There is apparently a rule of capitalization that I never learned. The rule is that after a colon (":"), the initial letter of the item should be capitalized if and only if that item could stand as itself as an independent clause.
Here is an example: This is a sentence.
Here is another example: just an isolated item.
The rule is clear enough, but I swear I never was taught this in any class, from middle school English all the way through college composition, and certainly not in any linguistics class, which, contrary to popular understanding, has nothing to do with such prescriptivist poppycock.
Anyway, although I believe these types of rules to be merely "prescriptivist poppycock," I nevertheless work hard to understand them and even enforce them with my students, because I am teaching them to write English mostly with the intent to get good scores on exams written by people who worship unerringly at the altar of prescriptivism. "Know your audience."
Despite being broadly satisfied with my job and chosen career, nevertheless I have days when I end up deeply pessimistic about my abilities as a teacher, and that always sends me off on a kind of spiral of self-doubt and fruitless, fantastical ideation about alternate career paths.
Yesterday was such a day. My difficult middle school HS1-T cohort persisted in being difficult. How can such smart kids be so completely uninterested? Not only uninterested in learning, but even deeply uninterested in the social contract we call a cohesive classroom. They just do whatever the hell they want.
It's like teaching English to cats. The cats just move around and do their own thing, and look on at the teacher, somewhat amusedly, from their utterly inhuman viewpoint. Meanwhile if the thought crosses their mind, they will play or attack one of their peers. Or open a window. Or get up and leave the classroom. Yelling and screaming feels like at best an utterly temporary fix: it can get the cats to sit still and feign detached attentiveness for maybe 30 seconds or 2 minutes, but soon enough a new whim will take one or more off on their secret tangent again. And yet bear in mind: this collection of students has the highest average score on English proficiency of any class at Karma.
I've never had a class quite like it. Normally, collections of high-scoring students are also well-behaved and fairly engaged learners. I don't know how to control these kids in any kind of positive way. I can only flail and yell and produce reactions of reluctant, very brief compliance. My gut feeling is that the classroom dynamic is driven more by the social interaction among the students than their individual personalities. It's a kind of toxic combination of teenage competitiveness and camaraderie. They're each trying to outdo or impress their peers in acts of passive-aggressive rebellion. My instinct in moments of highest frustration is to try to separate them into individual workers, and cut off social interaction – but that's almost impossible, and produces seething waves of angry resentment. And anyway, doing so doesn't make sense in a class where I'm supposed to be focused on the communicative, speaking function of language.
Some linguists have speculated that the divergence of dialects between South Korea and North Korea has become substantial. The vast infusion of foreign vocabulary to the "standard Korean" of the South over the last 7 decades has been largely bypassed by the North. Some South Koreans have told me they have a hard time understanding the snippets of North Korean broadcasts they sometimes see.
Last night my student James gave me new evidence.
I have a rule in my classes: "only English." I'm a speaking skills teacher, after all. I want them trying to speak English if at all possible. But sometimes, I get in trouble, because I often phrase the rule during enforcement as "no Korean" as opposed to "only English." I've had students either pretend, or, if talented, actually using snippets of Japanese or Chinese they know, for example.
So I overheard Jae-yeon speaking Korean.
"James. Were you speaking Korean? What about our 'no Korean' rule?"
There was a long pause. "Oh no, teacher. I was speaking North Korean." He grinned at his own cleverness.
"Is that a different language?" I asked, laughing.
"Oh yes. Very different!" He asserted. His friend agreed, nodding vigorously.
In fact, this was so funny, I didn't take away a point as I normally do when I catch kids speaking Korean while that rule is in effect.
For the future, I have to remember to keep the focus on "only English."
There is a fifth-grade girl named Hye-min in my ED1-M cohort. A smart girl, but more impressively, she's quite "academically motivated." Yesterday, there was the following conversation.
We were doing an exercise in class, basically a kind of rudimentary, note-taking and/or summary effort from a bit of example writing.
Hye-min: "This is very boring."
Teacher: "I know."
Hye-min: "That makes me angry!"
Teacher: "I see."
Hye-min: "So then, I work really, really hard."
Teacher: "Hm. Because you're angry?"
Hye-min: nods.
Teacher: "So that's why you're such a good student."
Hye-min: "I know."
It wasn't exactly funny – it was more, just… insightful.
I was with my ES2-T cohort. They're really low level. We were talking about what their parents' jobs were (i.e. My dad is a building manager). A fourth-grader named Tim insisted that his mother was a "Cactus Manager." Of course, I had no idea what a cactus manager might be. I suspected a bad translation, but even after we messed with the dictionary on my phone for a while, that was all he could come up with. I think there might be some kind of hole in the dictionary's knowledge (not unheard of). I drew pictures of cactuses and stick-figure moms managing them, and Tim thought this was entertaining but I don't think he even realized what I was trying to say.
The name of this blog post is a tribute to Tyler Cowen's economics blog – he's always finding "those new service sector jobs" that are strange or unexpected.
I was doing a prospective student interview yesterday at work, with a 2nd grade elementary student. My task in these interviews is to try to decide which class to place the student in, based on current level, but where the kids are too young or too low-level to be able to do a typical Korean-style diagnostic test.
I had the student attempt to read from one of our elementary readers, then we tested a few random flashcards from our phonics series. Finally, I tried out our "phonics diagnostic," which is a kind of graded set of sheets where we attempt to gauge how well the students can sound out unfamiliar words.
