Vacation Time

In America, we had an aphorism about teaching, to wit: "The three best reasons to teach are June, July and August." This referred to our agrarian-based institutional calendar that school shuts down during the summer months.

In Korean public schools, this translates to "The one and a half best reasons to teach are February and a couple weeks in August."

Needless to say, there is nothing great about February in Seoul. Here are two photos I snapped tonight, first outsde the front door of my building, the second at the little park across the street.



The great thing is that Korea is within striking distance of more tropical climes; therefore, I lehttps://imgur.com/Fbr2Yhhave tomorrow for two and a half weeks in the warmer environs of Taiwan and the downright warmish southern gulf coast of Thailand.

After I finish this post, I am going to sweep and mop my floor (all the other cleaning is done), carry out the recycling, and finish packing. Tomorrow I have to get a haircut in the morning, drop by my school--mainly to water my plants, visit the bank, then head to the airport.

See you in three weeks!

맥주뚜껑, or Maekchu Dduggeong

... or Beer Caps. I have mentioned previously this example of a new style of bar gaining popularity here, a "self-service" wall of coolers from which one may partake of a healthy selection of worldwide beers.



They provide a variety of dried anju, but the coolest thing is that you can bring along your own food or order delivery. They even have a booklet of menus from local restaurants.


Though the chain has several storefronts, in Gyodae, Omokgyo, Sinchon and beyond, I've only been to the one in Sinjeongnegeori near my pal Kevin's abode. Here I am with friendly owner Jina last Friday night:


Good beer selection, good food (if you don't like the food, don't blame anyone but yourself), good friends; the only downside of the place is the music, which is mostly the electronic shrieking and ear-aching beat of what passes for music liked by kids these days. If you think that makes me sound like a crotchety old geezer, tough--I am a crotchety old geezer.

Innumeracy in the News

Several news sources, probably beginning with Yonhap, the Korean News Service, have reported that Seoul's bus and subway fares are going to rise by 150 won next month.

That translates to about 13 cents US money, or a 17% rise. That's significant to some, especially those who use the system on a daily basis.

But wait. The story goes on to say:

The city government has come up with a proposal to raise bus and subway fares from 900 won to 1,150 won (traffic card fares for adult) next month, while freezing prices for students and children, officials said.

See the problem? An increase from 900 to 1,150 W is actually 250 W, or a 28 percent increase.

The same error is repeated by Korea Times, and Arirang. The Chosun Ilbo gets the numbers right, and adds a piece of information:

If the committee accepts the proposal, city bus and subway fares will rise from W900 to W1,050 and those for red commuter buses from W1,700 to W1,850 when using traffic cards.

Frankly, it's still a bargain, and is the only way to go anyhow, at least for me, who can't afford a car and wouldn't dare ride a motorbike in Seoul.

Book Report: Seollal 2012

• Operation Spider-Web by MH Sargent - Sargent has created an interesting team of CIA operatives who work, at least in this tale, third in the series, within Military Intelligence. Gonz, Heisman, McKay and Peterson seem to work together well, and I suspect their backstory is covered in a previous tome, but that doesn't matter so much compared to the current plot. And on that topic, I'm not sure I buy the initial story that gets the team involved in the operation that forms the focus of the book; but once they are in it, it is a gripping and realistic series of events. A fun, easy read for those who lkke battlefield action and intel subterfuge. It's an independent brought out on Amazon, Kindle-only.
  

• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami - Slow-moving but carefully drawn and totally genuine characters, I would believe this is exactly what happened to Murakami in his youth except he emphatically denies it. It is a sad pair (or maybe even trio) of love stories told from the boy's POV in the Tokyo and environs of the late sixties. The student upheavals of those times form a sort of background, though no one in the action is a revolutonary--if anything, the action and drama is a counterpoint to their inability to act and move. Nonetheless, Murakami is able to paint a dynamic still life of four real people with Beatles music in the background.
  
• Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart - This is without a doubt the strangest book I have read in quite some time. First off, it is set in an indeterminate near-future where people are largely known by their buying power (LNWI = scum = low net worth individuals), and their personal data is easily read on their apparati, personal information devices. The US as we know it no longer exists, it is the ARA or American Recovery Admininistration, and the Chinese National Bank is about to lower our credit rating. In this crazy world, Lenny Abramov falls in love with Eunhee (Eunice) Park, a slim, self-centered Korean girl whose father beats her and whose mother and sister tend to rely on Geejush to save them. Lenny is a flabby, thirty-nine year old of Ashkenazi stock who works for the megacorp that runs things, despite it being in a little-known branch whose job is indefinite life extension. If the author had replaced "True" in the title with "Weird" it would sell a million, at least in yuan-pegged dollars. Seriously, I would not miss this book if I were you!
  
