Silly Signs

Been a long time since I did a post like this, but here are a few signs that sparked my amusement lately--some perhaps for a Konglish element, some for their ease of misinterpretation, some ... well, just because. Fisrt up, the Korean stork:


Not precisely sure what a "womanly studio" is, but I bet M. Princess would be welcome there:


I'm sure they'tr both right (the second one shows a store named more or less "very nice phone"):


These next two are just misspellings that amused me:


Here is a computer repair shop, whose name phonetically is "Cum doctor":


After you visit him, perhaps you can take the advice from a menu in HBC:

Children's Day 2014

I arranged to meet my pal "Heron" at the King Sejong statue in Gwanghwamun Plaza on Monday, which was Children's Day, to have a look round the downtown area at all the Children's Day festivities. While awaiting her arrival, I had the remarkable coincidence of running into Mr Hwang who was my first co-teacher and "handler" at Young-il HS lo these many years ago. I had seen him a couple of times since then, but the kids have grown up a lot in the meantime:


Heron and I spent a pleasant afternoon, first at Gwanghwamun--she had not yet been to the Sejong and Admiral Yi museums located underneath, then walking along the Cheonggicheon. There were yellow ribbons everywhere, a sad remembrance of the youth who died in the Sewol ferry disaster, but many of the usual activities had been cancelled. There were many visitors, nonetheless.


The lanterns adorned the stream for Buddha's birthday celebrations. The red-crested crane is Korea's national bird, seen also on the 500 W coin.


The weather was a tad chilly but the sky was, as you can see, glorious. We walked quite a long way down the stream, and I noticed these painted tiles for the first time (I'm sure they've always been there):


For those not in the know, the Cheonggi stream was once a blight on Seoul's downtown, an open sewer; Hyundai Industries was contracted to cover it over and make it a street, back when Lee Myung-bak was its chairman. Twenty years later, when Lee was Seoul mayor, he led a move to restore in into a recreation and relaxation spot. Most Seoullites today will probably choose not to remember how unpopular that decision was at the time, since it is taken for granted today, eight years later.


We meandered through Insadong, then made our way to Itaewon dor dinner. We ate at Zelen, the Hungarian place, and it was delicious, as usual. We shared a shopska salad, she had chicken in white sauce, I had stuffed pork. And white sangria, as if that's even possible.


A nice ending to a lovely day out. Thanks, Heron!

New Contract Time

This week was re-contracting time here in The Seoul Patch, or more precisely at SMOE for August hires, so I had to fill out some paperwork and undergo an "open class" for the principal and VP. In the past, though I may have worried a bit about the re-contracting process, because there are definitely some aspects of capriciousness to it, I never sweated the "open class", because after 25 plus years teaching, I'm pretty confident in that area.

Or I was, until my co=teacher informed me that last year, under different administrators, they had not really been satisfied with my open class lesson. As she explained, it was "not anything special." Whatever that means. After all, it had clear objectives that matched the textbook, and the activities were designed to help students meet the objectives; there were different types of activities, focused on listening and speaking. The students were successful and there was definitely co-teaching go on. All things that we are told over and over in the SMOE workshops. And I was told that this time I had to do it without a co-teacher.

So my open class this year was to be period 2 of lesson 4 in the fifth grade book (from YBM/Chronjae), which is titled "Say Hello to the Class". In period 1, the story is about two new students, named Sneeze and Hiccup, who join Magic School. "I like magic," enthuses Sneeze, "I am interested in broom class." Hiccup likes wand class. Magic School? Broom class? An homage, let's call it, to Harry Potter's wizarding world.

I won't go into excruciating detail, but my lesson made the relation to Harry Potter explicit. First, I ask a few questions to review the previous lesson, then I ask if they know of any movies that are about a magic school. They know, of course, about Hogwarts. I've been to the trouble of finding an HP clip and applying English subs, warning them that there's a lot of tough language in the clip, but just try to observe what they can about this magic school.


I turn off the lights, and when the clip is over, I make an entrance just like Snape does, wearing a wizard hat and cape. It is a hit. Next we go through a PPT I've made practicing the target sentences of the previous lesson, ending with the team having to unscramble such sentences about HP characters, for points: I am interested in plants. I like gardening. (Neville Longbottom) He is interested in dragons. He likes wyverns and griffins. (Hagrid) She is interested in birds. She likes birdwatching. (Cho) etc.

