A bit later today, I’ll be heading off to Seoul for my first KOTESOL conference, which starts tomorrow and runs till Sunday. If you see a “Gord” walking around looking confused, amused, or starved for online access, it’s probably me. Walk up and say hi.
Category: teaching in Korea
The Globe and Mail: Canadian teachers caught in S. Korean crackdown
Here we go with another newspaper misrepresentation. But this time, it’s not the Dong-Ah or the Joongang or the Chosun Ilbo, or even the Korea Herald. It’s The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper thant just ran a story titled: Canadian teachers caught in S. Korean crackdown. I got an email from my accountant in Montreal asking if I am okay. I got another email forwarded to me from a reporter in Saskatchewan who wants to talk to a Canadian in Korea about “the Canadian crackdown”. Well, as far as I know, it’s not a Canadian crackdown. It’s just a …
Mayomi
Also via Lifehacker, here’s a very cool site called Mayomi that offers a utility that lets you create a mind map. Useful for self-organization, as well as for teaching writing in the classroom, if you do that sort of thing. Something tells me Cuccu would like it. :)
Nice Things I’ve Heard Lately (Via Lime) and What I Really Think Earns An A+
So my girlfriend Lime told me some really nice, happy news the other day. Here’s the story: She went for lunch with one of her friends whose younger sister is a freshman student where I work. Now, the friend has never taken a class with me, but even last semester she’d heard good things about me. Well, this semester she has her Freshman English class in a room next to the room I’m teaching in during that particular hour, and apparently her classmates who study with me have said positive things about the class. Well, what they actually said was …
For Chapter Two of Inside English…
This is one of the first teaching resources I’ve uploaded in a while. I got used to emailing them to myself and downloading, and now that I think of it I should upload a bunch of those files in a batch, with a list of what kinds of resources they are. But I’ll start by trying to cultivate a habit uploading new things as I create them. This quizlet deals with the passive, and with holidays. (That’s book themes for you.) If you want to check it out, please read the rest of this post.
You’d Think
You’d think that, after I told my students that their absence from class tonight would be excused on account of it being so close to Chuseok, as long as they sent me an email before 5:00pm, in English, informing me that they would not be attending, it would have sunk in. You’d think that my saying, “Write badly in English, okay, write in Korean, not okay,” would’ve had some impact. You’d think that considering I’m teaching them English, they might think to email me in English… or at least to attempt it. Or at least babelfish it, though that’s a …
A Cool Student and Some Early-Semester Exercises
People in the office were quite pleasantly surprised—and so was I!— this morning, and it was because of a good student. Yes, really.
The Weird Adaptation
I saw a movie once—actually, not long ago, though I can’t remember which movie it was—in which some characters attended a speed-dating meeting. The characters basically asked one another a series of questions on a timer and then were forced to move to another partner, in quick succession, until they’d made the full rounds and arrived back where they’d started. Well, if that doesn’t sound like something that could be adapted into a good exercise, I don’t know what does. Especially for today’s opening gambit, working through BE and DO questions. Do you like soccer? Are you from Kwangju? Do …
Textbook Thoughts
UPDATE (19 Dec. 2014): Speaking of Speech is still available: in fact, in a new edition. It’s been expanded, and now there’s a teacher’s guide, but I haven’t gotten a look at it. The original book was a bit Japan-specific, and I suspect it might rub some students the wrong way, but maybe that’s been eliminated from the more recent edition. In any case, you can see the newer book here. ORIGINAL POST: Alistair asked what textbooks I’m using in new courses this semester, and I typed out a rather long comment before I realized it would probably be better to …
As the Semester Begins
Well, another season, another semester. I got my schedule, and not to jinx myself, it looks pretty good as it stands… provided it doesn’t change somehow, suddenly, surprisingly. But I do have a number of other anxieties about the semester. And being the blogger that I am, I am going to go right ahead and get into them in public.