• The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink - Like The Big Chill, except the subject of the weekend together for old friends is still alive--he didn't die (as played by Kevin Costner in his most life-like role), but got released from prison. Jorg is a German terrorist who was convicted of the murder of four people nearly thirty years earlier, spending his first weekend of freedom at his older sister's country estate ; it's very talky, and even at that doesn't manage to explore the key issues to my satisfaction. As with The Reader, I started to like it better as it went on, but I was still left wanting, though I must say the sparks between Henner and Margarete pleased me.
  
  

설날, or Seollal

Seollal is the Lunar New Year, Korea's first or second most important holiday, and its main harbinger is the appearance of domi girls in brightly-colored hanbok at your local E-Mart.

https://imgur.com/0kCNs5y
They are there to hawk gift boxes of various goods, as Korean tradition dictates that you don't return to your hometown empty-handed, apparently even if it means bringing socks:


Other popular gifts include towels, hair care products and especially Spam:




Here are a few other items:




The prices of Seollal gifts can vary immensely, from a few thousand won for dried fish to a hundred bucks or more for mushrooms and 500,000 W for the package of three ginseng roots below:



I lopped the price off the ginseng, so you'll have to trust me that it was 500,000 W--I'm not 100% with my new camera, and assumed the data bar along the bottom was just covering the bottom part of the picture. Live and learn.

Meeting a North Korean

Talk to enough South Koreans, and eventually you meet North Koreans. Our little street in Bongcheon (see the previous post) is populated by ethnic North Koreans who came here through China a generation ago. At my school, I have mentioned we have a boy from North Korea, whose family arrived here in March or April 2011. He came to our school about two weeks after second semester began, in September 2011.

His English was non-existent, and his Korean, at least of the variety spoken in the South, nearly so. Over the course of a semester, he improved considerably, and even semed to understand me a few times. But mostly, as my co-teacher told me, he was overwhelmed and nonplussed by what was happening around him--he has not had much schooling. We have worried about whether he will ever fit in.

Tonight, I met a young man who went through a similar process back in 2001, at about the same age. Ten years later, he is in university here, and was able to speak to me in English quite adequately.

He left NK with his family--his father, his sister and himself--after years of hardship after being sent to a cold, remote area near the Russian border. They were being punished for some error his grandfather had made as a cadre many years before, apparently in the time of Kim Il-sung. What did the grandfather do? He doesn't know. Even his father doesn't know.

Why did they escape? Unrelenting poverty and starvation. How did they escape? They bribed the guards with some food and simply walked across the Tumen River to China. We know there was spate of refugees around this time due to the late 1990s famine.

After about two years in China, they felt endangered and made their way to Mongolia--to the capital, Ulan Bator, and flew to South Korea. How did you get the money for this flight? He wasn't sure, but his father was able to work in China, and it was probably that.

What happened to your mother, why didn't she come with you? "It's a lie," he told me. Huh? "They lied to us," he insisted. The said she had a disease, he couldn't explain it in English.

At this point, his more fluent friend stepped in and showed me in his cellphone dic that it was tuberculosis. The saddest part of the story is that he still does not believe this tale: if his mother died of TB and he doesn't believe it, that's sad. If she hasn't died (or doesn't even have TB), he'll probably never know, and that's just as sad, really.

By the time he came to South Korea, after two years in China and Mongolia, assimilating was not as difficult a time for him as my student has had. What do you miss from North Korea? Nothing. What was the hardest change about living in the South? His father finding work. He is a journalist and writer, but it is still difficult.

Was my chain being pulled? I doubt it, partly because there's no advantage for this young man to lie to me, and secondly because of his tale's internal and external consistency.

So, should we hope his Mom is still alive in NK, probably in a "re-education camp" or a backwards hospital, or should we hope she has passed beyond the tortures of the family member left behind? Cf., Morton's fork.