The boy really wasn't very good at any of this, but he was pretty good at catching my meaning and understanding my directions, in spoken form. We get a lot of students like this, who've attended some kind of pre-literacy "immersion" (in quotes because it's often not very immersive) kindergarten – they have some rudiments of English in spoken form but are very weak on alphabet and reading/writing.
Anyway, I always conclude these interviews with a very short writing test. I have the kids draw a picture of their favorite animal, then have them try to write something about their animal. At his level, I didn't expect much, but in yesterday's case, the result was a bit odd.
The boy drew a picture of a very implausible dog (at right), then smiled and confidently wrote, "Thia bag hippe."
"What's that say?" I asked.
"This dog happy," he said.
Hm: not strong on phonics or sight-words, then, and maybe not even completely clear on the whole alphabet concept, but, for all that, apparently confident.
My student left this next to the monkey on my desk.
"Trash monkey" is another name for the Minneapolitan rainbow monkey (and/or his neon green friend). The idea is that the monkeys like trash – which I tell my students because it compels them to pick up their trash and put it like an offering on a free desk where the monkey "collects" their trash. This aids in cleaning the classroom at the end of the period, since for whatever bizarre Korean cultural reason, classrooms don't have individual trashcans.
We were doing a speaking book task, where there is a "set up" situation, and students have to then explain what they will say in the given situation.
In this particular set up, it described a situation where the student has borrowed a friend's phone, only to drop it and break the screen accidentally.
So the students had to, presumably, say something to the effect of: "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I broke your phone. I feel so terrible. I will buy you a new one… "
Anyway, this is actually a really hard task for these students – the book is a bit too hard for their ability level. They just don't have the fluency or active vocabulary to make this happen smoothly. So to make it easier, I spend a good portion of each class describing the situation, acting it out in detail, writing down possible response fragments.
I try to solicit possible words, ideas, and such from the students. One boy, a bit of a contrarian, likes to imagine being a jerk in such situations. So he said, "I feel happy."
I ran with it.
"Right! What if you don't like your friend?" I brainstormed.
"I feel happy. I broke it, so what?" I wrote on the board. The boy scribbled this down diligently. He knew what his speech would look like, now.
I added some more fragments. "It's your phone, deal with it." I spent some time explaining the expression "deal with it."
One girl, normally completely silent, suggested. "I feel joy."
"Joy?" I said, pleased to see her participating. "Not just happy, but joy? You hate your friend?"
She nodded.
"So then what?" I asked. "What if your friend calls a lawyer?"
I spent about 5 minutes explaining what a lawyer was. I explained the concept of "small claims court" – without trying to introduce the vocabulary. The kids were more or less familiar with the idea – there are cheesy courtroom reality shows in Korea, just like in the US.
Without missing a beat, the normally silent girl said, almost inaudibly but clearly, "OK. Call the lawyer with your broken phone."
Today in my "CC" listening class, we were listening to the American pop song "Blank Space," by Taylor Swift. The students' job is to listen to the song (line by line and over and over, if necessary), and fill in a cloze version of the lyrics (i.e. words missing). So we were filling in the blank spaces in the song "Blank Space.
One student, Kevin, when confronted with the line "I can read you like a magazine," decided, confidently, that it was "I can read you like a banana." For whatever reason, I started trying to explain how this might work. I held up an imaginary banana, and pretended to "read" it. I looked at Kevin, and tried to "read" him in the same way. The students understood the absurdity of the interpretation. Anyway, I found it entertaining, as often happens with absurdity.
What I'm listening to right now.
Taylor Swift, "Blank Space."
Lyrics.
Nice to meet you, where you been? I could show you incredible things Magic, madness, heaven, sin Saw you there and I thought Oh my God, look at that face You look like my next mistake Love's a game, wanna play?
New money, suit and tie I can read you like a magazine Ain't it funny, rumors fly And I know you heard about me So hey, let's be friends I'm dying to see how this one ends Grab your passport and my hand I can make the bad guys good for a weekend
So it's gonna be forever Or it's gonna go down in flames You can tell me when it's over If the high was worth the pain Got a long list of ex-lovers They'll tell you I'm insane 'Cause you know I love the players And you love the game
'Cause we're young and we're reckless We'll take this way too far It'll leave you breathless Or with a nasty scar Got a long list of ex-lovers They'll tell you I'm insane But I've got a blank space, baby And I'll write your name
Cherry lips, crystal skies I could show you incredible things Stolen kisses, pretty lies You're the King, baby, I'm your Queen Find out what you want Be that girl for a month Wait, the worst is yet to come, oh no
Screaming, crying, perfect storms I can make all the tables turn Rose garden filled with thorns Keep you second guessing like "Oh my God, who is she?" I get drunk on jealousy But you'll come back each time you leave 'Cause, darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream
So it's gonna be forever Or it's gonna go down in flames You can tell me when it's over If the high was worth the pain Got a long list of ex-lovers They'll tell you I'm insane 'Cause you know I love the players And you love the game
'Cause we're young and we're reckless We'll take this way too far It'll leave you breathless Or with a nasty scar Got a long list of ex-lovers They'll tell you I'm insane But I've got a blank space, baby And I'll write your name
Boys only want love if it's torture Don't say I didn't say, I didn't warn ya Boys only want love if it's torture Don't say I didn't say, I didn't warn ya
So it's gonna be forever Or it's gonna go down in flames You can tell me when it's over If the high was worth the pain Got a long list of ex-lovers They'll tell you I'm insane 'Cause you know I love the players And you love the game
'Cause we're young and we're reckless We'll take this way too far It'll leave you breathless Or with a nasty scar Got a long list of ex-lovers They'll tell you I'm insane But I've got a blank space, baby And I'll write your name
I've been facing some challenges with my current curriculum set-up with my middle-schoolers, because the newly re-arranged cohorts of middle school students have a wider diversity of ability levels. Thus, my traditional Speaking/Writing/Listening classes on the TOEFL-prep style don't entirely "work" – the lower ability levels in the classes are frankly not quite able to take on the productive tasks (Speaking and Writing) – at least not in the books I'm currently using. Also, the social feel of several of these classes is altered, with the higher level students resenting the lower level students, and the lower level students feeling intimidated.
