Category: Kids

My student Mark, who is in the 6th grade, was getting teased by a pair of girls about which one of them he liked. One of the girls, Julie, said something like, "Teacher, something is wrong. Mark likes both of us."

I think this wasn't actually true – I'm not sure he likes either of them. But the girl was teasing him by drawing me, the English teacher, into the conversation. And since it was in English, I felt compelled to join the conversation.

He was being good-natured about it, so I bantered with him a bit. Mark has a very self-confident, somewhat laconic personality. Eventually, I asked him, "Are you a Casanova?"

For whatever mysterious reason, most Koreans know the name "Casanova" – it's been borrowed into Korean slang to be used the way American teens might say "player," I think – a boy who has multiple girlfriends, either at once or serially.

Mark shrugged. "What's a Casanova?"

Julie laughed. "You don't know Casanova?" She seemed surprised. She leaned over, and whispered in his ear – presumably giving a Korean definition. When he understood, he visibly blushed. But he was quiet for a minute, as if considering the question seriously.

Finally, he said with a kind of calm aplomb, "Not yet."

He's good enough at English that I could be confident he knew what he was implying by saying it that way.

I laughed at that.

[daily log: my foot hurts]

I have a 5th grade student named Jenny. She is pretty smart, but has a bit of a melancholic personality. In fact, I've known Jenny for a long time – she was, long ago, in one of my Phonics cohorts, when she first studied English. As a result, I feel like I know her pretty well. Nevertheless she surprised me a little bit, yesterday, by expressing what seemed to me to be some pretty deep ideas, in English.

We were having more-or-less free conversation during class, talking about how to get motivated to prepare for our up coming talent show event. Several of the kids complained that they felt too shy and didn't want to do it, including Jenny. Then she said, "I wish I had a machine." 

"What kind of machine?" I asked.

"A machine if you click it, it changes feeling." She made a gesture of operating a computer mouse. 

"What do you mean?"

"If I am shy, I can click it, and I am happy. If am sad, I can click it, and I am OK." 

"That would be a pretty good machine," I agreed.  "I think everyone would like a machine like that."

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Yesterday the weather was quite warm. The seasonal transition from early Spring to late Spring has materialized, right on schedule. At work, the air conditioning is still not really operating yet – I'm not sure if this is due to recalcitrance on the part of those who make the decision to operate it, or some technical issue with priming it for the new season. Koreans often turn on and turn off heating and air conditioning systems based on calendar dates rather than actual weather. 

Classroom 204 was therefore beastly hot. Normally, I wear a kind of casual wool blazer at work – partly because it is kind of my uniform, partly because both in winter, when heating is inadequate, and in summer, when the air conditioning is too strong, it keeps me warm. Anyway, I took it off. It was too hot.

When I went to my next class, I still didn't have it. I guess since I wear it most of the time, it was notable that I didn't have it. 

"Teacher!" a fifth-grader named Jenny said. "Where is your jacket?"

"I took it off."

"Why?" she asked quite seriously, tilting her head, conveying a gravity and bafflement that seemed incommensurate with the triviality of the issue.

"It's too hot," I explained.

There was a period of silence. Then Jenny said, "Teacher! You need your jacket." Although she fishes around a lot for vocabulary, she has really good English intonation patterns, and this sounded impressively native.

I was surprised. "Need? Why?"

"It's more stylish," she explained, as if this was a critical and important factor.

"Ah. Good point."

Jenny and the other students waited for me to put on my jacket, before class proceeded.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km] 

In my Honors cohort, in the debate book, the proposition was something like, "Girls should not wear make-up until age 15." Perhaps unsurprisingly, elementary students actually have some opinions about this topic, and it feels more accessible than many debate topics. But in Korea, a land of still very traditional gender roles, it is also essentially accessible only to half the students: i.e., the boys don't really care, and don't see it as relevant, even if they have opinions. Anyway, one of the "further thinking" questions, in response to the text we read in the book, was something to the effect of, "Do you think kids are maturing faster these days?"

A slightly diminutive fifth-grader named Soyeon, who had expressed that she had tried to wear make-up and her mom had gotten mad at her, immediately raised her hand. "Oh definitely," she averred.

Then, quickly and cleverly, she added, "Except for me." This was pretty funny.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

In my Davinci2 cohort yesterday, my 5th grade student who goes by the name Paul was reading a short paragraph from the book for us. His pronunciation was utterly incoherent, which was not commensurate with his normal ability, I thought – he's not great, but he's not quite so bad as to be impossible to understand. He was sounding like a drunk robot.

"What's going on, Paul?" I asked. "Why are you talking like that?"

Without pause, and now quite clearly, he said, "This is my style." He sat up straight, grinning with pride. 

I had to laugh at that. "Well, uh… go ahead, then." 