Happy Happy in Bongcheon

The festivities are about to begin! A stack of thirty lamb skewers and some cold, crisp lager are the key ingredients to a delicious meal in the Chinatown street of Bongcheon with friend Kevin (seen here with the 서장님):


This delicacy is a Chinese/Mongolian favorite (most Koreans don't much care for lamb meat) but we're in Seoul, so it's served Korean style, cooked at the table. When the meat is grilled, it's stored on the rack above until you dip it in the seasoning:



The other main attraction of Bongcheon is our favorite country-style makkeoli 집 where the best in the city is still 1,000 won per cup.



After filling up on lamb just a half-block away, I was not hungry, but Korean culture requires that you have food whenever you drink alcohol, so Kevin selected the dubu kimchi, which isn't a bad choice at all:


I know I have posted about lamb and makkeoli in Bongcheon before, but I am testing out my new camera before vacation. It's a Nikon D5100 with the kit lens which is a Nikkor AF-s 18 to 55 mm with VR. I'm playing with the presets, so the food photos were taken with "food" and outdoor shots with "night landscape". Tell me what you think.

Anyang 1 번가

Is the main "eating street" in Anyang, a short walk from the subway station. Here, Nick contemplates the myriad eating choices:


While this was a nice street, it was not particularly massive, or even terribly busy, on this Saturday night in January after a hockey game.

We passed by one samgyupsal restaurant, and went in the second one, careful to ask if smoking is okay. The ajumma assured us it was. As soon as we sat down and placed an order for two servings of meat and two bottles of beer, the young waiter tells me smoking is not allowed. He checks with the ajumma, then comes back and says only "a little smoking" is allowed. I assure him I will only smoke one at a time.

The food is good:



... but after repeated hassling despite assurances that a little smoking is okay, and only one bottle of beer provided, we cut our losses and backtrack to the other samgyupsal jib.

Here the pork was just as good, and also less expensive. Plus it was sprinkled with chopped green herbs:



Sated, we ventured back onto the street to find a bar, and Nick spied a place labeled "World Beer". But once inside, the name was something else:


맥주광, maekju gwang, which could translate as either Beer Storehouse, or Beer Fanatic. Either one would do. I have seen this business model before, introduced by Kevin, and love it as much as The Stumbler, who dedicated a post to it. A few dozen varieties of foreign and domestic beers are stored in a bank of upright coolers along the wall, which are self-service. That is, you walk up to the coolers, browse a bit, then snag a cold bottle of something tasty--the beers are arranged by price, which is clearly marked on the door. The prices are quite reasonable. When you check out, someone tallies all your bottles and you pay up.

Both Beer Caps and Beer Fan offer only simple anju (beer snacks) like dried squid, peanuts, etc., but you can bring your own food in or order it delivered. Wow! Both are also franchises, and both seem to be doing a pretty good trade. The Beer Caps (맥주뚜껑) we know is in Sinjeongnegeori, but there are several locations, including Omokgyo and out near Gyesan

In sum, these places are quite like WaBar or JS Texas Bar, but more informal and much less pricey. On the other hand, the electronic dart games, loud customers and pulsating music make them harder on my old ears.

Asian Hockey League in Anyang

A little ways south of Seoul on Line 1, you will find the suburb of Anyang.


A five or six grand taxi ride from the station will take you to the Anyang Halla Ice Hockey Arena, where two-time Asia Hockey League Champions Anyang Halla play their home games.


I made the trek down there with my friend Nick just to do something new--why not? The Halla are the Bears, and here I am doing the ever-popular photo-op with two iterations of the mascot, each more disinterested than the other:


We figured we'd probably see about twelve ice hockey fans, but the arena was packed to the rafters, about 1,200 people. A consult of Wiki tells me Korea had a professional ice hockey league that folded in 2003, and the team now in Anyang are the only survivors (they were originally in Mok-dong, and were the Mondo Winia); they became a founding member of the Asia Hockey League, now in its ninth year, which consists of two Korean teams, four Japanese teams and the cellar-dwelling Shanghai team, China Dragon. Here's the home team, currently league leaders, taking the ice:


The opening face-off, followed by a couple of action shots. Halla beat the visitors, the Oji Eagles, in this first game of a three-game series by a score of 4 - 1, though two of their goals came in the last six or seven minutes to an open net.




Neither Nick nor I is what you might call a hockey afficionado, but the game was fast-moving, had plenty of action including one and a half fights, and took place about six rows away from us. The enjoyment was perhaps enhanced by the three large bottles of home-brew Nick brought along, one of which was kind of blah and bland, two of which were rather tasty, and all of which had over 5% alcohol. I would do this again.