I honestly don't know what to do, but I'm feeling pretty frustrated. I feel like I wasn't really consulted about how the students were re-arranged – if I had been, I would not have opposed the newly diverse groups, but I would have definitely insisted on a changed curriculum – a move away from TOEFL and toward something like my old debate curriculum, perhaps. I suppose I'm going to have to do that, anyway, but with the students having all been provided with the existing curriculum's TOEFL books, there will be parental resentment if those books don't get used. I'm going to have to get creative in how I use those books. I'm having trouble thinking of ideas, at the moment.
My student who goes by Sandy, in 2nd grade elementary, dislikes speaking English. She's a pleasant and well-focused student, but she seems to suffer a kind of panic attack whenever I ask her to speak directly. Sometimes she cries, or hides under her desk. So I have taken to kind of asking her permission to ask her something. I don't want to stress her out – I want her to see learning English as a positive experience.
We are doing a roleplay based on the Jack and the Beanstalk story. We were playing a kind of game yesterday, and Sandy, between participating (sort of) in the game, used her "Hello Kitty" stationery to convey to me, without words, her own interpretation of substantial parts of the story. I thought it was quite interesting, as it gave me some insight into her intelligence despite her shyness about participating.
I've really been struggling with a certain class, known as HS1-T. It's making me feel like I'm a bad teacher.
The reconfigured cohorts of the new term which started with July has joined together a group of kids that seems to have led to some bad chemistry. The changes are subtle, and really it boils down to me feeling disappointed with the emerging lack of motivation of otherwise talented students. I realize I don't see the whole picture – these kids have their lives, and things going on, and who knows why a given kid or group of kids decide that working hard at learning English is not a thing they want to focus on anymore.
Nevertheless, I wonder what I could or should be doing differently. I have my insecurities, too. So I spend more time dwelling on this problem than I should, and without any clear resolution.
Last night, I faced the five students – arguably among them are several of the most talented students at Karma in absolute terms. None of them had done homework. I pushed down my anger and tried to shrug it off, saying only that they were harming themselves. Being the "angry" teacher doesn't achieve anything – I tried that last week to horrendous effect. Anyway, I refuse to become the constantly haranguing, nagging creature some of my colleagues devolve into. But being the happy-go-lucky "fun" teacher hasn't been working either. I'm at a loss.
Last night I tried to be "boring teacher" – mostly due to lack of ideas, but I suppose I saw it as a kind of punishment I was imposing on them. It was boring and depressing.
My middle school HS1T cohort happens to be populated by only girls. Sometimes these coincidences arise – there is another middle school cohort, that I don't teach, that is all boys.
Last night they were all giggly and distracted, talking about Idols, I guess – "Idols" means kpop music stars of various types. I got grumpy and serious. I yelled loudly and made them quiet down and we worked very productively and with great focus on some TOEFL-style speaking questions. I was pleased enough that during the last 15 minutes of class, I asked them what they wanted to do. Normally they ask to play a game – card games are currently popular.
This time, however, they wanted to watch music videos. I am somewhat hesitant to turn over control of the internet to my students – it ends up being hard to find anything pedagogically redeeming. So I said if we watched videos they had to be in English. One girl said she knew just the one. I guess there is an "American Idol" style competition show where these boys are competing to become a typical kpop "boy band." They danced and lip-synced to several songs in English.
The girls didn't really listen to the music – I'm not sure they're even interested in the music. They were focused on swooning over their various favorites of the boys in the video, discussing fine points of their appearance and personalities. One girl said about her particular favorite, "I don't actually like him, but he's too handsome."
The boys are just lip-syncing – the show seems to be more a dance and beauty competition than a singing competition. That's in line with what these typical over-produced kpop groups do. They very rarely are involved in making the actual music involved – they're just a performance medium. So in the cases the girls were looking at, these are American pop songs.
In general, "dance covers" are a HUGE thing in Korean youth culture. They're all over the internet, and I have more than once come across kids literally dancing in the halls (both boys and girls), very clearly practicing moves related to one or another of these types of covers.
What I'm listening to right now.
프로듀스 101 시즌2, "Shape Of You." I think this song is originally by Ed Sheehan.
Lyrics (abbreviated as performed on Produce 101).
