Don't Speak While You Kick Push

This week has been very laid back at least in terms of teaching. Because the students will have mid-terms soon, the second year students have to play catch up. This means that my classes for them have been canceled this week. That effectively cuts 1/3 of my classes for the week, so I haven’t tried to actually use the books to teach from.

For the first year students, I’m doing a light review. I have a tough time explaining it to some of them, but the idea is that they have to make a 4-panel comic strip using the lessons we have already gone over. I give them the book pages to use as references; but basically they have to make a comic showing an introduction between people, two friends greeting each other, one person inviting another to do an activity. I wish I had gotten to use it on class 105 (my angel class) but I had to play catch up with them. The test class was 102; a class where I don’t have English co-teacher. It wasn’t too hard to get them to understand the concepts, but I know it would have gone smoother if I had a co-teacher who could help with questions.

The third year students have a lesson that involves music. I selected two songs; one song because it is slow, the other because it’s tougher and I had a feeling they might like it. The songs are “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt and “Kick, Push” by Lupe Fiasco. I first made a lyric sheet for them for each song then I made a worksheet with words missing in the lyrics. It’s to test their listening skills. The first class didn’t go as well as I would have liked because I wasn’t able to set things up like I should have. The next class went much smoother because I found a copy of the video for “Don’t Speak” on youtube that had the lyrics. It’s gone over fairly in well in the classes. . . but it’s third years so you never know. The girls seemed to like “Don’t Speak” and the boys “Kick Push”. . . overall, “Kick, Push” is the favorite.

As I expected, the students keep up with “Don’t Speak”. In fact, I’ve caught some of the girls mouthing the words to it. They all seem to find “Kick Push” hard to keep up with. Still, some of them were able to catch on to it after listening. I eventually want to do a lesson where classes pick a song to learn and I give them the lyric sheets. I will try hard to find song with easy lyrics to learn. I have talked about it with my co-teacher and the big issue is songs that are overly sexual. Considering that many students requested “Sexyback” by Justin Timberlake, I can see this will be an uphill battle.

Pictures of the Week (April 22)

This week's pictures from the wonderful world of Korean weirdness come from my random walking around the city of Daegu. I think it's time for something a little different, so I might want to travel around to get pictures from different places.

First up on the list is this wonderful little shirt I found with a friend when we wandered into a cell phone assessory shop. The girl wearing the shirt seemed to be uneasy about me taking the picture, so I asked her friend to take it for me. We also explained why it was so funny to us silly Americans. I think it was more than fair considering that she was squeezing the chicken and making nosies with it.

There are a lot of keychains and cell phone charms here. This one caught my eye due to the fact that not only is it Spider-Man, but it's Spider-Man holding a bottle of Soju. For those of you who don't know, Soju is the local liquor of choice for many Koreans. The drink is synonoious with the country despite a movement to distance itself from the drink. But how could such a trinket exist? Well, the copyright laws are very fuzzy here. Many things aren't "offical" here so it's not usual to see such things.

Weekend Warrior Report: Racing The Sun

My Friday was boarder line pointless. I didn’t do too much and I only ended up meeting with friends and bar hopping to Commune and That. The night started out with a little bit of promise. That promise eventually fizzled out and gave way to mundane blah-dom.

Saturday I allowed Nick’s girlfriend Susy to talk me into coming to Salsa lessons and observe . I might actually sign up because I like dancing and want to learn how to do it right. Truth be told, I’m a little self-conscious about it. Dancing is one of the few kinks left in my armor. I plan on making Susy teach me some basics before I walk into class (Yes, a pre lesson before an actual lesson! Makes sense. . .) due to my own silly issues about it.

After getting galbi with the usual suspects, I headed off with a few friends to find something to do. Intially there wasn’t much success. That was blah, Old Skool has officially been taken over by the U.S. military, but, it was in Frog where I ended up having the most fun.

Now I hate Club Frog because It’s overcrowded and I always feel like I should have an STD test after going there. Yet it’s my boy’s favorite spot to hit up in town and I ended up hanging with him for a bit. Surprisingly it wasn’t bad; the music was decent and a few people I know were there.

Towards the later end of the night, Jeff the DJ showed up and bought me and some of the guys a few rounds. Me and him kicked it a bit on the balcony and he gave me some intersting info and prespective. At some point during out converstation, he tells me of a random spot to check out and on the spot he decides to take me there. He introduces me to the staff and then talks me up to some people hanging in there. I found this funny, but I took the que and enjoyed myself.

We stayed at the bar until they closed. By this point the sun was beaming down but I somehow ended up at another galbi joint with a few random Koreans while they drank Soju and talked. To wrap up this little adventure, I walked into the house around 8:30-9ish in the morning. After a little net surfing and skype called back home, I hit the sack. Definitely a unique night for me. . . but fun all the same.

Pictures of the Week (April 15)

I know, the Pictures of the Week segment is a little sporadic, but I try to make up for it with more than one picture. So for this week, a few random pictures from school and around town.