Next post: what to do Anyang after a hockey game.

December Book Report

Well, I haven't been blogging, but I have been reading, my standard book or so per week. Here are my usual snapshot reviews.

• Worth Dying For by Lee Child - Jack Reacher is Child's franchise character, ex-military, massive, super-smart, with cat-quick reflexes, and an encyclopedic knowledge of anatomy that instantly informs his hand-to-hand combat moves. Moves he needs quite often, at least in the nondescript Nebraska town he finds himself in in this novel. While hitching his way east, Reacher gets entangled in a nefarious family and their stranglehold on the small farming community. He has to kick a fair amount of Cornhusker ass in order to untangle things, which he does with unbelievable alacrity. Still you know he's putting it to really bad guys so you don't mind too much. The problem with the book is that all Reacher's foes are so easily overcome by him it's hard to feel much menace in what should be menacing situations.
  
• Red Inferno: 1945 by Robert Conroy - This is an interesting alternate history novel based on the premise that Russians did not stop in Berlin as WWII concluded in Europe, but instead pressed on to attempt the capture of all Germany, thus reneging on the Yalta pacts. What ensues, in this version, is a massive land war once more consuming western Europe, this time with the US, Britain and France (and some of the vanquished Germans) fighting Russia. The book unfurls its events with good pacing through several POV, interesting characters on both sides of the battle lines.
  
• Blood Street Punx by Joseph Flynn - Not at all what you might expect of a book whose title suggests it's a novel of Chicago gangstas seen at street level. In fact, the Punx are a group of well-heeled boys from the near North Side who are talented artists. However, most of their parents want them to pursue family careers in law, real estate, etc, so they decide to make a big splash on the art scene--painting giant murals as the gang of the book's title. They seem oblivious to the fact that they are "tagging" territory owned by some of the city's most vicious gangs, and pissing of the mayor and police, as well. They wanted attention, just not the kind of attention they were getting. Interesting premise, well-drawn characters (mostly), a quick read with a satisfying ending. Surprisingly good.
  
• Skylar by Gregory McDonald - Teen-age beauty queen Mary Lou Simes has been brutally nurdered, her body found a quarter-mile from The Holler, an illegal dive in the forested area of rural Greendowns County. Sheriff "Pepp" Culpepper and his deputies have a built-in suspect in the person of Skylar Whitfield, the boy who always escorted Mary Lou in her pageants. Skylar is a smart but happy-go-lucky recent high school grad, with no college acceptances but lots of offers from the local females. Meanwhile, his cousin from Boston is spending the summer to recover from mono, and the two don't seem to be getting along. Sheriff Pepp and his wife aren't getting along either, and when another body turns up, the heat is turned up both on Skylar and the Sheriff who is pursuing him. Good story up to the end, but I'm just not sure I can believe the final solution to the murders.
  
  

Christmas Cake 2011

Happy Holidays to my Dear Readers, and my apologies for my laxity in posting of late--one of my New Year's Resolutions will be to blog more regularly in the coming year.

Anyway, this year I got two Christmas cakes: one for an early Christmas dinner shared with a couple of good friends, a tasty chocolate mocha affair they called "Opera Cake" at Tous les Jours; the second was the only chocolate one they had left on Christmas Day, populated with the popular children's cartoon figures of Pororo and friends:

Tuttle [hic] Update

Not much happening around these parts, except we started year-end exams on Thursday, which will continue through Wednesday.

On Thursday, I was invited to 회식, hwe shik, a work lunch, with the Development Department of the school, even though I am not a member. In what I would term quite a coincidence, we had lamb skewers at the same restaurant at Sinjeongnegeori where I had dined with Kevin and The Stumbler just two nights earlier.

The head of the Development Dept, Mr Lee, took a liking to me early on, and I was invited so he could tell me how sad he is to have heard I may be leaving the school. Then liberal doses of Tsingtao and soju were applied, and then a bottle of Hennessey cognac came out, and then blue bottle of some clear Chinese hooch was produced.

At about three or so, several of us were whisked via taxi to meet English Dept head Mr Wright in a local hof, where lots of beer was consumed, followed by noraebang, or singing room.

It is a disconcerting feeling to be swimmingly drunk and back on the street from the noraebang while it's still broad daylight. We went to another hof and had chicken and beer. I texted some of my trivia compatriots that it looked like I would not be in attendance, but was informed I was needed.

