I'm a Doramong

Obviously, we haven't had time to update the blog for awhile. During the month of August Korean school children are out for summer vacation. However, for most of them this means more time for academies (hagwons). As the result I am teaching extra classes several days each week. Though the craziness won't end for another week and-a-half or so, I did want to share a few small examples of what I spend my time doing these days.

In one of my elementary aged classes I had the kids do a creative writing exercise. They were supposed to fill in the blanks and then rewrite the entire paragraph. Here are a couple of examples:


Doraemon is a Japanese cartoon starring a robotic cat that travels through time. The above example was written by Sarah, who is about eight years old. The example below, by Danny, is a little more coherent:



In one of my other classes, I primarily teach the kids how to take good notes while listening to a lecture given in English. During one part of the class, the kids get to write a skit and then act it out for me and the rest of the class. I videoed a couple of examples from last night's skit. Here's the scenario: A man and a woman are eating at a restaurant. The man likes meat, but the woman is a vegetarian. The woman tells the man he shouldn't eat meat because of the conditions the animals are raised in. The man tells the woman that she will die if she doesn't eat protein.

The kids are pretty much free to do what they want, as long as they stick close to the basic premise. The first video features Hea Seon, Kellie and Sophia.


In the next video, notice that the girls have written "FGI Sunday" on the white board (a parody of "TGI Friday"), and have gone through the trouble of making paper props for the skit (hamburger and salad). Meagan, Jenny and Cara are in this one.