Balderdash and Cuteness

A few days ago, I played a version of Balderdash with my students. It took a little while to explain the concept, but once they caught on, my students seemed to really enjoy it! We started out playing with the vocabulary words for the week, but we moved through them pretty quickly so I busted out the real Balderdash words. Some of the answers were pretty awesome!

Ichthyarchy: The rule of fishes

Student's answers:
The medical language
That word like a sound from the bird
Hairstyle that bride does in wedding
a food that has seafood's taste
It's a name of disease
I can teach you a few Chinese in your free time (I actually had no clue what this one was supposed to be, but it was from one of my Chinese students)
Kind of animal lives in the North Pole
Japanese food. Like "dacoyaki"
Some architect that people used in Greece
It is a micro organism in the sea

Labascate: to start to fall or slide

Student's answers:
A kind of bird
I think "labascate" means the labratory's white rat's scat (dung) (this one definitely got a lot of laughs!)
The word means that someone run always because of crime
That word means that a kind of fish. Like crab or king crab.
A refrigerator used in laboratory?!
I think... It's a thing that protects knees.
Well, it is earth factor. It is in the earth.
It seems a living thing such as amoeba.
It is proof of your job.

I always love reading my student's work. Yes, there are grammar errors. I foresee talking about articles (a/an/the) a LOT in the future. But I love the way that they see language. Like connecting "labascate" and lab/scat. I love being able to help them find a way to express an idea.

For our midterm, each student has to give a 3-5 minute speech, and they had to submit their topics to me by Friday. I'm really looking forward to the breadth of topics my students chose! I gave them a list of possible topics, like "my hero" or "all about me". Only a few of my students chose topics from the list. One of them is talking about Korea in the 1950's before and after the war. One is talking about politics and romance in an ancient dynasty. One is talking about how she hopes to make an impact with her nursing degree.

My students are starting to get more comfortable around me. For many of them, I am the first foreign teacher they have ever had, and they are really nervous about making mistakes, or me not being able to understand them. Some of them are a little difficult to understand, but they all manage to make their point. With each successful conversation, they get a little more confident and a little less shy. If this keeps up, some of them may even eat lunch with the English teachers ;-) There is currently a type of buffer zone whenever we eat in the cafeteria. It's kinda funny ;-)

Basically, I really like my students. I am looking forward to the rest of the semester talking with them and hopefully helping them become more confident in actually speaking a language that most of them have studied for 10 years.

In other news, I am continually amazed at how cute things in Korea are. In order to get use the subway, bus or taxi system you use what is called T-Money. It is a little card that you load with money and then swipe. I have been using a card that is like a credit card that I pull out of my wallet every time I go somewhere. Tonight though, I found a new T-Money card that I'm pretty excited about!! That's right, I have a "Hello Kitty" cell phone charm that doubles as my T-Money card!! The black oval is the key to my apartment, and the other white thing is the charger adapter. In Korea, there is a universal phone charger, and each phone has those little adapters that hang off of them. It's pretty nice! You never have to worry about being somewhere and unable to charge your phone. Oh, and for those of you who are rolling your eyes at the pink phone, don't worry. It isn't mine. One of the people at my school loaned it to me until I'm able to get my own phone, which will hopefully be next week!