On Air

Last week, the principal came in to the English classroom.  He seemed a little bit annoyed about something.

He pointed to the fan I had running in the room.

"Blah, blah, blah (something about if students are not in the room), 절전."

I wasn't exactly sure what "절전" was, but nonetheless, I dutifully said, "네. 알겠습니다." (Yes.  I understand.)

After he left, I looked up "절전" in my cell phone's English-Korean dictionary.

"절전...save electricity, economize power"

This last month it has been hovering about 32 Celsius (90 F).  So, I am not really in the mood to save electricity.  But, I can move to the main teacher's office.  They sometimes turn the air conditioner on.

So, today they did turn the air conditioner on in the teacher's office.  Everyone is saying, "더워!" (It's hot!).

However, half of the windows are open.  And when I have been watching the classrooms more closely after the principal said that we needed to save electricity...the air conditioner has been on with the windows open.

Whatever 절전 means, I guess it doesn't mean save logically.

On A Common Conversation

The following video depicts a conversation that every foreign teacher in Korea has had multiple, multiple times.

Yes, I have been left sitting in the corner eating lettuce by myself...and, damn it...I am a chopstick Kung-fu master...

On Numbers

365--The number of days in one of my contracts.

30--The average number of lessons I finish with each class each year.

33--The number of classes in my school.

3--The number of grades in my school.

70--About the number of teachers in my school.

5--The number of floors in the school.

6--The number of different partner teachers that I have.

2--The number of partner teachers who significantly help in classes.

2--The number of partner teachers who pay attention, but rarely do anything in class.

1--The number of partner teachers who are hopefully reforming into a better category of partner teacher.

1--The number of partner teachers who read books or do paper work almost all the time in class.

12--The number of tests that I have to edit for grammar and native speakerness.

1--The number of tests that I have to write about the movie, Shrek.

3.33--The number of English classes, on average, that each class from each grade has each week.

0.667--The average number of English conversation classes (i.e. my class) that each class from each grade has each week.

22--The number of classes that I am supposed to teach each week before getting overtime.

21.5--The average number of classes that I am scheduled for each week.

0--The number of times you are supposed to talk about overtime when you do, in fact, go over 22 hours a week.

1--The number of vice-principals in the school.

1--The number of principals in the school.

1224--The number of students in the school.

1224--The number of my students in the school.

9--The number of in-school managers above me, depending on various situations.

24--The average number of minutes it takes to get to school from walking out my front door to entering the school's front door.

4--The average number of students that say, "Hello, teacher.  Nice to meet you!"...after knowing me for the last 3 years.

2.33--The number of years I have been at this school.

37.5--The average number of students in each class.

2.5--The average number of special needs students in each class (I am not talking about ADHD), but not completely drooling either.

60--The score out of a hundred that can still be considered a good score on an English test.

35--About the number of students in the whole school that I believe could actually hold a conversation with a normal foreign English speaker (i.e. not an ESL teacher) past "Hi, how are you?  Where's the bathroom?".

3--The number of articles (a, an, the) that are almost never used properly and I have frankly just given up on.

3--The number of kids that I play cards with every day to practice English and relax.

1--The number of kids that have committed suicide in the past year.

3--The number of times that I have met the mayor.

313,413--The number of people in the city.

4--The number of summer and winter English camps that I do each year.

5--The number of days for each of those camps.

15--The number of days until I get to go home for vacation.

What if...? (Education)

What if you never really studied anything in college?

What if you just listened to your professor?

What if all you ever did was accept what the professor had to say?

What if you woke up one day and realized that most people around you don't do anything related to their major?

What if that worthless piece of paper you got at college did not really prepare you for your job more than the training your employer gave you at the beginning of your job?

What if to get that piece of paper you have to take out a $80,000 loan at 5% interest during your four year stay at college?

What if the average person without that piece of paper can make $120,000 in the same time period?

What if the difference between plus $120,000 and minus $80,000 is $200,000?

What if that difference is not counting the interest payments that will be required to repay that loan?