[daily log: walking, 6km]

I'm not sure how widespread this "clowns don't bounce" meme is. I had never heard it until my elementary student Sophia used it as a (decidedly absurd) reason during an impromptu debate the other day.

We were debating about whether computer games are bad or good for kids. She said she thought computer games were a good idea. I asked her, "What is your reason?"

She answered, deadpan, "Clowns don't bounce."

I couldn't help but begin to laugh – which I'm sure was her intention.

Eventually I asked her what prompted her to say it, and she explained that it was something she saw "online." Later she further explained that it was used in a tween-appeal sitcom called Victorious. This sitcom is one I may have vaguely heard of – it's produced by the same people who make the one called iCarly, which I know I have mentioned in this blog before. iCarly has a few redeeming qualities, and I understand its appeal to kids. I'm not sure about Victorious. It seems more of a knock-off, with the consequent lower quality. Anyway, I guess that show's writers are the origin of the "clowns don't bounce" meme.

Anyway, it worked well as a strictly absurdist reason in a debate – if that's what your objective is. Unfortunately for Sophia, in this particular instance that was not the object, and after laughing with her briefly, I asked her try to come up with a better reason. 

[daily log: walking, 6km]

I've written before about how I reward my students with "alligator bucks" sometimes – a kind of point system or in-class currency. I also have a rare, special "Lucky Seven" bill, denominated at 7 alligator bucks. If you possess one of these "Lucky Sevens," you can use it as a homework pass, to get out of a zero point result for undone homework.

Yesterday, my student Sophia came to me right before our listening class. She brandished her "Lucky Seven" and I thought she was going to confess to not doing homework. Instead, she wanted to know if it also could be counted as a normal seven dollars, in our economy system. She was really hungry, she said. I sometimes have snacks on hand that I "sell" to my students. She wanted to buy some chips that she knew I had in my "snack drawer." 

I shrugged, and said sure, if she wanted to spend her seven dollars on a snack, that was fine. "Are you sure you don't want to save it in case you don't do your homework, sometime?"

She grinned. "I always do my homework!"

"I seem to remember a few times when you didn't do homework," I observed.

She was adamant that she would never need the lucky seven. "I will always do my homework in the future," she promised.

We went into our listening class. "OK, let me see your homework," I began.

"We had homework?!" Sophia said, with a dismayed look on her face and a handful of chips paused, halfway to her mouth.

[daily log: walking: 6km]

This week I learned that a certain student had “dropped out” of Karma, for whom I felt an odd attachment.
Her English name is Gina; she is an elementary 3rd grader (moving into 4th grade).
Gina is the youngest of three sisters, and I’ve mentioned these three sisters before. Their family name is Song, and so I made a punny little rememberance in my mind, walking home from work the other day.
Song of patient worry.
The oldest sister, who goes by the English name Irene, was a 7th grader in one of the first cohorts I taught in Korea, in 2007. I vividly remember her puzzled but slightly aloof face, in the front row of that dark classroom, on the 5th floor of the northeast corner of the very first hagwon building I taught in, on first week of class, and thinking, “These kids have no idea what I’m saying.” I don’t think I ever mentioned her specifically, but she was the “quiet one” in the group of girls I eventually dubbed the “princess mafia,” which I mentioned collectively many times in my blog, starting in January, 2008. Irene is now a university student and majoring in English. I most recently saw her when she stopped by Karma shortly before we moved into our new location, last February.
Irene was the quietest of the sisters, and the most intellectual, I now realize, although at the time I thought of her more as being a daydreamer and an airhead than being studious – but I think in retrospect that it was more one of those fronts that middle-schoolers put up defensively.  She also was, as I recall, the least confident of the three, at least as a student. She was plagued by that bane of language learners, perfectionism.
Song of kind confusion.
The middle sister goes by Sunny. I taught her in 2011-2012 or so, during her late elementary years (5th and 6th grades). She was the kindest – I remember her as being one of those “teacher’s helper” type students, she was good at getting her peers to stay on task, and despite her own lack of academic interest, she was always keenly engaged in class. For Sunny, it was a social experience, though, not a learning one. She never improved in her English ability in the time I taught her – she was on a sort of plateau, with high communicative competence but chaotic grammar and pragmatics. She was kind of the mirror image of her older sister in some ways – gregarious on the outside, but not very interested in the academic side of things on the inside. I vividly remember a time when I was checking homework, and many of the students hadn’t done their homework, and Sunny said to me something like, “Teacher, aren’t you angry?” I shrugged – I have always been very laid back, especially compared to Korean standards, about student compliance with homework – especially with elementary students. Sunny’s face became grave, and she said something like, “You should be angry.” She then turned to the rest of the class, and scolded them, in Korean, on my behalf, for not doing their homework. But instead of being cold about it, she presented it as a kind of, “let’s show some class spirit, and do homework” – like a kind of pep rally.
Song of brash joy.
Gina, the youngest sister, I have taught for the last two years, through 2nd and 3rd grades. She is the most confident of the sisters (or perhaps that’s just an aspect of her being the youngest at the time I’ve known her?). She is clearly a happy and well-centered child – to the point of being a bit annoying – somewhat annoying to her teachers, but most notably annoying to her peers, who often end up feeling bullied by her. I have experienced a lot of frustration with Gina, because she would hurt other students (mostly unintentionally, I think) and create a toxic classroom environment. A while back, I wrote about her as a mini dictator. Despite all this, her intelligence and firm engagement with the learning project has led me to consider her one of my best students. Every class, she learned something new, and this was evident because she is extremely verbal, so she is constantly practicing things she’s learned or figured out, or “explaining” them to herself in her own never-ending monologue (mostly in Korean, but I get the gist of it). This monologue is another thing that makes her annoying to her peers, but as a teacher, I found it to be a fabulous resource – it told me what I was actually teaching (as opposed to that common teacher’s illusion: what I thought I was teaching).
Since these days I post videos of all my students’ speaking exercises, I have extensive video of Gina. One example is a recent short speech she gave – she is first in the video below.

