. I always assign random project groups, and it's rather irritating to watch the boys and girls literally praying to God that they draw a same-sex group (I inform them politely that God has better things to do).

Today, one of my favorite students, the Machiavelli fan, seemed to have a breakthrough. A boy was in her project group and he was sighing and whining, as per usual. She responded by saying, "I really don't care. I think it's kind of stupid when boys and girls say they don't want to work with each other when they don't know about their personalities."

"That's very mature," I told her.

She replied, "I just don't like him as a person."

Not English 101

As I may have mentioned, the elite students at my hagwon read actual novels. Some of the better ones I have taught were Oliver Twist and To Kill a Mockingbird. A few terms ago, the course dealt with Shakespeare. While Shakespeare is undeniably great, I did question the value of teaching it to kids in Korea learning English as a second language. I pictured them walking into KFC in the States and saying, "Prithee retrieve thy finest spork, kind wench."

While the books this term are easier, I have been amused by the fact that we're reading The Secret Garden which, in addition to being extremely boring and poorly written, contains several characters who speak in a "broad Yorkshire" dialect. I just worry that the kids will read this excerpt and think normal people talk this way:

"Aye, that we mun . . . I'll tell thee what us'll do first . . . He's took a graidely fancy to thee. He wants to see thee and he wants to see Soot an' Captain. When I go back to the house to talk to him I'll ax him if tha' canna' come an' see him tomorrow mornin' - an' bring tha' creatures wi' thee - an' then - in a bit, when there's more leaves out, an' happen a bud or two, we'll get him to come an' tha' shall push him in his chair an' we'll bring him here an' show him everything."

What. The. Hell.

FBGM

As I was walking to get lunch today, I happened to pass by a Korean girl, perhaps 13 or 14 years old, who was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the following slogan - without the asterisks:

F***
B****ES
GET
MONEY

I am NOT making this up.

I wish she had gone for the more palatable version:

Dunsan 6 - 2 Noeun

Dunsan 6 - 2 Noeun
Doering...........................Curd x 2
Martin x 2
Thorup
Pedersen
Miszkowski (O.G.)

Welcome to the Zoo

On Saturday, a number of us decided to have a little BBQ at a small park. It was a good time - beer, hot dogs, Frisbee, and football. As Alex was chucking the football around, a group of Korean girls (and one mortified looking boy) ran up to him and began requesting a photo with him. They then wandered over to our main picnic area and got their camera out. At first, it was kind of flattering; if they wanted photos with us, it was kind of like being a rock star.

However, they didn't actually want photographs WITH us. They wanted photographs OF us. They started hinting that they basically wanted photos of us acting how we would normally act, like "in our natural environment" or something. I'm sorry, but that's just insensitive. I did, however, get a picture with them.

Extracurricular Practice (Or Lack Thereof)

Some years ago, my father and I were attending a jazz concert featuring the legendary pianist Oscar Peterson. Also in the band was Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (no relation), the great Danish bassist. Danish, as you may know, was my major in college, and I had recently returned from a summer in Copenhagen, where I actually saw Pedersen perform at the Louisiana Museum of Weird Pretentious S*** (this may or may not be the official name). Dad urged me to go speak to the bassist in Danish . . . I'm not entirely sure if my dad was just surprised at the coincidence and thought NHØP would like to hear about it, or if he was making sure he got his money's worth from all those university Danish classes. Maybe both.

Laura made an interesting observation about a month ago. She pointed out that, despite the ruinous amounts Korean parents spend on English classes, they rarely force their children to speak English to the foreigners on the street. Sure, kids will occasionally volunteer a few words here and there - usually just "Hi!" followed by rampant giggling. But I've never had a parent actually ask their kid to converse with me.

The thing is, while I initially resisted the pressure to talk to Niels-Henning, I'm glad I did, and I suspect he enjoyed it to. I kind of wish the kids would practice their skills with me . . . I would feel like the teaching I do is not in vain.

B.S.!

Yesterday, we were talking about the idea of bias in listening class. As we returned from class, I began to bring the class back to order. "OK kids, we're going to continue our discussion. Remember to take notes, and listen for signs of . . ."

Before I could finish, a girl piped up with the answer, though a mispronunciation led her to shout out "B.S.!"

I explained that this was a rather different concept, but declined to elaborate further.

Warning Signs?

This is a touchy topic, but I feel like my blog wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention it. I heard the following from a student a couple of weeks ago:

"Teacher! Sometimes I dream that the English academy is on fire. I dream this five nights a week."

Another student wrote the following sentence in his vocabulary book:

"I massacre [sic] many people in the building."

And another student wrote not one, but two vocabulary sentences about Hitler. This is paradoxical; many of the students idolize Truman for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan yet few of them seem to be able to make the connection between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Korea seems to lack America's "zero tolerance" policy for violent behavior from children. Many students here - particularly the boys - would have ended up in a straight jacket in the States. I used to think that is was absurd that kids who pointed their fingers ("BANG!") would get expelled. However, I am no longer so sure. The behavior and writings of Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, would hardly seem out of place here, which leads me to believe that it's better to be safe than sorry. If you forbid any type of violent speech or behavior, the normal kids will cut it out while the real psychos will rise into view.

I suppose the major difference is that in this country, no aspiring school shooters can get their hands on semi-automatic handguns and hollow point bullets. Perhaps leaders in the U.S. should focus less on shadow-puppet guns and more on the real ones.

Good Advice

Student: Teacher, I have a nosebleed.

Other Student: Don't pick your nose.

Machiavelli, Continued

So after our discussion of Machiavelli a couple of weeks ago, it appears one of my students took the lessons to heart. She actually went online and purchased an English translation of The Prince. I told her this was by far the coolest thing a student has ever done in one of my classes.

I am somewhat concerned though, as this girl is about the wittiest and most sarcastic student I've ever had, so Lord only knows what nefarious schemes Machiavelli will inspire in her . . .

All Star

I bought these shoes today at Save Zone . . . pretty much the coolest shoes I've ever owned. I like them because they take something all-American and add Asian influences . . . reminds me of myself!

TWSS

You might think that the most difficult part of teaching in Korea is getting the kids to understand complex ideas in a second language. You'd be wrong. I find that the biggest challenge is not blurting out "That's what she said!" regularly in class.

For example, today the kids were listening to a lecture where the speaker was talking rather quickly. One girl blurted out, "So hard!" while another chipped in with "So fast!"

Yesterday was even better. A girl who was listening to the same lecture said, "I thought it was going to be short, but it was very long."

April Fooling 2010

Being that it's April 1st, I figured it was time to dust off the old April Fools Impossible Vocabulary Quiz. This year I got less of a reaction; I think it's because my introductory speech was less harrowing. It should be noted that one kid actually got 7/10, an improvement from last year's top score of 3/10.

However, I am also teaching a class where we are reading Bridge to Terabithia, and I created a new quiz for this class. Their usual quizzes ask them to identify the context and the significance of some passages from the book. I took this idea and ran with it. The first page was normal, but then I inserted this second page:



The disturbing thing is that nobody seemed to notice and they actually came up with some funny answers. The fact that the main character, Jess, talks like a country hick and not like Humphrey Bogart or Abraham Lincoln probably should have given it away.