It always struck me as weird that EFL teachers, once they get trained, start using technical terminology that sounds silly. Like “Rubric”, which always meant “lesson” in the old days but now seems to be “ranking system” or “evaluation system”, especially one with explicit markers to measure competency level. Me, I’m growing fundamentally opposed to any non-crucial grading, since grades, as an arbitrary and artificial system of hierarchic ranking, mostly distract people from the more useful feedback they receive. It’s a pragmatic objection as much as a philosophical one, here, since in my experience Korean students are conditioned to focus …

The last few days (from around the end of last week) have been ceaselessly amusing. In my Media English class, we’re looking at Superman in some of his different incarnations, which means I have to do a Powerpoint up for next week, when I’ll do a talk on the stuff students aren’t likely to have been exposed to. We’ve been watching the pilot episode of the series Smallville and it’s been interesting, but their background seems limited. In my lecture, I’m going to broach the subject of “alternate history”, of adaptations, of continuity, and of course some of the basic …