So now, in the end, it’s just a Song of farewell.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

I received a very heartwarming Christmas card from one of my students last night. I think I felt especially touched by it for two reasons – it was clearly her own initiative and work, but also, she isn't the happiest student in the world, normally, so I felt glad that beyond her gloom-and-doom, laconic exterior she has some feelings and that I'd made an impression on her.

I am certain it was her own initiative, because no parent or teacher is likely to think it is a good idea to give a Christmas card on the theme of trash. She taped some scraps of paper on the front of the card (picture right), and labeled each one trash. This would seem strange if it weren't for a running joke in her class, where, to encourage the kids to pick up after themselves, I have told them repeately that I love trash, and that I have a special collection of it (in the trash can, of course). Sometimes when they leave the classroom they will hand me wadded up wrappers of scraps of paper and say "here is some trash for you, because I hear you love trash."

So she is just extending the story. Inside is some word play on the basis of my name.

Finally, there is this message (left), which I transcribe.

To. Jared teacher.

Hi! Jared! It's me! Narin. First, Thank you for te eaching me in Karma. I was bit of afraid cause I was afraid to new people. But, Now I'm more good at en glish, So I'm proud of myself. The point is Merry Christmas!

※ P.S. My grammer is awful, But please understand. Also, sorry for not doing homework, sometimes!

I really liked the phrase "The point is Merry Christmas!" When I shared this with my coworker Kay, Kay astutely observed, "that sounds like the same way you talk." It is definitely what you might call a "TOEFL-style" phrase, to say the "The point is…."

I also received some other touching and charming cards, but they weren't quite at the same level, having been clearly generated at the prompt of one of the other teachers, rather than a spontaneous, bespoke creation. Nevertheless, I was happy to have received them.

[daily log: walking, 4.5km, skating, 0.7km]

More hard, long days at work.

So, from my "stockpile" of entertaining student writing, I present the following.

In James Bond movies, where do Bond Villains come from? I mean, what social/cultural circumstances cause one to become a Bond Villain? I ask this, because I think my student Henry might be a future Bond Villain, with a bit of "meta" going on, too. He writes:

If I had one billion won I would buy 007 movie and sell the movie. than I
get lots of money. I buy fishing pole and I go to fishing and than I make
Aquarium. so people come Aquarium I lots of money. then I buy
boat and fishing go to the sea take a boat. then I make a very big
Aquarium. People come to the Aquarium I lots of money.
I make nuclear I nuclear boom the bank and bank is boom.
I make two nuclear I nuclear boom Earth!!

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Last night, Razel, a teacher, made a face of annoyance, and leaned out into the hallway. "What's all that noise?" she called down in English to where some students were supposed to be studying.

Without missing a beat, a student from whom I wouldn't have expected such fluency, poked his head out and answered, "That's not noise."

Of course, I was curious, so I asked, "If it's not noise, what is it?" 

"I don't know," shrugged the student. "But it's not noise." 

I guess I thought this was funny. I laughed. 

[daily log: walking, 1km]

We had a big Halloween party yesterday. Among other things, I was in charge of a mummy-making game. The kids had to make each other into mummies, which was fun.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

It is a foggy October morning.

I have been having a really hellish week. Really long days of work, in early, out late. A lot of things going wrong. I wrote a long blog post complaining, but decided not to post it.

Last week we made ghost stories in my young Arcturus class.

Here are some ghost stories, crossposted from my work blog.