This first picture is another one from the morning line-up at my school. The difference here is that these kids were all caught smoking. Their punishment: make signs and stand in front of the school all morning with them. So far, the count is three days stright. These boys have to stand up every morning while all the other studends walk past them.

This is an example I decided to use in a lesson. Korea's national baseball team made the finals of the World Baseball Classic and it was a huge deal over here. They lose to their rival Japan near the end, so I decided to use this as a part of an example. The students got a giggle out of it, however, I'm sure I misspelled Ichiro's name.

The next picture is a very random and odd picture from the subway. Me and a friend were walking around and randomly spotted this rather confusing can inside. Does this mean that ANYTHING can come out if you slect the random can? Or perhaps it's just whatever they decide to load in it's slot? Perhaps something even more insane like some random thing will happen if you pick this can. I didn't spend the 500 won to find out.

Freak Out the Students

Yesterday, one of the kids in class said something to me and for some reason it caused me to respond in Korean. It was simple No (An-Ne-Yo) but a few kids were suprised I even could say that much. I heard a few of them say, "You can speak Korean."

My response?

"Han Guk mal jal moat hey yo." (I can't speak Korean well.)

The whole class went "WWWWOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAHHHH!" Took them a moment to clam down.

It's a small. . . VERY small step. Hell, three months ago I couldn't even say that! Who knows; maybe ONE day I'll be able to speak in full sentences.

To Be (In Korea) or Not to Be (In Korea)

And so the time has come; the question of contract renewals has come up. Signing back on means another year in Korea. Another year away from friends, family and the comfort of Atlanta. No Game nights with the crew, no AWA, no UFC nights with the guys and no football. Also, no time with someone special back home I miss, no goofing with my brother, no trips to find a corner in Boarders and read and no random runs to Café Intermezzo or Real Chow Baby.

It also means, more learning Korean, more Korean children, more being stared at, and more random nights out with the expats here. It means a possible trip to Japan and who knows where else, more learning about another culture, more not knowing what people are saying around me, and more Norebang nights.

I can honestly say I’m not ready to head home yet. I feel that my time here isn’t done. Yeah, I want to see my people, but I will see them. I will get a chance to hang with them again when I go home for the summer, but I think another year is needed. Then I’ll be ready.

I just hope everything with evaluations go ok. I enjoy my school, but there are times would enjoy another school. I would like to teacher more motivated and advanced kids, but that would require moving to another part of the city more than likely. I’ve grown very attached to the kids here at Seonam Middle School. Even some of the bad ones.

But, when it comes to the teachers here, I feel lost as hell. They are nice to me at least. I like the well enough. Basically, most of them are women and it’s tough to get past that barrier here. The cultural divide is too tough. I don’t relate to them very well, nor they to me. I barely know the other English teachers here and there are days were I barely say a word at work other than my English class work. And that bothers me. A lot. Particularly when I hear of some friends who have regular contact with their teachers outside of work. Hell, I even know they were hoping for a girl and got me instead. It’s just the truth of the matter.

So the big question is will I ask to change schools or will they ask to have me changed?

Crash and Burn with Pre-teen Drama 101

A few weeks ago, I learned that I would have afternoon classes this semester. The difference between the afternoon classes and my normal classes is that I’m in the classroom with students by myself and I’m teaching whatever I want. This can be good and bad. I like the idea of the freedom to be in class with no one around, but it also presents the problem of what to do with that freedom.



By chance, a friend of mine who teaches at another school told me that she was using a TV show to teach kids English. Because she wanted to use a safe show, she used the Nickelodeon show Zoey 101.
Initially the idea of such a show did not seem interesting to me. A Pre-teen show about a girl . . complete with light romance themes and bubble gum plotlines. I at least wanted to use something with some more teeth. I toyed with the idea of using a show like the new 90210 or One Three Hill, but the content, plotlines and language would have been a bit questionable. I also thought of using Saved By The Bell but I thought it might be too dated. . . plus I didn't think the DVD set would get here on such short notice (international shipping is pricy!). However, I knew that the audience would be younger middle school age kids and mostly girls (boys usually don’t study languages over here so I didn’t expect many boys in the class). I also knew the show’s content would be (relatively) safe. So I ran the idea by one of my co-teachers and she loved the idea.


I got the scripts my friend used, the videos of the show and I made a study guide with vocabulary words and questions. I figured that the kids who would sign up for the class would be more advanced than most in the school, but I still tried to make
things easy for them. I figured the idea of watching a TV show in English with no Korean subtitles would be a bit much for them. As I went thru and watched the first thru episodes so I would know what the hell I was teaching, I got excited about the idea of doing this lesson instead of the typical book work I usually teach in class.

So this past Monday was the first day to teach this class. I came into class with my packets, my TV episodes and more information about Zoey 101 than a man of 30 should know. As I expected, the class is made up of almost all girls and mostly first years (seventh grade). So, I started class with a very light explanation of the show.

