People in the Academic Affairs Office are once again requesting more explanation of the Clarion Workshop. This is the third time they’ve asked for more info, and this time they’re looking for some kind of official explanation of the “Program”. I explained that there’s no official “program” and that it’s not really a conference but more like a “course”. I’ll be bringing the Info Packet I received in the mail to the office tomorrow morning, to see if there’s anything there which can be photocopied to explain the program. I really hope that suffices, because I can’t think of any …
Category: KOREA
A New ESL/EFL Wiki
The indefatigable EFL Geek has started something new: an ESL & EFL Wiki. For those of you who don’t know what a Wiki is, the short version is that it is the most promiscuous of website forms. That means that just about anyone can edit it, contribute, and so on. What this means is that he’s started a cooperative website at which people can post articles, links, information, materials, resources, and so on. It’s a lovely idea, and I heartily encourage anyone who’s interested in, or working in the field of, EFL or ESL to go on over there and …
What I Can and Can’t Teach ‘Em…
Recently, in a creative-writing context, diekreuzen wrote: I’m glad I missed my last fiction class. Since we’re coming to the end, students are starting to get touchy about their progress. They wonder why their writing hasn’t gotten better. They’re lashing out at the critiques, questioning their usefulness. Such displays make me cringe–like witnessing adult temper tantrums. All of this is the unhappy realization that no one can tell you how to write. You have to figure it out for yourself. I have been thinking about this. Post-midterm, I have been making strong efforts to ensure students in my elementary writing …
Those Percussion Groups
If you’ve ever seen a really tight percussion/performance group, and wondered how they got to be so damned well tight, so deeply in unison, I can tell you. They practiced like mad. Like absolute mad. The dance steps and everything. Outside my window. If I had more time, I would grab some audio and post it. Maybe tomorrow. They’ve been practicing for hours every evening and I’m sure they won’t suddenly stop tomorrow. I’m not complaining, by the way. I can always put music on, and it basically drowns it all out. But it is quite amazing how singlemindedly dedicated …
Eggcorns
I miss these. I used to see them in student papers in Canada a lot, but here, they’re not so common.
Foreign Dispatches: A Lesson in Skillful Diplomacy
Koizumi’s response to Noh, for those wondering, is a little embarrassing… for Noh.
Presentations
In a few moments I need to wrench my mind back to school-related work: I’ll be presenting a talk on Monday to my Public Speaking class on how and why to use, and how and why NOT to use, a PowerPoint Presentation. I have a few sources to draw upon, but the one I think most highly of is a post over at Creating Passionate Users, which I’m not going to link to directly from here, because I don’t need a trackback from that post leading to this blog — one of my students knows about this site, and that’s …
john tallman’s site
Another person I sorta-know has a space online: john tallman lived in Jeonju and did up the cover art for a couple of Dabang CDs.
The Rest of Semester
I’ve been looking for a way to work in a podcast into one of my classes, especially the Media English class, but there just wasn’t room this time around. However, I did a slight overhaul of my rest-of-semester-plans with some of my students. Here are the results: Students in my Media English class are making presentations. This is for most of them in lieu of the Media Diaries which they were supposed to start keeping in Week 2, but which most of them never really started. It adds a little to the workload, since they’re supposed to be getting their …
A Cappella and Other Thoughts
Yesterday I attended a concert on campus. There’s a shy girl in one of my writing classes who came to me, ticket in hand, and asked me if I would come and see her sing. She’s a nice kid, and a diligent student, so how could I refuse? Well, it turned out to be a cappella music concert. You know, where vocal groups sing without instrumental accompaniment (aside from a little beatbox work by some of the guys in the ensembles, and that’s still not really instrumental). Now, it may seem strange to those of you who think of groups …