What if by the time computer science majors are out of college, their professors' information is so out of date, the students have to be retrained by their employers?

What if this was also true for doctors, nurses, scientists and others?

What if we were to change this paradigm?

What if companies were to introduce more apprenticeships?

What if instead of veterinary-interested students being forced to sit through art appreciation classes, they were shown the ropes with on the job training?

What if instead of archaeology students learning about Schliemann's Troy, they actually did what they wanted ...get their hands dirty in Troy?

What if all of the extra crap at college is just another way for the government to indoctrinate students in the "proper" way to think?

What if this idea applies to earlier incarnation of schooling as well?

What if almost no one uses the math that we used past the 6th grade?

What if the only education that is every really important is the education that is important to you?

What if any other kind of education should be considered no more than it really is: slavery, theft-of-desire, prison, torture...?

On Good Things in Korea (Music)

You may being asking what is the best music in Korea (You also may not being asking, but then you are on my blog and so I obviously lead the discussion).  So, here are my favorites from various coherently (at least in my mind) organized  awards:

Best Song:


"I Am the Best" by 2ne1

Why?

It is catchy and the whole independent dirty girl thing doesn't happen often enough here.

Best Teaching Song:


"I Don't Care" by 2ne1

Why?

It is really easy to remember (i.e. it is catchy again) and, when my students are being whining little brats, I can say, "I don't ca-a-a-are."

Best Girl Group:


2ne1


Okay, so I am partial to 2ne1.

Best Use of Harmonica in a K-Pop Song:


"Lalala" by SG Wannabe

Best Song to Make Your Students Dance to If They Are Annoying:

"Sorry, Sorry" by Super Junior

Why?

Because they have to apologize somehow and every Korean student knows this dance, but not as well as they think...

Best Song to Make Students Sing or Dance to if You Really Want to Humiliate Them:


"The Three Bears Song" by I don't know (not the real name...I just really don't know)

Why?

Because humiliating students is sometimes very important and I know this song well enough to know if they are trying to bullshit me...

Lastly...


Best Use of Star Wars/Taps/2001 Style Music in a National Pledge

Note: This is not the anthem.  It is just the pledge of allegiance...Korean style.

On Training 2

In one of the training classes today, we were talking about dealing with multi-leveled students in class.  At the very end of class:

Guy 1:  `Why doesn`t the education office just level the classes into appropriate levels?` 

I think this is a reasonable question.

Blond-haired 년 (an impolite term for a `girl`):  `Research has shown that if you tell a teacher that these are low level students then the teacher will treat those students like dumb asses even if they are really a mixed class.`

Me: `I taught at a private afterschool academy before public school and we leveled students.  They turned into quite decent English speakers.`

Blond-haired 년 (pointing her finger at me and face contorted with anger): `You`re why my students sleep in class!!!`

Wow!  Issues?  I didn`t know the question of whether or not to level classes was such a sensitive issue.

On Training

I am off to be trained by YBM.  YBM is the number one name in English education in Korea.  It just so happens to be the parent company of the private institute that I worked at before public school.

It is also the company for which my friend, Amanda, happened to work as an editor about three years ago.  Now, as I remember it, she used to text and call me with questions such as:

Amanda:  `Matt, they wrote, `I want to gone to Japan.` They question my English all the time, but I know they are wrong.  This is wrong, right?`

She is not a stupid person, but doubt really does start to move into your mind after continuously being critiqued on your native language by non-native speakers (that seems like an odd statement, but `tis true).

But by far the most memorable conversation was about her duties as a North American cultural and `reality` (?) liason.

Amanda: `Matt, the artist drew a picture of a black girl with blond hair.  So, I told her that black people don`t naturally have blond hair.  The artist said, `Yes, I have seen it on TV`.  뭐야!!`

So, that is the background for my feelings about a training being run by YBM.

On a slightly different note, this the most number of foreigners I have seen in a long time.

