Only in the Classroom

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A Korean Piggy to Inspire Me

As I had a moment today in class that had me giggling and correcting my student’s work, I realized something that had been on my mind lately. Here is what happened: 

So here it is, a moment where I can see how effective and important it is to learn conversational English and really just how important these beginning-of-the-class warm-ups are. And sometimes out of these moments it is when my students learn the most important English – the kind they would actually use in every day life. And how much of my every day conversational Korean is so limited? A big chunk of it. The most effective I ever was, was when I started tweeting every day happenings in Korean and I started keeping a simple journal of what I did that day. It was the most effective at having me practice my sentence formation and the vocabulary that actually mattered to my every day life. 

As I finished my Korean class this past Tuesday, I realized how much more ahead I really should be. I’ve been pretty lazy lately. So seeing my student’s work I realized how much more conversational I should be in this language I’ve been surrounded in for the past 2 years. Researching what 곱창 was for my student, I came upon CNN’s 5 Korean ways to eat a pig, and as I stared at that article it struck my how I’ve been picking at my Korean pig this whole time, not using fully what was before me. So I need to practice more … and I just need to milk it for what it’s worth. Or in this case … use every lil bit of that piggy ^_^. 

Only in the Classroom

Blueberry Milk, Love and Choco pies

Oh, you funny student

As I was snacking at work yesterday and talking to a student, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud as I realized what exactly my blueberry milk said:

Do you want to find someone to fall in love with? We will be happy when you start your love through drinking Blueberry Milk! Nunblue! Masblue! Let's Enjoy!

My student also thought it ridiculous how random products have things about love written on it. “I found insecticide…insect killer..it said, ‘If you want love, buy me’. So strange teacher!” I could only agree and think, well even they think it’s odd. We continued to have a rather intellectual conversation about love and Korean culture which ended like this: 

What’s a Chocopie?

Don’t know a choco pie? It is just the staple snack here. It is similar to a Moon Pie, with marshmellow in the middle of two biscuits and dipped in chocolate. In South Korea, Choco Pie is associated with Jeong (情), which indicates closeness among people in Korea. Its advertisements emphasise the relationship between family members and friends, and its jingle is widely known. North Korean workers even smuggle them out of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a joint venture by South Korean and North Korea, that Pyongyang wants their distribution stopped. Here are some interesting articles on that. [1 and 2]

My students made me a whole choco pie cake plate with candles on top for Teacher’s Day last year ^_^.