[daily log: walking, 4km]

I have a 4th-grade elementary student. He goes by Alex. His English is quite poor, and sometimes I wonder if he understands anything I say in class at all. Meanwhile, his habit is to just sit and grin about everything. So he gets points for good attitude.

Yesterday we had a speech test in his class. I give the students print-outs of their speeches that they have written and that I have corrected, to help them prepare. Alex sent me the following email a few hours prior to the class:

Teacher, my speech is at the school. I’m screw.

This was funny, as the pragmatics were perfect, despite the grammatical mistakes. Nevertheless, I was puzzled as to how he came to write this. If he wrote it, himself, then he is more resourceful than I thought. Unlike some messages I get from students, I doubt this was composed by a parent, since they would adopt a different tone, even if their English was good enough to be familiar with the idiom, “I’m screwed.” So, I puzzled for a while as to how he came up with this phrase.

Then, I had a brainstorm. I typed “망했다” into googletranslate. Alex (along with most other elementary students) says this bit of Korean slang often enough when things go badly. Although no “official” Korean-English dictionary would say so, a rough translation of this extremely common phrase could easily be “I’m screwed.”

Lo and behold, googletranslate (which relies on statistical correlations rather than the judgments of lexicographers) said “screwed.” Well, that explains it: Alex typed his bit of slang into some translation gadget, either google’s or someone else’s, and got screwed.

[daily log: walking, around]

We were working on a listening passage in my TOEFL2 cohort, last Saturday. Here is the last part of the listening, which is kind of a sophomoric imitation of a literature class lecture, I guess. That's the way the TOEFL goes, especially in the dumbed-down "prep" modes.

… One of the earliest genres of literature was tragedy. There are a lot of different defining qualities of a tragedy, but in general there's a heroic character with a tragic flaw, something in the character's personality that makes him or her meet with bad fortune – like Medea. Medea is a play by Euripedes, where the main character, Medea, meets with bad fortune because of her jealousy. Her tragic flaw was her jealousy.

Comedy is another genre. Comedy, these days, usually means something realy funny, but comedies earlier in history were more lighthearted than funny. Generally, strange events happen because of some sort of misunderstanding. Perhaps the most famous comedies come from Shakespeare, whom I'm sure you all know. Shakespeare's comedies usually involve people in love who are tricked or confused through some clever ruse. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a good example. People in that play fall asleep in a forest, where a magical flower makes them fall in love with anyone they see.

At this point, Sihyeon became agitated and interrupted, "No! That's a tragedy!"

"Why?" I asked, laughing already.

"Because right now Seokho is who I see."

Seokho wasn't offended by this. He seemed to feel similarly.

[daily log: walking, 6.5 km]

Yesterday, Chris, a child of very little English, ran up to me and breathlessly said, "Teacher, go home." Unfortunately, it was not time for me to go home.

My colleague Grace overheard this and said, "Why is he telling you to go home?"

I said that I wasn't sure. My suspicion is that he was simply so excited to have mastered the (admittedly quite simple) grammar of the expression, he had to try it out. 

I was so proud of this idiomatic usage that I decided to disregard the failed pragmatics.

[daily log: walking, 1 km]

I have my "alligator bucks" – play money that I give to my students as rewards for classroom points or for homework, etc. 

In most of my classes, I give the students the bucks and they each have their little pouches or pencil cases where they store their money. Some put their dollars inside their smartphone cases, which is also a common place where they "hide" real cash, too. 

I have many classes where the students have pooled their cash for specific events (like I will offer to sell a games-playing class event or "pizza party" for some amount) but the kids are always quite meticulous in their accounting for who has contributed what amount to the pool, and the "banker" role is always strictly temporary.

Then there is my Arcturus cohort. These kids set up a "banker," perhaps originally with the same of idea of pooling resources. But the student in charge, who goes by Gina, is a bit of a forceful personality. That's being polite – really, she's a bit of a bully, to be frank, and it's often an effort to keep her domineering ways in check. Anyway, she, of course, appointed herself banker. And now, no matter what, she collects all the cash earned by any student the class.

She keeps meticulous count of how much she has, how much is owed each day, but none of the students, nor her, have any accounting of who has what proportion of the total cash at this point. Thus she is more of a government agency or a feudal lord than a "bank."

I'm not totally happy with this situation at the moment, because a few times I've gotten hints (only hints, no kid will openly admit it) that not all the students want to be a part of this forced communitarian approach to holding alligator dollars. Gina currently holds more than 300 alligator bucks on behalf of her fellow students, and I think I'm going to have to come up with an exorbitantly-priced event of some kind, liquidate the bank, and then cancel the dollar system for a while.

But meanwhile, I see a sort of unintended social experiment unfolding, among 2nd and 3rd graders. I call it the People's Republic of Arcturus.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]