On Good TV

Unless you have taught EFL/ESL at home or in another country (especially in a for-profit setting), it is really hard to describe the atmosphere. But there is a really good Youtube series about the job. Though it is based in Japan, it is very similar. There are 8 episodes. It is called `English Teachers`. It is like the ESL version of The Office. Enjoy.

You can search for the remaining episodes easily enough on Youtube or just go to the show's website: http://englishteachersseries.com/.

And, yes, the over the top guy who is introduced at the very end of Episode 3, I have totally met that guy, crocks and everything...

On Unaskable Questions

During another speaking test today, I had planned to ask, `Tell me about the biggest animal in the world`.  Then I was going to follow-up with `have you every touched` whatever animal they said?

Me: Tell me about the biggest animal in the world.

Boy: I am the biggest animal in the world.

Me (thinking):  I can`t ask, `Have you every touched yourself?`

I moved on to the next part of the speaking test.

Yes, Kimchi

Today, I was doing a conversation test with one of my classes.

One boy was sitting in front of me.

I asked him, "What does Choi Hong-man look like?"
 This is Choi Hong-man.
                                                   He is a giant Korean MMA fighter (He's like 7'1".)

Now, we had given them the questions a week ago so that they would have time to prepare.  And, I was planning to follow up the given question with an unknown question to really test their unprepared ability.  The follow-up question was this, "Do you want to meet Choi Hong-man?  Why do you want to or not want to meet him?"

So, back to the boy.  I asked him, "What does Choi Hong-man look like?"

The Boy: "Yes, Kimchi."

Me: "뭐야 (What the...)!!

And, now for something not completely different.  Choi Hong-man vs. Jose Canseco.  Yes, THAT Jose Canseco...

One more time...뭐야!

And, one more thing...if you meet a Korean person who has Choi for a family name, the name is pronounced "Chae".  It does not rhyme with Troy like the announcer did in the video.  It was a terrible Romanization that someone did a long time ago.  So, if you want to impress your Korean friends, say "Chae" instead of trying to pronounce it the way it looks like in "Choi".

On Guessing

First, a little background...

A lot of EFL students have few chances to actually ask questions in class.  Teachers are usually the ones who ask questions (which is not just a EFL problem, but whatever...).

So, anyways, I like to have a guessing game in class every once in a while to encourage the production of actual questions.  Normally, questions come across as "Teacher happy?"

The basic format of the guessing game is quite easy.  I have a picture hidden on a PPT slide.  I know what the picture is, while students don't.  They can ask any question they want (though, if they ask "how do you spell it?", I tell them I don't remember.  And, if they ask "what is it?", I answer "it is not a smart ass" :(...).  I answer the question and the first team that can say the phrase, "It is _____", gets a point.

Now that the background is out of the way...during one particular game, the teams were really competitive.  Each and every question was really important.

Here is how one question went...

Student 1:  "What color is it?"

Me:  "It's white."


Student 2:  "What shape is it?"

Me:  "Sometimes, it is a circle.  Sometimes, it is a crescent shape."  (My co-teacher explained that one in Korean.)
                     

Student:  "Where can you see it?"

Me:  "It's in space."


Now, nearly everyone in the room knew what the answer was.  Before getting to the answer, though, I should say two more rules for all of my classes.  I keep a checklist of everyone who has spoken meaningfully (given an answer or asked a good question).  And, any student that has not spoken can raise their hand and I will always call on them first (I call them "new face" in class).  New faces can be a powerful weapon in a close game.  And, since the "new faces" are generally low level students, I always let the other students in the class feed answers to anyone on their team (or on another team if they want or they are too stupid to keep their mouth shut).

Nearly every student in class:  "Moon!"

As always, I scan the room to look for new faces.

So, a really quiet low-level new face on Team 1 is wearing a big grin.  His hand pops up.  He is the last new face for his team.

The nine other students on his team:  "Moon!  Moon!  Moon!"

The boy puffs up his chest.  He is ready to hit his homerun.

New face (big smile):  "Door!"

Me (mentally):  "Doh!"

Team 1: *groan*



"Moon" (문) just happens to be the word for door in Korean.