Somehow, I got to Itaewon just as the quiz began and kind of sobered up under the influence of only three more beers and some heavily salted French fries. We tied for first with only 37 out of 50, which meant more beer.

Somewhere in there, 필름끊겼다, fillum kkeungyeotda, my film was cut but I woke up in my bed when the alarm went off Friday morning.

And that's how you do a hwe shik.

The Moon and the Seasons

As my pal The Stumbler reminded me, last night was a total lunar eclipse, an event that occurs at a full moon phase, when the earth lies directly between the sun and the moon. They are relatively rare, and though the last one was earlier this year (June) the next one will not occur until 2014.


It's not much, taken with my iPhone, but that's the scene about an hour before totality. I went to the roof of my fifteen-storey building about four times through the course of the event, and each time there was someone different up there having a look-see--or in one case, just seemingly smoking a cigarette. One guy had a really nice camera and tripod, snapping away. A young couple who spoke decent English were up there with thier five-month-old daughter.

Wrapped warmly. Because it was cold. At least a few degrees below freezing. Looking at my blog posts, I admit I have a tendency to whine a bit during winter about how cold it is. That's mainly because it gets really cold here, much colder than anywhere else I've ever lived, except Chicago.

But this winter, not so much. Have I finally steeled myself to the ravages of Seoul's harsh snow season? Broken down and started wearing thermals? Insulated myself with the constant companionship of a hip flask of brandy? No. It just hasn't been that cold. Until now. A week into December, we've had a few days of sustained freezing weather in the morning and evening, but not yet to the point where I have put on my heaviest coat.

Last winter, the temp. never rose above 0 C during December and January, and much of February--there was still frozen snowy muck on the ground into March. Will this be a mild winter? Or just delayed in its arrival? Only Mother Nature knows for sure.

But one thing of which you can be sure, I'll whine about it if and when it comes.

Education News

First out of the blocks, a chance for sharp-eyed English-speakers to earn some money: the Korean Tourism Organization is offering a reward to photogs who submit signs in muddled, Konglishy English found at "tourist spots". No precise definition of tourist spot, and road signs, restaurant menus and guidebooks are not eligible, as KTO doesn't have jurisdiction over them. Still, an interesting concept, and a chance to get a W50,000 debit card for your efforts. Click here for more.

The Chosun Ilbo carried a report last week of a study done by SMOE (my employer) analyzing the results of a survey "conducted among 28,761 students, 11,980 parents, 2,406 Korean English teachers, and 595 native English-speaking teaching assistants at 1,282 primary and secondary schools in Seoul."

The survey found that Koreans are still quite conflicted about having native speaking teachers run their English classrooms: less than one-third of parents and students "preferred" native speakers to Korean teachers with good English skills, though about 60% are "more satisfied" with the teaching job being done by foreign teachers. IOW, yes, you do a better job, but we still don't want you here--aka, having our cake and eating it too.

Speaking of which, English success not cake, the CSAT or suneung results have been published, and some 17,000 of the exam's 648,946 takers aced the English section.

The Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), announcing the scores of the 2012 CSAT [Wednesday], said that 171 people this year received perfect scores on the exam’s three core subjects - Korean language, mathematics and English - compared to 11 last year.

Post-exam bellyaching is an annual sport here, as people complain the exam was too hard if there aren't enough perfect scorers, or that it's too easy if there are too many. The testing authority aims for 1%, but never seems to hit that mark.

As if to make a point, the JoongAng printed elsewhere this story: Student’s perfect CSAT is all his own, about Baek Ju-hong, who aced the suneung without the benefit of hagwons, thus proving the effectiveness of public education.

...Or the inteligence, inquisitiveness and hard work of an individual student:

An avid reader, Baek said, “In the countryside, where there is not a single college prep hagwon, the only way to develop logical thinking skills was by reading many different books.”
Baek said he also had a head start with his parents, who were avid readers themselves.