The club isn't the best place to find a lover So the bar is where i go Me and my friends at the table doing shots Drinking fast and then we talk slow And you come over and start up a conversation With Just me and trust me I'll give it a chance Now take my hand stop Put van the man on the jukebox And then we start to dance And now I'm singing like Girl you know I want your love Your love was handmade for somebody like me Come on now follow my lead I may be crazy Don't mind me Say boy let's not talk too much Grab on my waist and put that body on me Come on now follow my lead Come on come on now follow my lead I'm in love with your body (Shape of you) Every day discovering something brand new I'm in love with the shape of you (Shape of you) Every day discovering something brand new I'm in love with the shape of you Come on be my baby come on
프로듀스 101 시즌2, "Get Ugly." This song is originally by Jason Derulo
Lyrics (full lyrics, I think they're performing only a part of these on Produce 101)
Girl, ladies, let your hurr down Let your hurr down We's about to get down
Oh my, oh my, oh my god This girl straight and this girl not Tipsy off that peach Ciroc Like la la la Ching-a-lang-lang, ching-a-ling-a-lang-lang Jeans so tight I could see loose change Do your thang, thang, girl Do that thang like la la la
Tell them pretty faced girls tryna grabs each other And them undercover freaks who ain't nun' but trouble Baby, I'mma tell you some' only 'cause I love ya People all around the world sexy motherfuckers
Get ugly Yeah, get ugly, baby Get ugly You're too sexy to me Sexy to me You're too sexy to me Sexy to me So sexy Damn, that's ugly
Bruh, I can't, I can't even lie I'm about to be that guy Someone else gon' have to try me La la la Bang-a-rang-rang, bang-a-ring-a-rang-rang Bass in the trunk, vibrate that thang Do your thang, thang, girl Do that thang like la la la
Tell them pretty faced girls tryna grabs each other And them undercover freaks who ain't nun' but trouble Baby, I'mma tell you some' only 'cause I love ya People all around the world sexy motherfuckers
Get ugly Get ugly, baby, woo hoo And everybody say la la la Get ugly You're too sexy to me Sexy to me You're too sexy to me Sexy to me So sexy Damn, that's ugly
Ay, Ricky This beat give me that ugly face, man Everybody lose control Let's get ugly, dysfunctional Everybody lose control Let's get ugly, dysfunctional
Tell them pretty faced girls tryna grabs each other And them undercover freaks who ain't nun' but trouble Baby, I'mma tell you some' only 'cause I love ya People all around the world sexy motherfuckers
Light them up then pass that, pass that La la la Everybody lose control Let's get ugly, dysfunctional Get ugly You know what I'm talking about You're too sexy to me Sexy to me You're too sexy to me Sexy to me So sexy Damn, that's ugly
Here is another incident in the seemingly growing category of “7th graders making unnecessary random announcements.”
It was a few days ago.
I think we were talking about parables and allegories. Completely out of the blue, Sally’s hand shot up, and, before I could even acknowledge her desire to speak, she said, “Teacher! I don’t need a boyfriend.”
“Well… good,” I responded, cautiously. Then I asked, “Why are you telling me now?”
If there had been some boy in the class, just then, pestering her in some way, I could almost have seen it as a kind of oblique comment intended to discourage that kind of thing, but in the event, there were only 3 girls in the classroom just then.
Sally shrugged. “It’s important information.”
Another girl, Michelle, nodded knowingly. I suspect this was just the conclusion to some discussion between the two girls that had been proceeding in Korean some time earlier.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that many of these inexplicable “announcements” made by students are most likely much more explicable to their peers, who are in a different, broader social context – the kids have their ongoing, not-during-class interactions, mostly in Korean, with each other. I should feel that it represents a kind of success in language teaching, that they choose to “code switch” into English to express these off-topic thoughts.
Regardless, as the clueless adult in the room, they are often mildly entertaining. [daily log: walking, 7km]
I had a class last night with my highest-level students, the TOEFL 8th graders, that was close to an ideal type of class, in my opinion.
Nominally, we were working on the TOEFL speaking questions. But before class, one of the students, Sumin, had asked me if I knew anything about the "Mpemba Effect" (see wikipedia – I'll not try to replicate the explanation found there). She had to make a speech about it, in Korean, for her Korean-language class. In researching it online, she'd found more materials in English than Korean, and, being an ambitious and motivated English student, she decided these were legitimate sources for putting together her speech. She was checking with me mostly to make sure she understood some of the technical aspects and the fairly specialized vocabulary of chemistry and physics involved.
So we carried on our conversation about it into the start of class. The other students overheard and were curious, and so I started explaining. And then I said, "Actually, this is exactly the kind of topic that they put into a Type 6 TOEFL speaking question." You listen to some complicated lecture on a difficult topic, and then you have to summarize.
Somewhat jokingly, I asked them if they wanted to do a speaking question practice on the Mpemba Effect. To my surprise, they were enthusiastic about this idea. So I pulled up the wikipedia article, scanned through it to make sure I understood it, and then proceeded to give a 10 minute lecture, more or less, on the Mpemba Effect. This included digressions to explain concepts such as convection, insulation, dissolved gases, crystallization and "seeding" crystals (i.e. catalysts), and several other things that occurred to me. Then their job was to give a one minute summary, in the TOEFL style, of my lecture.
In his summary, David even included the expression, "The Karma professor explains…," a joking reference to my sometimes being identified by both students and coworkers as a "professor." It's a moniker that seems to follow me regardless of career.
