IT English Class Party!

Several weeks ago, I decided to have my IT English students over to my apartment for an evening of American food and non-classroom English. The class is small, with only 6 students, so it worked out well.

I made beef stew, Southern style biscuits, grilled cheese and sweet iced tea. The students had never tried any of these foods. When we all walked into my apartment, they all decided that American food didn't smell anything like Korean food. I'm inclined to agree with them ;)

The stew was in the crock pot and didn't need much done to it. My students mixed up the biscuits while I started on the grilled cheese. All in all, they liked the food. All of the biscuits were gone. There was only one bowl of beef stew left for my lunch the next day. There was a little bit of confusion about the tea, because it was black tea instead of green tea, but most of them liked it pretty well. Katie, it should be noted that I made the tea my way rather than your way ;) I didn't want to scare them off.

This is Min. He was always smiling and happy. He is one of those guys who is always nicely dressed and innately knows how to be a gentleman. His English wasn't the highest level in the class, but he always worked really hard and was always brave enough to try to speak. 

This is John. The first time I met John, he spent quite a lot of energy trying to make me understand just how awesome Manchester United was. I definitely understood the words and sentences that he was using, but I don't think he ever quite convinced me that I should stay up until 4 am to watch the soccer games like he did. 

Grace is applying to study at an American university next year. She always had something to say about whatever our topic was. When I first met Grace, I thought that she was going to be one of those sweet and quiet students who pays attention but doesn't really talk. That wasn't quite how things turned out ;)

Janet didn't want to have her picture taken that night. She wasn't the most vocal student, but Janet is a thinker. She works really hard to make sure that she understands the big picture and all of the details. It was always fun to watch Janet read. She would get really into it, and underline and circle and chew on her ink pen. I could tell exactly when she was struggling and exactly when she understood what she was reading.

Min Seok was one of my oldest students. He has already finished his military service and he is actually graduating soon. He is in my intensive class now, and it is his very last college course. I don't know exactly what happened to cause him to make this particular face, but he is a sweet, happy-go-lucky guy most of the time ;)

Last, but not least, this is Oh. He has also finished his military service, will graduate soon, and is in my intensive class. At the beginning of the semester, Oh was the student who seemed the least motivated. But somewhere around the midterm, he started to work really hard and his English improved quite a lot. He is much more willing to speak now, and he wins the award for most improved student in this class. 

I've got a golden ticket!

Here's a little soundtrack for this post :)

I've been teaching a winter intensive class on American culture in movies. We watched the original 1971 version of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" today. It was so much fun to watch my students watch the movie. It is sometimes easy to forget how much imagination and surprise there is in movies that you've grown up with. My students all agreed that the tunnel scene was pretty freaky ;)

One of the course requirements is that each student has to do a presentation on the movie. I had them look at the list of movies we were going to watch and rank their top five choices to do a presentation on, and then I put them into pairs based on their rankings. Two girls both wanted to do this movie, and they did an excellent job on their presentation.

They did a comparison of characters in the 1971 and 2005 versions of the movie and gave an overview of the plot with pictures for each key point. It must have taken them forever to make their powerpoint. At the end of their talking time, they said that they had a surprise for all of us. They pulled out a stack of chocolate bars that they had created labels for to make them Wonka Bars and handed them out to the class. Each person was supposed to open their chocolate bar, because someone would win the golden ticket!

When I opened mine, I was the lucky winner! I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, although there was a great deal of whispering and shuffling of the chocolate bars before they were handed out. The prize was some other snack food. I opened it up and passed it around the room and we all enjoyed the movie with our chocolate and snacks. All in all, a good time was had. I continue to be impressed by how my students handle presentations. They don't like them very much, but they tend to get far more creative with them than any presentations I ever saw in American schools.

Christmas ornaments

I got a new camera a few weeks ago, but between finals and being sick, I haven't had time to play with it. I pulled it out tonight and messed around with some of the settings. I rather liked the way these three turned out. They are some of my favorite Christmas ornaments that I brought with me from America.

These two are part of a set that I made when I was much younger than I am now. I have four of them here with me. I think there might have originally been six, but some of them didn't survive through the years. 

This is actually the first ornament that I remember getting. It has been my favorite for as long as I can remember. My dancers are missing a few appendages, but I can't bring myself to get rid of it. It reminds me of all of those Christmases I spent going to the nutcracker. 

A Tale of a Dwarf Country and a Giant Country

Whew... It's been quite the week. Finals were last week, and it was pretty crazy. I had to administer a normal exam for my IT English class, but all of my other classes had to submit written portfolios and then come in for an individual interview. I also start teaching winter intensives tomorrow. For the next three weeks, for three hours a day, I'll be teaching about American culture in movies. It should be interesting, once I figure out how to pace a 3 hour class ;-)

In the tradition of all semesters, now that it is finished, I am sick. Hopefully I won't get too sick though. After all, the next term is starting! With my student's permission, I thought I'd share some of their writings that I particularly enjoyed over the next little bit. I haven't edited the grammar, content or spelling at all in these. This came from an assignment to write a fairy tale. Enjoy!

Once upon a time there was a dwarf country and a giant country. A serious climatic change occurred. It has caused a food crisis in the dwarf country. The prince of the dwarf country left for the giant country for borrowing some food. He walked and walked and run and rn. On his way he had lots of difficulties. Big birds and dogs attacked him. Also the weather was very cold and windy.

