Let It Go and Frozen

Okay, so lately in Korea it has been colder than I thought it would be and I have been FROZEN. Also in Korea they love the movie FROZEN! And when I say love I mean love it, adore it, basically worship it. Every time I am out wandering the streets and shopping I can hear the song, Let It Go, 5 or 6 times within an hour time span. So here are some entertaining variations of the song.

The first one is about Korean Winter Soup. Most of my students ate tteokguk (pronounced like duck gook with a strong t / d sound with the two t's at the beginning) with their families to celebrate Lunar New Year at the end of January. This video was introduced to me by my younger students but all of my students have seen it.

This next video was one I showed to my advanced students about the danger of Google Translate, and how sometimes things don't translate very well. If you have not listened to the original song 1 million times and memorized the lyrics, you may need to listen to it first to understand some of the flaws with the translation.

Anyways, It's Friday night now and Valenti's Day so I best be going. But I hope you enjoyed these videos and I strongly encourage you to see the movie Frozen.

My Olympic Bulletin Board

I never realized how exciting making a bulletin board could be until I had my own classroom. It is definitely challenging making a bulletin board for ESL students ranging in age from 8-16 and from beginner to advance in English language ability, but I am proud to say that I think and hope I have achieved a friendly bulletin board to all thee ages and abilities.
Here it is.  My Olympic bulletin board.

I printed the Olympic logo from the official website and printed it at 250% to enlarge it.

I also created a medal count board that will keep a medal count and provide a visual for students who may not watch the Olympics to see how many medals different countries have.
South Korea is at the top of my medal board so students can see how many medals their country has earned. I know I do not have all the countries on the board, but I do have the top 12 finishers from the 2010 Vancouver games.

Finally I made an "Olympic Torch". I was inspired by this page at Red Ted Art.

The View From The Top

So it’s not really the top, it’s just the top floor of the school which is where my room is located. I am in room 303 and have a beautiful view of Sasang and Deokpo at most times. On a clear day I can see the mountains surrounding Busan and the river that comes in from the East Sea (or as the rest of the world refers to it the "Sea of Japan") to Gimhae Airport. In the evenings I find myself getting distracted by the lights outside in the distance and can’t believe the view I have.

A view from the Rooftop Patio of the Dorm looking out at Sasang

During the day the view is beautiful as well. With a south facing wall of windows I get the warmth of the sun in all day, which is nice since it is winter and cool here. I find I do not need my heater turned on all the way because it will get too hot in my room. I have heard though the blessing from the sun in the winter turns into a nightmare in the summer when it is hot and humid outside, but I haven't experienced a Korean summer yet.

Looking out my window and down the hill/mountain

To the right hand side is Gimhae Airport

A Bit About My School

My school is located in South Korea, on the southern coast in the City of Busan. Busan is a very large city so there are a lot of different areas. My school is located in the Sasang area between Deokpoe (sounds like duck-po) and Modeok (Moe-duck) on what I would call a mountain, but it could just seem like a mountain because I came from flat Saskatchewan. Some call it a hill, some call it a mountain, whatever it is, it is a steep walk up. There are railings on the side to help you drag yourself up, at least that’s what I use the railings for.

I am very fortunate to be in what is called an English Village.  The goal of the school is to have an English immersion experience for students while they are here, so the classes taught in this building are all in English. There is a Korean teacher that speaks English and a Foreign teacher paired up with each other so that creates a great support system and allows for great communication about students and possible strategies that may work with some groups or individual students.

My school.

Another interesting aspect of my school that I love is called Active Zones. We have classes in my classroom Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday the Monday students come to the Active Zone and on Thursday the Tuesday students come to Active Zone. Friday is reserved for extra classes and more advanced students. Right now I have been fortunate enough to teach a promotional class in the Cooking Active Zone on Fridays, which means every Friday I get to make or bake something with my students. Last Friday we made Brownies in a Microwave and they tasted surprisingly good. The purpose of active zones is to provide lived experiences for students to be able to apply the English they have learned in the classroom while in a different learning environment. So far I have done the Non-fiction Reading Active Zone, the Sounds Active Zone, Words, Science and Cooking.

Preparing for Words active zone- tongue twisters for the more advanced students

I Am A Teacher!

Okay, so here I am, it’s a new year and a lot has changed since the last time I blogged.

After graduating with my Education degree I began substitute teaching and really enjoyed myself.  It was a terrific experience and I enjoyed a large majority of the schools I was placed at. While I enjoyed this employment experience, I was looking for more. I really wanted my own classroom.

Now rewind to last February when I took a TEFL/TESL/TESOL course on how to teach English to second language learners. I gained a lot of valuable information from this experience and would encourage any teacher to complete this certificate.

So now fast forward to today. I am currently overseas in South Korea and I am LOVING my job as a teacher.  I am in the second largest city called Busan and am experiencing new things everyday. While this blog was meant for ECMP 355 I have decided to keep it as my professional teaching blog. Here I will share my experiences overseas and hopefully give anyone who is looking to teach English as a Second Language in a different country some insight and ideas.

The Power of Words

Retrieved from: http://www.r-word.org/r-word-resources.aspx

A few years ago I was introduced to The R-word after coaching Special Olympics, and I remember one of the players saying,
 "Ugh, this is so retarded!"  The other players looked at him and said "What do you mean?  I'm retarded and  I'm awesome!"
 I was very surprised and shocked to hear this conversation, yet it was true, the one player had been classified and labelled as "mentally retarded", yet for some reason  all the other players had a good laugh about it because they were  all labelled by some as "Retarded', yet in my eyes they were amazing people. They were all committed to their jobs, their families and to soccer. As their coach I would never want to play soccer against any of them. I'll never forget the phrase "I'm retarded and I'm awesome". 

Today my friend introduced me to this website titled  No Homophobes.com.
It is about the use of words that are hurtful to those who are gay or homosexual.  It scans Twitter and tracks the number of tweets with specific words and tracks them.  It is amazing how we use words.

It is amazing that without thinking we could be hurting people with our words, or we could be spreading awareness. The message you are spreading depends on how you phrase it.

Final Reflection

I feel that this ECMP 355 experience has been challenging me to think outside of the box and try new things.  So for my final reflection I decided to make an RSA style video animation. So here's my attempt, it's not perfect, but I'd say it's not too bad for a first attempt.
Enjoy!