The class was ideal. We covered what we needed to cover – which is to say, we did TOEFL speaking practice on a particular instance of what are always essentially random topics. Yet the students themselves selected the topic, out of interest, and they more or less led the class in terms of what was expected of them. I was just a kind of resource, an on-call "professor" that they could hit "play" on for various aspects of the topic in question.
By this, he meant he was finished. Jack is not a high level student. He's a low-level student, even in the context of a low-level class. I think he's a fifth grader. I looked down at Jack's quiz. He'd answered maybe 6 of the 20 questions. So his maximum possible score was 6/20 – if there were no mistakes, which I couldn't be confident of.
I said, "This is terrible."
Jack said, fairly quickly, "I am terrible because you teach me that way."
He was grinning up at me as he said it. I knew immediately that he meant it as a joke.
And it blew me away. Not because it was effectively an insult. I have a pretty casual class, anyway, and in the spirit of communicativeness, the kids know I overlook what Korean teachers would not tolerate. No, I was blown away because it was probably the first fully formed, coherent English sentence I'd ever heard Jack articulate.
In fact, I felt quite pleased, because it vindicated exactly that open spirit of communication I tried to foster. Once he had something he wanted to say, he decided to say it.
My student was tasked with a typical "Type 1" TOEFL speaking question which prompted (roughly), "What is the most remarkable book you have read?"
He spoke coherently and in detail, for the allotted 45 seconds about a book entitled "The Diaries of Mr X."
Apparently, this book is about a student who makes many mistakes. It sounded a bit picaresque, as he described it. It has a tragic ending (suicide), but it is also uplifting because it presents things humorously. My student said he learned a lot from the book about what sorts of mistakes a middle school student should avoid, during the difficult years of puberty.
The thing is, this "book" was invented by the student on the spot.
In fact, I have many times told my students that on an "opinion question" on the TOEFL Speaking section, it is probably quite okay to lie, if it is the easiest thing to do in the moment, as long as the lie is plausible. Clearly one shouldn't lie on the summary of facts presented in other types of questions – that would cost points – but when it's a matter of opinion, one should definitely take the path of least resistance.
Indeed, in discussing this issue, I have often given the example of the quite similar prompt, "What is is your favorite book?" I try to expalin that if I were taking the test, I would never answer my true favorite book (Persiles by Cervantes), because that book is not commonly known, it's not in English anyhow, and it would be hard to explain anything about it in 45 seconds allowed. Instead I would speak broadly and generically about some anodyne prototype that would be familiar to just about anyone, such as Harry Potter. But with respect to the issue of lying specifically, I say that if one is "stumped" in the moment, don't be afraid to fudge the facts of your beliefs and preferences. Fluency counts for more than "truth," anyway. There is no way a test evaluator can know if the book being spoken about is real or not – it's not as if that person is going to go search the internet and try to verify the book's existence or compare its plot to the one presented by the test taker. They are doing a job of evaluating your spoken English, and probably are on a tight schedule (I have heard less than 2 minutes allowed per question response scored).
My advanced students have always understood the point I'm trying to make, but most of them are uncomfortable with that kind of creative improvisation.
Until last night. Certainly, I never had a student use this strategy quite so skillfully. It was downright Borgesian, in a kind of stumbling, accented, Korean-middle-school way.
I found this song online. I find its simplicity and humor appealing, but my students were unimpressed when I showed it to them. Finding things that appeal to kids among the detritus of pop culture is very much a hit-or-miss proposition.
What I'm listening to right now.
LilDeuceDeuce, "Beep Beep I'm A Sheep."
Lyrics.
Beep beep, I'm a sheep. I said … Beep beep, I'm a sheep.
Yeah. Now some of you might be wondering How exactly does one beep beep like a sheep? Take it away, Gabe.
Step One. Throw your hands up, Then point them to the floor.
Step Two. Here's what to do, Now get down on the floor
Step Three. Just bounce around, It's easy, follow me.
Step Four. Go crazy now, and Beep beep like a sheep.
Beep beep, I'm a sheep. I said … Beep beep, I'm a sheep.
You've got to, you've got to… Beep beep like a sheep.
Beep beep, I'm a sheep. I said … Beep beep, I'm a sheep.
Yeah. So. You know how to Beep beep like a sheep, I see. But, is that all you can do?
Step One. Throw your hands up, Then point them to the sky.
Step Two. Drop to the floor, And move from side to side.
Step Three. Just bounce around, C'mon I'll show you how.
Step Four. Go crazy now, and Meow meow like a cow.
Meow meow, I'm a cow. I said … Meow meow, I'm a cow.
Beep beep, I'm a sheep. I said … Beep beep, I'm a sheep.
You've got to, you've got to… Beep beep like a sheep.
Beep beep, I'm a sheep. I said … Beep beep, I'm a sheep.
On Friday, as a special "last class before test-prep" with my 8th graders, we played a game called Bohnanza. I had played this game before, but I had forgotten the rules. Fellow teacher Grace was kind enough to visit my class for 15 minutes, since she had some free time, and she explained the basic rules. Since I only have four students in the class, currently, I joined as a player, too.
The basic idea is to plant "bean cards" and after collecting a certain number, you can "harvest" them for coins. The winner has the most coins at the end. The main attraction to playing the game in an English class is that the game requires the players to aggressively negotiate the trading of beans. This can be fun if you place a requirement that they do this negotiating in English.