After 10 days, at last, he arrived at the giant country. He went into the giant's palace. When he entered the giant's palace he saw the giant princess. He fell in love with her when he saw her for the first time. But he couldn't express his feelings because he was a dwarf. He borrowed some food and went back to his country. But, as ever, his mind was full of the thinking about her. Everyday he longed for her.

He went to meet a witch in agony. He said to the witch. "I really love the giant princess but she is too big to be my girl. Please make her small like me." The witch said on thinking over "I can help you. but. I can only make her small. I can't make her big again. This is very important fact."

"Okay, no problem. I'll make her happy" the prince replied. In that night, the witch used magic and the giant princess changed into the dwarf. Next day, in the morning the princess screamed looking her body. She cry and cry all day long. She packed and left for the dwarf country quietly. She didn't want to show her appearance to anyone.

When she got near the dwarf country, she met the dwarf prince. The dwarf say her eyes filled with tears. He said, "Why you look so sad? What happen?" she told him everything that happened to her. The prince said, "I'm sorry to hear that. I want to help you. I'm a prince in this country. I'll give you chance to live in my palace." In that time, the princess had no time to think. She followed him.

The prince was very happy as if he got everything in the world. However, in the dwarf palace te princess never laugh. She always looked so sad. In every night, her cry came into the prince's hearing. He thought. He made a big mistake. He was very sorry to her.

Again he went to meet the witch. He said, "My thinking was so short. It's my fault. Please. Make her big again. I'll do anything you want me to do." The witch thought seriously and said, "There is only one way but if she get big, she won't never remember you and you will die. Do you want this way?" He said, "If it is only way to make her happy, I will die. It's... okay..." In the night, the witch used magic.

 The princess changed into a giant again and the prince vanished like smoke. The princess lives happily ever. nobody remember the dwarf prince and the princess's appearance when she changed into a dwarf.

-THE END-

From Seoul With Love

Every family has their Christmas traditions. There are several from my family that stand out in my mind, but there is only one of them that I currently have the resources to recreate in my apartment in Seoul.

Peanut butter fudge. As a kid, I remember my mother would make this for the family Christmas dinners. It was also a special treat when we would watch movies. There are several recipes I inherited from my mother that absolutely cannot be improved upon. Peanut butter fudge is one of those. She so closely guarded the fudge making that I wasn't allowed to try my hand at it until I was nearly 12 years old. And then, I only tried it without her knowledge to make some for a surprise birthday party for her.

The fudge maker gets special priviledges in our household. You see, when you finish making the fudge, this is what you have left.

All of that wonderful, fudgy goodness left in the pan. Once it cools down a bit, the person who made the fudge got to scrape the pan. There were always accusations that certain people would go out of their way to leave extra fudge in the pan for their own private consumption.

Since I am currently the only person residing in this household, I didn't have to fight anyone for the fudge in the pan. It was a bit dissapointing.

The only thing missing was a nice, cold glass of milk. Just like my momma taught me ;-)

My Classroom!

I've been working on decorating my classroom for Christmas with various odds and ends I've found around school/the city. I'm going to be really sad when January hits and I have to take all of it down again!

This is the view you get when you walk into my classroom. 

A closeup of my snowflakes and plants!

And the stockings. I was impressed with the fact that all of the English was culturally AND grammatically correct!

This is where all of that real work in the real world happens. 10 points if you can name that movie!!

This is where most of my students sit. I haven't figured out what to do on that back wall yet, but it is kinda depressing...

This is the wall opposite of the window. There are two cute little dogs that say "welcome" and a nameplate that says "Professor Sarah Fehrman, English Zone 4" but there were students studying just outside the door, so I didn't want to go take a picture. You'll just have to imagine!

Each month I make a giant calendar that has a bunch of crazy holidays. Sometimes I put serious ones, but most of them are silly. Like today! For those of you in North America, December 8th is National Brownie Day!

Seoul Lantern Festival

A few weeks ago, I met some friends to go see the Seoul Lantern Festival. There is a stream that runs through Seoul called the Cheonggyecheon (청계천) that is a little bit like the canal in Indianapolis. The Cheonggyecheon is actually one of my favorite spots in Seoul so far. It has these nice parks that run along each side of the stream. It is divided into sections by bridges, and each section seems to have its own feel. There are always lots of people around, but it feels little bit less like I'm in the middle of a huge city ;-)


For the lantern festival, there were all of these traditional lanterns that were floating on rafts in the stream. There were lanterns that represented the G-20 conference, and various countries from around the world, as well as traditional Korean culture. This will be another one of those posts with a lot of pictures ;-)

This was the main gate at the beginning of the stream. There are gates that look like this all over Korea!

Rio!

England! (Mom, did you know they have great shopping there?!?)

Italy!

New York City!

These are traditional Korean dancers, and they are pretty amazing to watch! I haven't been able to figure out what they are called yet, but once I do, I'll try to post a video of it for you to see!

Aww...

As you can see, most of the lanterns were pretty huge. The Statue of Liberty and Christ the Redeemer were easily 15 feet tall. It was a really nice evening, even if it was a little cold ;-) The lanterns were glowing and reflecting on the water, but that didn't show up in the pictures. The combination of pretty light and flowing water was a pretty amazing one!