Wonder Piggy

This is a video of two girl students who decided to show me what they can do with a piggy hand puppet and their favorite band.

p.s. Excuse the clicking noise, that's just the stupid camera auto-focusing on itself

dbsk-day

Today is Events Day for the 1st graders at my school. It's one of those days where the students and classes compete against each other to see who will be champion. The events that they have are Ping-Pong, drawing, Korean words, Math... The one event that I got to 'participate' in what the shuttle-cock. You know, the one where they kick with the in-step of the foot. The competition was to find out which student can kick the most consistently. I just went in to take pictures.

But as it turns out, it was pretty boring. So I started talking to some of the students.

"Teacher, do you know 동방신기? (dbsk)"
"Yes, I do. =)"
"Wahhhh!!!"

"Teacher, 5 member. Who like-uh most?"
"Mmmm ... I like You-Know"
"WAHHHH!!!! He is handsome boy!!"

"Teacher, yesterday was Xiah Junsu birthday!"
"Oh really?"
"Yesterday is 샤 (Shyah) day!"

"Teacher, 26 is 동방신기 day"
"December 26th?"
"Yes, December. 5 years! Wahhhhh!!"

you FIRED!

I don't know where the kids are learning english, but the recent thing they tried to mimic was the saying, "Be patient". So the kids are going, "be patient" to each other.

But kids being kids, it turned from "be patient" to "You be patient" to "You patient" to "You PATIENT".

But with korean accents, it sounds like "YOU PAY-SHUN!!!", mimicking Trump's famous "you FIRED!!"

Finals Finals Finals

It's the week of finals at school and every student/teacher is going crazy. They're all crazy stressed about tests and such. So I become the super cool teacher that shows movies (aka I haven't done any planning this month at all! haha)

for the first years, I showed them Wall-E. For the second years, I showed Alvin & the Chipmunks, to which one of the students recalled a bald man:

"Teacher, his head SHINEE! Head...wax-uh!"


and as always, during finals, other teachers like to cancel my class so they can teach/review for the finals. some of the first years miss my class, especially the ones that clean my office afterschool.

"Ohh I want isabelle class."
"Aww, then do well on your tests!"
"ohh, I hate test-uh! I Hate test-uh!"
... to which another teacher in my office copied. They are too cute.

Formal/Informal Language?

This entry is about a conversation I witnessed between the two adorable boys that clean our office.

Before the actual conversation is written out...some of you may know that the Korean language has both formal (존댓말) and informal expressions (반말). Apparently many of my students don't know that English doesn't really have anything as specific that. Of course, there are phrases that are more polite than others but we don't have formal language that we use for elders and informal that we must use for those younger than us etc...

So back to the boys...they come in everyday to clean my department's office. They usually come in with loud screams of, "HELLLLOOOO!!" and lots of waving. One of the boys comes in late and he yells a big, "HIIIII!!"...to which the other boy scolded him.

He tells him:
Hello! is 존댓말 and Hi! is 반말. How can he use 반말 to a teacher?
To which the other boy says:
What about HI-요? (adding 요 or 니다 to the end of a regular sentence, after conjugating it, usually turns it into formal language)
He responds with:
싸가지 없는것...
Hard to translate this one but I guess it can equate to, "You sound like a jerk/asshole."
They laugh for a bit and then...

The boy turns around to me and screams brightly, "HELLLOOOO!!"

Ah adorable!

Koreans <3 OBAMA

While watching America's Best Dance Crew...

the black guy from Jabbawockeez shows up,
"OBAMMMAAAAA!!!!"

lil mama begins judging,
"OBAMMMAAAAA!!!"

World Star: Rain?

It seem that many of my students are interested in knowing if Rain (비) is a world star. He's hyped up in Korea and they refer to him as a world star on the numerous shows he's featured in but...is he really famous in America?

The answer is:
Not really.

I don't like breaking it to the kids but their reactions are quite funny. Usually they're shocked or disappointed but some of them have a 'I knew it all along' look on their faces...

For those who don't know who Rain is...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_(singer)

It's okay Rain, you're not a world star quite yet but I like you!

Lesson Topic: Occupations/Jobs

Me: "So what does a dentist do?"
Student: "Ah...ah...the tooth...HEAL!"

*slide of 'President' comes up*
Students: "OBAMAAAAA!!!"

Dinner after Open Class

We went to a traditional Korean restaurant and we had a course meal, paid by the school (i think).

These two girls come into my office everyday at 3:00 and clean my office space. I can hear the sound of them coming when the door opens and hear a "Hiyeeee teacher". They love practicing their English and are super adorable (and a little naive).

First Post!

Yea, I've seen a lot of other people making blogs/journals about their journey in other countries so I might as well do it too.

This is my first time teaching English in Korea and it's been a full month since I've started. I can't say it's been fun and exciting, but the whole deal about students teaching the teacher is absolutely true. Because as you learn to teach, you grow as a person. But teaching is a boring subject, I just want to post pictures and write down random funny comments kids in Korea say these days. Like this one:

"Teacher, do you have a boyfriend?"
"No, I don't"
"Ohhh you are so poor!"