When I returned to Korea from Canada, I felt particularly frustrated in returning, which worried me. “Have I had enough?” I asked myself? “Should I live here longer? Am I burning out?” It’s not too surprising, mind you. The bus ride from the airport was like a mental trial. The bus driver refused to open the luggage compartments on the side of the bus, so we had to haul everything up into the bus, which was a lot of baggage. (Compare that to the bus drivers in Montreal, who actually helped carry our bags onto the bus for us.) The …
Category: KOREA
Starting to Understand Form Letter Responses
I’m ripping my way through a pile of somewhat-unimportant assignments, and the killer is, I’m not sure which students expect feedback and which don’t… but I am pretty sure that not all of them do, and I’m also pretty sure that some of them very much do want some. However, the feedback and the grading process are not the same thing. Havng discovered that the wait for a tourist visa to China is no less than 2 days (or, at a cheaper rate, 4 days minimum), I will have a little time next week to add comments to some of …
Inter-Hakwon Warfare
The Hankyoreh has a story about accused teaching method-piracy: An English teacher at a language institute in Seoul has been indicted on allegations that lectures she delivered to her students were stolen from a neighboring institute. I think I have a defense. Look for the original text which the original institute’s examples were stolen from. Teachers are unrepentant thieves. They also are often happy to share, since they stole themselves. I am somewhat doubtful that the teaching material was wholly original in this case. If it was, they should have published a textbook, in order to further learning. If that …
Oooof.
Well, I finished grading my remaining 15 essays today, with the exception of one essay that was missing page two. Actually, page 2 from a different writing project was there in place of page two of the essay. I’ve emailed the student to please email me the missing page so I can grade the essay. If she doesn’t by Friday, her grade’s going to suffer some. Anyway, I am now working on grading “form projects”. It’s actually relatively easier, in that grades are assigned mostly not on quality but on whether an attempt was made. Students who actually tried hard …
Just as Confusing In-Context
From an essay by a female student, on (I’m pretty sure she’s discussing) eating disorders: “In fact, the women are the ones only making the causing emotional problems.” And no, the context doesn’t really help much.
Taking a Break From These Essays…
It never ceases to amaze me how many students outright ignore the comments I make on their essays, and fail to ask me about the comments during one-on-one meetings with me, or even just after class, even though I tell them they should do this. Anyway, I marked seven essays this evening, several of which were absolutely oustanding–including a highly impassioned plea for social justice and legal reform in the handling of trasngendered people in Korea (which got an A++ because, really, it’s almost pro-magazine quality in my opinion)–but the last few, they were almost demoralizing. I mean, no, not …
Night Class Essays Down
One of the wonderful things about marking essays that I’m required NOT to return to students is that I don’t need to make extensive notes. I do tend to make a list of notes at the end — in almost unreadable hand, except that I can read it — about what’s good and bad in the essay, but I don’t have to be highly consistent in marking errors of those types throughout the essay. Mark a few, and then just note them. The class is on a ranked grading curve anyway, and participation in a writing class is mostly hard …
Europa (1991)
Last night I tried to watch my DVD of Europa, which is a Korean-released DVD. Weirdly, it has no English subtitles, only Korean, and the “Languages” marking on the back cover lists it as an “English” movie. In fact, a lot of the dialogue is in German. I tried to watch it anyway, guessing at what was discussed in German, but finally, after about forty minutes, I gave up. What an annoyance!
“Eat Out Someone” (Not What You Think.)
Here are a couple of real gems from an essay I graded today, which was a crusade against fast food: “If you eat out someone everyday, you can lose your relationship.”“Everyone must eat their homes.” Obviously, from a essay near the bottom of the grading pile, but still… amusing.
It’s Snowing, It’s Snowing!
It was the first big dump of snow this winter, today, at least in Bucheon. I didn’t see much snow in Seoul, though. Lime wrote some kind of exam. Apparently every intern in half of Seoul, Incheon, Bucheon, etc. was in the same place, writing the same test. We met for coffee and… Then we had some pho after. It comes with hot Jasmine tea. There’s a good little pho place in Hongik, where we sometimes go. I hope she won’t mind me posting this pic, as it’s blurry. But she might. Then we wandered around, and finally had dinner …