I have student who goes by the English name of Vona. She is a middle-school student in my TOEFL-style speaking class. A while back, we were trying to answer a question from the book with one of the TOEFL-style 45-second "personal experience" speeches. The prompt was: "Describe the most difficult decision you've had to make in your life."
These poor 8th graders were at a loss, of course. 8th graders don't like to think about this kind of thing, and most of them are pretty sheltered, anyway, so they haven't had to make a lot of difficult decisions in their lives, so far. Several talked about things like whether to study for some specific major exam, or not, as being their difficult decision.
Vona spoke fairly coherently for 45 seconds, which is an accomplishment for her. What was her most difficult decision?
What to eat at the restaurant. The menu has too many choices.
The thing is… I suspect this may, in fact, be her most difficult decision. Such is life in among the upper middle-class in Seoul's northwestern suburbs.
I regret not having video of this fine speech.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]