November Reading List

• Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin - The autor is Provost of the Field Museum and anatomy professor at the University of Chicago. He is also a paleontologist, who discovered an important transitional fish called Tiktaalik, an intermediate between water- and land-dwelling creatures. This book is an eloquent elucidation of the central tenet in modern biology, that of the origin of species by descent with modification. He examines human anatomy to explore our evolutionary links to reptiles, sharks, and even bacteria, and does so with wit, clarity and joy.
• The Bangkok Sporting Club by David A Berger - I didn't particularly like this book, at least not for the characters--one insane, one manipulative and dirty, and one naive and boorish--or for the story; I did like the settig, which is that pearl of the Orient, Bangkok, and the author was accurate in his treatment of it. Anyway, Phoenix Systems has a front-end contract to set up a new computer system in the US Embassy, and Phoenix's programming guru has disappeared with the job half-done; so underling Eddie reluctantly comes to Bangkok to finish the job. Meanwhile, there are occasional hints, snippets of conversation the author decides to let us hear without any apparent rhyme or reason, to suggest that not all is as it seems...
• Angel Time by Anne Rice - I have always been a serious fan of Anne Rice, but her last few offerings have been wanting. This tome is the story of a twenty-eight year old professional assassin who ruminates to the point of tedium about religious belief and his lack of it; at his point of moral crisis, he meets an angel who takes him back in time to use his "special skills" to save some medieval Jews from an angry mob. At no point do the protagonist's special skills come into play, the climax and denoument are telegraphed well in advance, and there's not even a good plot twist at the end, like one could once count on in an Anne Rice novel (there is a plot twist, it's just not all that good).

• The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - Prose poetry about a Hispanic girl named Esperanza growing up somewhere on Chicago's south side. In brief vignette's we meet her friends and neighbors, and slowly get know her and her inner life. Imanginative yet truthful, lyrical but streetwise, this book was a pleasure to read, and I wish it had gone on much longer--it's only 109 pages.
• And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, A Life by Charles J Shields - I used to say that Kurt Vonnegut was the greatest living American writer, but he died in 2007, so I don't say that anymore. I was very sad when I heard of his death--but not as sad he was to have lived so long, according this book, the first pure Vonnegut bio to make it to market. He was old, and tired, and in failing health for about ten years after completing what he promised to be his last novel, Timequake in 1997. When a critic asked why he brought out another book (A Man Without A Country) he answered that he had expected to be dead by now. Death, suicide, gallows humor, were major themes in his work, and it is clear he was ambivalent about living, much less living to 85. I for one am grateful he decided to stick out as long as he did. Anyway, this book is a bit uneven, and since it tells the Vonnegut story as truthfully as possible it is at times a hard read, for he had troubles--wife troubles, children troubles, friendship, health troubles ... it was usually the case that the instant something went well in his writing career, something would go to hell in his personal life. And his writing career was for many long years a trouble of its own, especially in the critical world, where he is seen even today as a writer for "the young". But his works need no defending by me. Here are the words his character Mr Rosewater prepares for the neighbors' twins' baptism:
  

  Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—-God damn it, you've got to be kind.

  
  

2011 KidPower Toy Con

Last week, just in time for the Christmas shopping season, my classroom became the exhibit hall of the KidPower Toy Convention (third annual). This is one of my favorite lessons, but I have to admit it got rather wearying by the end of the week.

It is an information gap interview activity, where 10 better English-speakers man the booths of toy manufacturers and try to convince the other thirty or so students/store buyers to stock their newest product on the store shelves.


The buyers, however, have a specific type of toy they're looking for, within a certain age and price range, etc. They represent store chains like HomeNever, 6-Twelve, or Baiso, and their worksheets have all the information they need to share with the booth operators, and spaces to fill in the product details as they go.


You can well imagine the ages and ages it took to put this lesson together, but this year it was simple--no new toys to find or materials to create, just an hour or so to set up the classroom last Friday.

The toys are all non-competitive, non-violent, don't use batteries (thus, kid power), no movie tie-ins or pop culture references. They're also hands-on, though the kids in charge are warned to take care of them.


This is a successful lesson at least insofar as students actually want to come in and take their turns speaking and listening, as you can see from the guys waiting their turn:


One of my co-teachers asked me after class one day this week, "Do you ever think about that you are making conversation class with forty students? It is almost impossible." Turns out, this was a compliment, that I was succeeding in holding classes where forty students were actually conversing/comunicating. In his previous school, the native teachers were frustrated and never seemed to find lessons that worked.

i know the feeling. After three years now, though, I have largely fixed or eliminated lessons that don't work; of course, it must be said, some things don't work with all classes, and nothing works for all students.

Politics is Inevitable, and Sometimes Graphic

Okay, for the past month exactly, I have been collecting images, photoshops (is that even a noun? Now it is), graphics, etc, shared by my peeps on FB.

As long as they had a political slant. And were amusing. Well, actually, the ones toward the end are not amusing one damn bit.

Remember to click on the image to enlarge if you can't read it.










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