Normally on Monday, I teach two classes in the morning, then I do lesson planning, grading and administrative work from about noon until 6, and I teach a class from 6-9. Today, we started study groups. These study groups are extracurricular activities. They are open to the entire student body, and girls who want a chance to improve their English without actually taking an entire class can sign up for these groups.
The faculty was told that we could choose any topic we wanted for our study group. I wanted something that would be reasonably helpful, but wouldn't require tons and tons of prep on my part -- so naturally I offered a speech and debate study group. I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd been told horror stories about students who couldn't speak any English, or groups that were so mixed it was impossible to do anything with them. I'm happy to report I found myself in neither situation today.
I have 15 girls who signed up for my study group, and all of them speak excellent English. They are all political science, diplomacy, pre-law and economics majors. They all have a deep interest in politics, current events and giving speeches. They genuinely want to learn to be better speakers, and improve their technical knowledge of English. I was quite excited! Today, we practice introduction speeches. One of the questions I asked them to answer was why they signed up for this class.
There was a group of six girls who were obviously friends outside of class. It turns out they are all on the Model United Nations, which is where groups of students are assigned to a country, and they have to research that country's position on a given topic, and engage in mock UN sessions as if they were actually representing said country. My girls were assigned to America.
On Thursday, they have to do a presentation about nuclear proliferation in North Korea and the six party talks. They were very excited when they heard that I knew about giving speeches and I was American. After class, the whole group of them approached me. They had two requests to make of me. They wanted to know if they could take their picture with me and post it on facebook (which they did, although I didn't get a copy of it) and they wanted to know if I'd be willing to advise, strategize and coach them regarding the political position and culture of America. It's not exactly the debate team at Purdue, but it's close enough that I'll happily take it!
The other strange and unexpected thing that happened to me involved another student. One of my writing classes has their first assignment due soon, and they are very nervous about it. We've been doing all sorts of work in class together, but some of them wanted to come meet with me and talk about their specific assignment. One of these students dropped by during my office hours today for a writing consultation. I looked up from my desk, and I about fell out of my chair. She was wearing an Indiana Pacers hoodie.
I asked her if she liked basketball, and she said she didn't. So then I asked if she'd ever been to Indiana. She'd never heard of Indiana. I asked of she'd ever been to America (which she'd heard of) but she hasn't been there either. I told her that the team on her shirt belonged to the city where my parents lived, and she thought that was very strange. I don't think she even really knew the Pacers were a basketball team. I have no clue where she got a Pacers shirt in South Korea, especially without having any connection at all to Indiana... but there we have it.
As I was shuffling through my various folders to get all of the paperwork I needed for this writing consultation, the student fell in love with all of my folders. I hadn't thought about it too much. I went down to the campus bookstore and got folders for the various classes and admin things I need to do this semester, and just went from there. But when I started to think about it, I realized that some of them were pretty cute. Just to keep this from being a post with nothing but words, here is a sampling of the folders that are readily available in South Korea.
What folder set would be complete without Pooh and Tigger? I looked for Piglet and Eeyore, but alas! they didn't have any. Contrary to what these look like, they aren't fuzzy. That would have just been too awesome for my brain to handle.
There's something about frogs and princes that this folder reminded me of....
I'm pretty sure that this isn't the officially licensed version of Minnie Mouse. After all, the folder was only $0.60.
This one just makes me happy because I'm teaching a class about fairy tales this semester, and it seemed like it was strangely appropriate.
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