There's a really interesting article from the NYT about the cognitive benefits of bilingualism. I've believed this at some weird intuitive level since I was a teenager, and I made this weird half-hearted vow to spend my life learning languages. I haven't actually done very well. I've learned tiny bits of a lot of languages – but althought I've studied at some academic level about 20 languages, for most I've only done a semester or even less. I've only reached actual fluency in one other language (Spanish). Then, in descending order, I might list French, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese… where I have some rudimentary survival ability. My desire for and interest in languages is obviously much stronger than my mental capacity and/or my actual deep-seated motivation to learn them. I nevertheless believe one of the greatest and most lasting gifts we can give children is 'another language.'
Day: March 20, 2012
Caveat: Collateralized Again
I was collateralized once before – in the advertising sense, where my image got included in advertising material. It doesn’t bother me.
I like the picture this time – I’m deploying my alligator.
There’s a write up in an Ilsan area “trade publication” of some kind, about the hagwon biz. There’s a picture of the cover of the magazine, at right. The title is “학부모를 위한 최고의 명문학원 가이드,” which would roughly translate as Guide for Parents to the Best Hagwon [after-school academies] in Ilsan. The magazine is distributed at public school parent meetings.
For some reason that our boss doesn’t understand, Karma English Hagwon is the first write-up in the guide. This is extremely lucky, from an advertising perspective. There’s a two page write up on Karma Academy, with yours-blogging-truly, alligator to hand, on the second page.
Here’s a scan of the two pages. You can see our entire staff (yes, it’s a small hagwon). There were a bunch of children down the hall behind me yelling when we took the picture – because they were all in their classrooms unsupervised. Very exciting moment.
The picture of me with the alligator is slightly ironic – because that is perhaps my single most difficult student there, facing the alligator. You can click the below image if you wish to embiggen it.