The game can last for a pretty long time, so it went on for a while. The kids were having fun with it, but they weren't really negotiating that much – they were just going with the luck of the draw on each of their turns. And I was winning. Maybe they had been a bit slow on "getting" the game.
So on each of my turns, I kept lowering the terms of offered trades, against my own interest, until I was just giving away bean cards to other players. One student asked me why I was doing that, and I said, well, I was winning anyway and they weren't negotiating much.
But then a strange thing happened. All of the students started just giving beans to each other, wherever they perceived a need. Soon everyone was maximizing their harvests. There was no negotiation going on, really, but there were a lot of cards being passed around: "Do you need this coffee bean? OK, here."
It was as if the capitalist model that serves as the game's fundamental presupposition had broken down, being replaced by some weird communitarian model.
I've seen this before with my Korean students, as when they start to keep their Alligator Bucks in a common pool where they make withdrawals based on need, but I'd never seen it quite so explicitly and in such contrast to the intended model as during this game.
It was quite interesting.
In the end, I still won, but I shared the victory with another (in a tie), and the other students had caught up.
Yesterday in my advanced TOEFL cohort of 8th graders, called HS2B, we were doing a listening unit. The book is structured so that along with the multiple-choice questions, there are fill-in-the-blanks dictation scripts of the listening passages. I do a kind of low-key "game show" format as we go through the dictations. The scripts are pretty hard, and the blanks span full phrases, not individual words, so the chances of getting the individual blanks filled in correctly aren't that good. Sometimes I go from student to student, as we work out the the exact wording. The Korean students get hung up on the differences between "a" and "the" (indistinguishable in rapid, natural speech in many phonological contexts), on the presence or absence of past-tense marking, on plurals, etc. I'm a total stickler, because the points determine pay out at the end of the class. If the speaker says "He walked to the office," and the student says "He walk to the office" (phonologically identical in normal speech because of the following /t/ phoneme), they don't get the point.
We were doing a particularly hard phrase. I don't actually remember the phrase – I didn't take note of it.
Several students guessed and gradually they got closer. We went all the way around the room, and Seunghyeon (who insists his English name is Señor Equis i.e. Mr. X – I think the Spanish is a tribute to me, specifically, which is appreciated) finally got it right. I got pulled off topic by some question, so I didn't write the point on the board immediately. When we resumed the dictation passage, I asked the class, "Who's point was that?"
Seunghyeon and Gijun both raised their hands. They argued as to who got the point. Gijun was more plausible, since he is quite good at these exercises, while Seunghyeon is not. But I said, "I think it was Seunghyeon."
Gijun protested. "I should still get the point."
"Why?" I queried.
"Because my wrong answer made it possible for Seunghyeon to get the right answer," he explained. He was referring to the process of elimination of wrong possibilities that we go through for these.
I was dumbfounded by such clever sophistry. I laughed. "I should give you a point for such a clever argument," I told Gijun. "But I guess I shouldn't encourage you."
Gijun acquiesced. He's actually a very nice kid, but sometimes too smart for his own good.
The scene: my afternoon "phonics" class with 1st and 2nd grade elementary students. This is very beginning English. I've been working on teaching them how to respond to the question, "How do you spell it?" Most of the words are of the "C-A-T" variety. I decided to try a much harder word.
I held up the flashcard showing a chicken to an obstreperous boy who goes by Jake.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Chicken," he said. Koreans know this, because Koreans have adopted the English word "chicken" (치킨), which they use mostly to refer to chicken prepared for eating (cf pork vs pig, in English), but they also know it refers to the animal.
"How do you spell it?" I asked. I expected him to be stumped.
Instead, without pause, Jake spelled, "J-A-R-E-D."
I really wasn't expecting that. I guess at some point, in a previous class, I'd taught them to spell my name (an important thing, maybe, knowing how to write your teacher's name, right?). And he decided rather than admit not knowing how to spell chicken, he'd fall back on something he knew.
It was pretty funny. I think only after he'd said it, did he realize he was equating me to a chicken. I pointed at the flashcard, and at myself: "Same, right?"
I had a bittersweet moment with a student the other day. I'm helping a 7th grader prepare for the "practice TOEFL" which she will take in a few weeks. This is a kind of "unofficial official" version of the test – it gives people a chance to guess how the experience of taking the real test will be, and get a plausible, realistic score while answering real questions (taken from old tests). This student is one of the top students at Karma, regularly getting the highest scores on our level tests and in a cohort with older students, too. However, she experiences a lot of performance anxiety around the speaking component of TOEFL, so I'm trying to help her feel better about that.
She surprised me, saying she had decided she wanted to study linguistics. She said she'd been influenced by things I'd said, and had been pursuing the interest on her own, too. I felt very flattered and pleased.
But then she said, "I told my mom my plan to study linguistics. My mom said no. She said I must become a doctor."
This is typical "Korean mom" behavior, of course – not that I mean to reinforce stereotypes, but they're grounded in reality. So I guess my student will have to pursue her interest in Linguistics avocationally – either that, or rebel against her mother's wishes.
We are basically finished with our current Speaking class textbook. We can't bother ordering a new book, since in December they'll be transitioning to the next year-level (i.e. HS3), which will involve a new book – getting a new book for just a month and a half is impractical. Obviously, I didn't do very well budgeting out the progress in the book, which was meant to last a full year.
"So, what are we going to do?" I asked.
Most classes of 8th graders would desultorily propose something in the vein of "play" or"nothing" - and it would be left up to me to come up with something more academic.