And they barely understand a word I said.

Turns out the students in the class were not as advanced as I thought. They had a very basic understanding of the language, so a lot of instructions were hard for them. It took a few tries, but they got a few of my instructions. As I plotted thru the packet with them, I feared that I would have to scrap everything I worked on.

Instead of simply showing them the show and going over the information in the packet as I had planned, I read over the script of the show with them slowly and had them highlight any words they don’t know. Then I gave them explanations of words and we watched only a scene of the show. I was relieved when I noticed that they understood some of what was going on. It gave me some hope to keep trying for the next class.

I ended up going home and revising the lesson. The next day, I read thru the script in class and gave the students English to Korean dictionaries to look up the words they didn’t know. I even went down a basic explanation of the characters and I noticed that they were finally catching on. I played the scene twice for them; once to let them hear the language, then again after reading slowly thru the lines. During the second run thru, a few students were mouthing the words and mimicking the actors’ lines. After class, two of the older girls told me the class was hard but interesting. The class also kept watching the show even after the bell rang.

My goal is to get the students used to the speed of the show and broaden their English vocabulary. If I can get them thru one episode a week, I’ll be fine as long as they are really learning. However, I’m very happy I didn’t have to junk my who lesson.

Lost Entry: Visit to Korean Mom

(Originally written 4/06/08, this entry was saved and upadated later)


This past weekend I skipped my usual trip to the gym with the rest of fight club group and met my old co-teacher Mrs. Jeong (aka Korean Mom). She has a weekly meeting with a group of her friends and they practice English and she invited me to come along. I figured I would be around a group of older women teachers for the day, but I would deal with it.

I was surprised that the group was very mixed across the board. True, most of them were teachers, but it was made up of both men and women and the ages varied. They all come from different walks of life and from different jobs.The group meets to read over and discuss different new artiles written in English. The articles range from current events to And Landers. I got to join in and they had questions for me on a few things. It was a good peek into the mind set of Koreans, at least a few opinions. There were a few things discussed that kind of made me wiggle a bit, but nothing I couldn’t handle.



I was really interested in seeing them interact because in the whole time I’ve been here, I’ve rarely had a chance to interact with Koreans in a non school setting. Unlike some of my friends, the teachers at my school rarely interact with me outside of school. My social experience with Koreans in general is very limited so I feel like that's part of the cultural experience I miss out on. The biggest problem is of course the language barrier; I don't speak enough Korean and most Koreans don't have a strong enough handle of over the English language. However, this was not the case for the English Disscussion group. The majority of them speak very good English and can express themsleves very clearly. I can only hope to get a 10th of that in Korean one day.



I think what I enjoyed most about the situation is that everyone was comfortable with each other. Everyone was joking, even making fun of each other. It was a lot of laughs, both for them and me. . One of the most interesting conversations was the one about multi-tasking that led to a men vs. women debate. They also talked about dealing with cultural idea of chivalry. While it’s a deteriorating idea in the west, it still does exist. Here in Korea, it’s a new idea. There is still an idea of “women’s” work and men don’t do things like hold doors for women. I could tell the women like the idea, but they were very unused to it.

I tired not to say too much (however, I’m sure I failed once or twice, particularly about the chivalry disscussion). Still, I got to pick their brains a bit and see what types of lives they lived. In the end, I was invited to come back and I’m considering making it a once a month thing to join them. Mrs. Jeong thought it would be fine.

After everything was over and everyone went home, Mrs. Jeong took me to get dinner. Did I mention the she rocks? Then we went shopping – she needed to buy things for home and I needed food for the next two weeks. I was more than thankful for this because I don’t have a car here and because she drove it meant I could buy a bit more than normal. Trust me; lugging boxes of crap on the subway is not fun.

We got to catch up and she told me about her new school and I told her about my time at Seonam. I can see that being at a high school is changing up her life. I could see that she had lost weight (the woman is tiny as it is!) and she told me that she works longer hours and has to do more preparation. However she seems to like her new homeroom. I told her that she was missed at the school and that a few students had asked me if I liked her or her replacement better. I can also tell she missed her son (who is recently started his required military service). She told me a few times how her home life has changed between her son leaving and her new job. She says that she gets up at 3 or 4 in the morning to do house chores before going to work!!! I even got a little insight from her about the personalities of the other English teachers at my school. Most of it I guessed, but it was interesting to see her perspective on it.

One thing that was not lost on me was seeing her home for the first time. This is the first time I’ve been in someone’s house other than another westerner. By American standards, she has a small apartment good for one or maybe two people. Personally, I thought it was beautiful. She said it was plain, but I thought it was very nice. A nice view of the city and the mountains, good space, and even a nice kitchen. I could tell that she worked hard to keep it clean because when all her guests left when the group meeting was over, she immediately started to clean (She would not let me help despite me trying three times.).

Despite it being a rather low-key day, it’s still one of the more memorable. I'm glad I got to see it because I don't know when I will get such an opportunity again.