English Camp Week #2
I've just finished the first class for the second group of English Camp kids. They're a lot different from the group I had last week. They are older; the kids last week were in grade 5 and this group is grade 6. What a difference a year makes! They are quieter, less willing to dive in and try things.
What I discovered from last week is that the kids have a pretty good vocabulary and grasp of grammar. What they need is practice and the willingness to try without being afraid of making mistakes. So, on the weekend I wrote up some short dialogues for them to do with each other. We'll do a different dialogue each day this week.
I went to Masan with my co-teacher Gyong Jin on Saturday (New Years Eve). She came in by bus from Masan, and we went together back to Masan to see "King Kong". It's a long movie, about 3 hours, but well worth it! When I saw the original movie with Fay Wray when I was a kid, I cried at the end. This movie was equally as powerful. Peter Jackson really captured the romantic side of it!
After the movie we walked around an underground mall where I bought myself a book/tape on Learning Korean for $15. Then, we went back to street level and had lunch. We went to a little out of the way hole in the wall type place, but the food was really good. I can't believe some of the stuff I regularly eat here! It's food that I pretty much wouldn't have touched with a ten foot couch back home...cabbage, spinach, and quite a few things that I can't identify. Cabbage I eat almost daily in the form of Kimchi. It's a staple here that Gyong Jin tells me Koreans started eating a long time ago because it's a good source of vitamin 'C'.
After lunch we walked a bit more, had a coffee and then I took the bus home alone. My first time doing that. Perhaps this coming weekend I'll take the bus from Haman alone, and go to Masan to explore a little bit on my own.
Sometime this week, maybe tomorrow, I'm going to start swimming 20 laps in a pool everyday before school. The pool is maybe a ten minute walk from home. So, if I'm in the water by about 7:00am, I could be done by 7:30 or so, walk home, change, have breakfast and be at school well before 9:00. I was thinking of taking TawKwonDo, but think it would be wiser to get into better shape first before attempting that. The problem is that if I do too good a job of getting into shape, I'll need to spend a lot of money on clothes because nothing I brought with me will fit anymore. The good news is that I didn't really bring that much in the way of clothing.
Korean cultural tidbit of the day: When speaking on the phone Koreans often, if not habitually abruptly end the conversation with a 'yeeeeeeh' and then hang up.
P.S. Anyone wondering why I'm wearing a coat in class? Well, it's cold in the classroom in the morning. That thing in front of me as I'm playing the guitar is a heater, but it takes a while to warm things up. You'll notice that the kids in class are wearing their winter coats.
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