Nov

11-11-11

Happy Peppero Day all. I was wondering if there were going to be any super fun or weird pepperos floating around. I can say, I’ve seen the biggest boxes of them EVER.

I got about a half-dozen boxes from my students. One of my kindergarteners gave me a cell phone charm that is a little girl holding a giant peppero. Now that I love. It’s so cute.

Believe it or not, I didn’t eat any. Well, no, I take that back. I ate one and then gave the rest of the box to the two students in my class.

You can buy them year round, but people usually only eat them on 11-11. After 6 Peppero days, I can say I never want to see another one as long as I live. It was worse when I taught in a full kindergarten. I came home with a shopping bag full of them. Most of all, I think my palate has changed. I don’t crave sweets the way I used to.

I decided to go to Outback (what, did you think I was living in war-torn Korea?) for dinner. I decided to get the Chocolate Thunder from Down Under. Big mistake. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a scoop of whipped cream on top of a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of a warm brownie. My stomach is still yelling at me.

And thus so ends another Peppero Day. It’ll probably be back to the same old regular sized boxes. And for those who have no idea what I’m babbling on about, here a short history.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Food and Drink,Holidays,Just Wow,Korea and have No Comments

Nov

The Power of a Typo

My day started off rocky. Long story, not relevant to this blog. At least the day got better. There was a typo in one of my text books. “doing” was written as “dong”. All of a sudden I hear “TEACHER ddong. Hahahahahahahahaha! Ddong!” If you haven’t figured it out yet, ddong is Korean for dung. It took me a minute to figure out what they were going on about. And I admit. I laughed. You almost had to. Only 1st graders would find that. Case in point, the 4th graders later today didn’t even see it. And I didn’t point it out.

Oh yes, and if you scroll down some (well, keep scrolling, you’ll get there), you’ll find the badge for my semi-new Facebook page. Please drop by. If you like the blog, consider giving me a like on my page. Leave a message too. I’m curious to see who my readers are and to get to know you.

posted by Kathryn in Fun things,Just Wow,Spelling,Students,Woonjin Plus and have No Comments

Nov

Hot Potato – Version 2.0

A few weeks ago I wrote about using Hot Potato as a speaking game in the ESL classroom. Well, here is version 2.0. As I was playing with McQueen class (an older, low intermediate class) I decided I shouldn’t have to do all the work. Why yes, I can be lazy late on Thursday.

You play Version 2.0 the same as the original version. But instead of the teacher asking questions, the student who gets the hot potato has to ask a question of another student in the class. I think this is a much better version. Asking questions is a skill that gets practiced less as students progress up the ESL ladder. And if I don’t have to ask the questions, I can pay closer attention to the problems students have in forming questions and making appropriate responses.

If I get really motivated, I’ll make a dedicated hot potato mp3 that I can just put on my iPod. That would reduce the time I spent stabbing at the pause button and I can pay more attention to potential disasters.

Try it out. As always let me know how it goes.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Games,Speaking and have No Comments

Nov

And We Now…

…Return You to Your Regularly Scheduled Theme.

Though I was tempted to change to something with a Christmas flare to it. As I was walking in front of Lotte Department Store, they were putting up the holiday displays. Did I mention this was yesterday? Halloween? And here I thought leaving the US would get me away from the consumerism. I certainly picked the wrong country.

posted by Kathryn in Home Life and have No Comments

Oct

Testing

There’s definitely an art to writing good tests. I’m not sure I’ve found that happy medium yet, and I’ve been doing this for almost 6 years. Korean language academies vary in their philosophy on testing. My first school, foreign teachers gave oral tests and Korean teachers gave written one. The second school didn’t test at all, and preferred to use a (very flawed) portfolio system. My current school has both the Korean and foreign teachers give written tests every month.

However, as of next Monday (OK, Tuesday because Monday is the Halloween party) we’re joining a franchise. Woonjin Plus focuses on the in class material with totally separate material for foreign and Korean teachers. But they also have an online program. Since standardized English testing is moving to being computer based, Woonjin wants to get kids using the computers for English assessment as soon as possible. I’ve yet to see what the online program is like, but I am curious. We have a brand new computer lab set up.

And the best part? No more test writing for me! We get our testing materials from the parent company.

Along with this comes a new name. No longer Maple Square, we are now Woonjin Plus – Naedong Campus

posted by Kathryn in Maple Square,Technology,Woonjin Plus and have No Comments

Oct

Speaking Games – Hot Potato

As ESL students get older, they tend to clam up. Try teaching a book called “Speaking Tutor” to two mute fifth graders. Isn’t puberty fun?

Unfortunately I don’t have access to any sort of technology in the classroom. I came across a (flash I think) speaking games that reminds me of hot potato. In this game music played while students passed a ball of paper (personally I’d use my beach ball). When the music stopped (controlled by the teacher), a question came up in the game. The person with the ball had to answer the question.

I think I’m going to replicate this with just paper. Print a question on a piece of paper, and ball it up. Use your CD player with music of your choice. When you hit pause, the person has to unball the paper and answer the question.

I can actually see this being a great icebreaker game with higher level classes or even small adult classes.

Try it in your classroom and let me know how it goes. I’ll be sure to try it with target language (younger kids) after our test week is over.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Games,Speaking and have Comment (1)

Oct

New Theme

This is a theme for October in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It’s been nearly a year since my best friend lost her fight with this disease. My grandmother was a breast cancer survivor.

Ladies, please do self exams. And gents, though it’s rare, men can get breast cancer too. Be aware of your body.

RIP Melanie. You were loved by your students and your teaching career was cut short. I thank you for all you taught me and I put it into practice every day.