These kids, however, proposed, "Let's have debate class." Most them had me for debate in prior years, but the 8th grade curriculum as currently defined doesn't include much debate.
"Wow, so you guys like debate?" I asked.
They did.
"So what should we debate about?" I asked.
Most classes of 8th graders, presented with this choice, would immediately suggest debating something pretty banal: who is the best current pop idol on the k-pop scene, or something in the vein of my absurd debate topics.
One girl, however, proposed, "Let's debate about president Park and the Choi Soon-sil thing." I was, in fact, pretty ignorant about this. I was vaguely aware that some new scandal was exploding around the South Korean President, but I didn't know the details. So we spent some time with them filling me in on what was going on.
Once I understood what was going on, I offered some possible debate propositions.
The one we settled on was: "President Park's recently revealed behavior is impeachable." We had to make a digression while I tried to explain the concept of impeachment, but, to my surprise, they knew what this was – I guess it's something they cover in civics class in their public school.
They're pretty sharp 8th graders – I already knew this. But what I like most about those kids is that they are so interested in learning stuff and thinking about their world. This is what I strive for when I talk about student-driven learning.
Of course, once we'd settled the debate proposition and I assigned some speeches for the next speaking class, they wanted to play. So I let them do that for the last 15 minutes. They're clever - they know if they please me with showing interest in academic topics, they'll get latitude on free time during class, too.
My boss and friend Curt has been on a bit of a tear about a concept known as "flipped learning." He keeps asking me my opinion about it, but frankly I'm not sure what to say. I started writing this several months ago and never reached any feeling of conclusion about it. I've decided to just post it "as is."
If, by flipped learning, one is referring to the principle of "new material at home, review during class," then I think it is hardly a new concept. Indeed, I think teachers of every age going back to Ancient Greece would use this model at least sometimes – what is the Socratic Method, after all, if not a kind of flipped learning?
On the other hand, I suppose the concept's current vogue is due to the technological component. "Traditional teachers" – which as I suggest are no more traditional than flipped teachers, simply more authoritarian – can offload their teacher-centered lecturing to some video and then spend class time practicing. But what, exactly, is the value of "lecturing"? If it's really well done, then sure, make a video. But personally I would rather read a book than watch a video if I'm seeking new knowledge, and although I might be a minority, there is nothing inherently easier about learning from a lecture, whether in person or in a video. It's easier for some, harder for others. In fact, if you count books as a way to present new material to students outside of class, then flipped learning is nothing knew at all, and has been going on since Socrates asked his students to read some Sophists before coming to talk to him.
In the domain of foreign languages, specifically, I have not, personally, ever had (attended) a class that was NOT flipped, in this broader, fundamental sense. Good foreign language pedagogy is grounded in the principle of "practice, not lecture." I strive for this in my own classrooms, although I don't always succeed, being a somewhat compulsive lecturer. Having said that, the "flipped" classroom is definitely a novelty in the Korean context, where the teacher-centered, passive-reception classroom model is king.
So on the one hand, I support Curt's idea of "flipping" his classrooms. But I would urge him to take it a step further – rather than wasting a lot of time and effort making or finding "videos" as if that were somehow the most essential aspect of the flipped classroom, I would suggest instead trying to dispense with the lecture altogether, and move toward a classroom where language topics are taught implicitly and through practice. This can still be structured to focus on the skills of accuracy and grammar-translation that are essential to mastering the Korean test system.
Sometimes in my debate classes, if I need to lighten the mood or want to give a reward, I have the kids do an "absurd debate." I have a list of a whole bunch of different possible absurd debate topics, and I'll let the students choose one to do. I posted a short list of topics some years ago, but the list has since grown longer. Here is my current absurd topics list, for the sake of documentation.
1. "Santa Claus is a criminal." 2. "Black is the best color." 3. "Aliens make the best friends." 4. "Unicorns are better than zebras." 5. "A smartphone is smarter than a dog." 6. "The moon is made of green cheese." 7. "The earth is flat." 8. "The teacher is a ghost." 9. "This debate is boring." 10. "Women are smarter than men." 11. "Barack Obama is a robot." 12. "All cars should be the same color." 13. "Monkeys make the best soccer players." 14. "Alligators are better than crocodiles." 15. "Mars should be destroyed." 16. "Rice is dangerous." 17. "The capital of South Korea should be moved to Ulleung-do." 18. "Zombies are harmless." 19. "Baseball should be outlawed." 20. "This class is a waste of time." 21. "Soccer is better than basketball." 22. "League of Legends is better than Starcraft." 23. "Homer Simpson is a perfect father." 24. "Cheating is OK if no one knows." 25. "Men should be allowed to wear dresses too." 26. "Vampires are scarier than werewolves." 27. "Chickens came before eggs." 28. "Iron Man should fight Batman." 29. "School is useless." 30. "Beauty is the only important thing." 31. "Pirates can beat ninjas in a fight." 32. "The world would be better if Harry Potter was never invented." 33. "It is easier to fight one horse-sized duck than to fight fifty duck-sized horses." 34. "Marriage is bad." 35. "Park Geun-hye would be a better president if she wore a hat." 36. "The North Pole is more interesting than the South Pole." 37. "E-Mart is better than HomePlus." 38. "The Lake in Lake Park is too small." 39. "The word 'the' is useless." 40. "Boogers are more disgusting than spit." 41. "It is better to be a dragon than have a dragon."