Eleven or twelve minutes have elapsed, and now we do the practice conversation from the text. I have made and printed out a cloze sheet (fill-ins) for each student. They write in the missing words the first time the conversation is played, then there is a listen and repeat section--nothing earth-shattering here. Next, the teams may volunteer to stand up and read the conversation as a role-play. Now is the fun part--I pull out wizard hats and a broom for them! Lo and behold, every team is chomping at the bit for their turn. Some photos:


Since all the teams do it, this segment runs about fifteen minutes. Next, we play the "Sleeping Elephants Game" only I've re-done it into Sleeping Dragons. Each team gets a mini-whiteboard, and all put their heads down on the desk. One by one, team members/dragons "wake up" to see a part of a sentence revealed on a PPT slide. At the end, all the team members work together to write down the sentence. If they are correct, they earn a point.

We play this game until there are five minutes remaining in class, and we finish with the other main element of the textbook for this lesson, the "Rap Box." There's one in period 2 of each chapter. Mostly they're dreck, like this one--the idea is solid, it just lacks in the execution.

So that's my re-contracting open class. (Okay, so I did go into considerable detail, but I hope it wasn't excruciating!) I got to practice it twice on other sections before the one in front of the administrators and other teachers, so it went flawlessly. I have to admit I took extra care and extra time in developing this lesson, and was even a bit nervous about it.

Now, here's where it gets a little bit odd. The VP and P are no-shows! My main co-teacher whispers to me that they have to be off-campus (remember, they set this date and time about three weeks ago). They're not coming. The only observers/scorers are my two co-teachers, both of whom support me. "So just relax," she tells me. "They trust our opinion." I was relaxed, but disappointed: I wanted them to see me at work! especially having gone to these lengths to make a great lesson.

Anyway, by the end of the next day, I still had not heard about whether I would get a new contract, so now I was getting nervous. But finally, Wednesday morning during the break after first class, my Co tells me the principal has approved my new contract, "Congratulations!"

So, assuming I pass my medical check sometime in July, I am set for another year of jollity and teaching here on the peninsula.

Next issue: Where to go on my summer vacation? Places I have not been: Nepal, Mongolia, Laos. Places I want to try again: Philippines, Vietnam, Japan. Anyone...?

More Flowers

... and probably the last of the flower posts for this spring. A few more examples of Mother Nature's finery have caught my eye (and in the case of the lavender, my nose) as I cut through the nearby apartment complex:


These, by the way, were taken on my iPhone camera at "HDR", but they turned out quite good, I think.

Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival 2014

As I have every year (see last year's post here), I attended the Spring Blossom Festival this morning. Unlike previous years, they changed the dates, because unexpected warm weather tricked them into blooming early. The original dates were April 14 to 20, by which time there will not be a single flower still on a tree. Last year, the blooms came late. The NPS used to have a webpage showing a formula for predicting the peak blossom dates, but they've replaced it with this one.

Both Korea and the US received their cherry trees as a gift from the Japanese government around the turn of the last century. In Washington, they placed them around the Tidal Basin, and in Korea they are near the National Assembly.


I went expecting to see flowers but no festival, but the usual goings-on were going on. Balloon giveaways, photo ops with chartoon characters, free drum-banging, Spiderman, some guy with a cardboard box on his head ...


A popular attraction is the street portrait artists:


Here I am being murdered by a ninja made of Legos:


But the star of the show remains the cherry blossoms:


The greenery in that last shot is but a reminder of the passage of time. The blooms will soon fade away and fall off. In fact, each gust of wind produced a flurry of pink petals that twisted and hovered for a moment before gracing the ground.


If you want to see them, better hurry!

Spring Has Sprung

As if yesterday's Opening Day of the KBO season (more on which later) wasn't proof enough, I now present pictures of some blooms, illustrating that spring is here. Some have poo-poo'ed my annual post on the first flowers (see some examples here, here and here) but I find it nearly magical that the dry brown twigs of winter sprout little green buds that blossom into color so predictably, as our hemisphere nods its greeting to the sun.

The 개나리 kaenari or Japanese cornel dogwood:


Beneath this stand, some variety of native violet is growing:


Another harbinger of spring is the 진다래 jindalae, the Korean azalea, L.: Rhododendron mucronulatum:


I'm not sure what this one is; it looks like a cherry, but if so it's three weeks early--perhaps some variety of apricot:


And last, though certainly not least, the majestic magnolia, creamy white blooms the size of your hand!


I must say that passing by these bushes during their blooming period really livens up my short walk to school through an otherwise drab apartuh danji.

Last autumn, though, some government workers came along and gave a facelift to the retaining wall outside my school. I personally would prefer if this was student artwork, but it still provides some welcome color during those dreary winter months.


Happy Spring!