One of the most popular propositions with the students is "A smartphone is smarter than a dog" – which often gets simplified to "A smartphone is better than a dog." Today we had a debate on that topic in my special 7th grade debate class.
One student, Finn, said that smartphones were better, because dogs can hurt people, for example by biting them.
Henry had an excellent rebuttal, that made everyone laugh. He said, simply: "Note 7."
This is a reference to the recent difficulties Samsung has been having with their Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, which has a tendency to explode, and which has been recalled.
This has been a quite busy week at work. Basically, I have spent the week crafting a textbook for a special debate class that will start next week for middle-schoolers who are not participating in the full 내신 (test-prep) schedule, due to the always-changing vagaries of parental demand.
I have made my own debate textbooks before, but this one is being driven by Curt's desire to see me integrate better with the other teachers who will also be teaching the same cohorts.
Textbook-making is a lot of work. I long ago gave up on vague ambitions to make an actually-publishable debate textbook, although for my middle-school Karma debate classes I have been using variations of my own book, in print-out format, for many years now. And I still get "writing team" emails periodically from Darakwon, the Korean EFL textbook publisher with which I'd started a tentative relationship that never amounted to anything. This tends to keep the textbook-writing concept always floating around in the periphery of my consciousness.
So I'm tired. And I haven't even started the special classes yet. That's next week.
Based on how annoying this song is, I'm pretty sure it will be perfect for teaching to my younger students. Children typically like the most annoying song in a given set of choices, so that is how I judge whether it is a song they might like. I will report back if my instinct turns out to be incorrect.
What I'm listening to right now.
Parry Gripp, "Pancake Robot."
PANCAKE ROBOT
Pancake Robot Come And Get ‘Em While They’re Hot
The pancake robot is coming to town He’s mixing up the batter and he’s laying it down Buttermilk, blueberry, chocolate chip 50 million pancakes he’s gonna flip
All you can eat, (yum yum) All you can eat, (yum yum) The pancake robot is coming to town All you can eat, (yum yum) All you can eat, (yum yum) It’s a pancake explosion, come and party down
Pancake Robot Come And Get ‘Em While They’re Hot
The pancake robot is here at last His flapjacks are flying supersonically fast With his maple syrup cannon, and his butter pat blaster He’s gonna feed the world, cause he’s the pancake master!
Stackity, stackity way up high Stacking those cakes into the sky Flippity, floppity down they go Grab yourself a fork ‘cause it’s time to mow Flat and round, flat and round Griddle cake griddles hot and brown! Everybody everybody chow down! ‘Cause the pancake robot’s in town!
All you can eat, All you can eat, The pancake robot is coming to town All you can eat, All you can eat, It’s a pancake explosion, come and party down
All you can eat, (yum yum) All you can eat, (yum yum) The pancake robot is coming to town All you can eat, (yum yum) All you can eat, (yum yum) It’s a pancake explosion, come and party down
In my low-level TQ cohort, including second and third grade elementary students, we were practicing a very low-level "interview" format, starting with "What is your name?" Beforehand, I had given them formulaic "frames" where they could fill in their answers, and had helped them fill them in.
I showed some of my students this video and asked them to invent their own useless machine, and write about it.
Some students got the point of it. Others took the concept too earnestly, and used it as an opportunity for social criticism – thus, nuclear weapons are useless machines, for example.
My student who goes by Ken had found in the classroom one of my little square pieces of paper that I call my "baby alligators" (picture at right). I use them as points to give to my younger cohorts, which they then exchange for my alligator dollars. I added the extra step because with the younger students, I feel like I get better results by giving smaller-valued points more frequently. So they collect baby alligators during each class, and then exchange them for dollars at the end of the class for the actual dollars, at a rate of 5 baby alligators per dollar.
Ken found the baby alligator and asked about it. I explained this procedure, and he was clever enough to immediately comment that that meant a baby alligator was worth 20 cents. I was pleased with this observation.
"If I give a dollar I get five baby alligators?" he asked, as confirmation.
"Yes," I agreed.
He fished around in his pencil case, and drew out his current collected savings. "Thirty-eight dollars is one hundred ninety baby alligators please."
"Really?" I asked, surprised at this turn of events. "What will you do with them?"
He shrugged. "I don't know."
"Are you sure you want them?"
He nodded.
I opened my laptop and opened the page of baby alligators. I print them in sheets of 49 (7 x 7) baby alligators. I printed 4 sheets to the color printer, and ran out of the classroom to collect them. I brought them back, with a pair of scissors.
We were having some free time at the end of class, since he had finished his monthly speech test, so I cut six alligators out of one of the sheets and gave them to him. "That's one hundred and ninety."
Ken took the scissors and began cutting them up into their little squares. I pestered him about what his plans for them were. He said he had no idea.
"Well, anyway, I guess you're having fun," I commented.
"No." he said, shortly.
I laughed. "Then why are you doing this?" I asked.
He shrugged. After a while cutting up baby alligators, he said, of his own initiative, "This is harder than the speech test."
"Oh really?" I asked, surprised. I think he was joking.
Anyway, he cut up all the baby alligators into little squares (picture at right). I folded an envelope out of a sheet of paper, tacked together with some tape, and gave it to him for storing his baby alligators.
The bell rang and class was over.
I have no idea what he intended to do with his collection.
