Cool things that happened today

March 11, 2013

All within the last 12 hours…
(which was actually 6 hours of class)

• I answered a student’s (factual) question incorrectly and another student looked it up and shared the correct answer with everyone and I thanked the second student and didn’t feel embarrassed at all. Just moved right along. 
• A shy and quiet student I had last term is no longer shy nor quiet.
• I learned that a former student was (allegedly) in Psy’s Gangnam Style video. I have seen the video 20+ times but I was never looking for him. I might have to revisit this.
• Three students from another one of my classes decided to audit (= attend without a grade) my Monday class just for the practice and experience. That was nice.
• This list of tips on Korean culture for foreigners prompted quite a bit of discussion.
• I introduced the word and idea of “podcasts” to a student who wanted listening practice at home and she seemed really interested in giving it a go.
• I saw a book published in Korea for Korean learners with lots of Korean explanations  that actually seemed pretty decent and reasonable.
  (Perhaps I am becoming a less harsh critic of such materials?)
• I somehow wrote the phrase “heavy petting” on the board.  So that was cool.
  I then told the students I have actually never said this and I didn’t think it was actually very useful. We settled on “beyond kissing” to refer to what the student was talking about.
• I survived my first 3 hour lecture as a lecturer on “Korean and Global Politics”
  (mostly for foreign exchange students). If you have any questions about the Shilla Dynasty please let me know.
• One student was shocked to hear my thoughts/feelings when I hear the phrase, “You’d better” and it seemed like this was a nice learning moment for her. I don’t think she will be telling people what they’d better be doing so freely in the near future.
• One student was shocked to hear about tipping culture in the US.
• Some interesting vocabulary that I never would have dreamed to
  (pre-)teach came up.
• An interesting discussion about DVD rooms and the implications of going with others sprung up.
• Zero students that are not registered for the class randomly strolled in late expecting some extra English practice and entertainment.
• Some Korean students seemed legitimately shocked how “You are good at using chopsticks” might not be such a great compliment to a Westerner. For more on #chopsticks you might want to read my very short story. 
• I thought of some small changes that can make things better next Monday!

Update 1: At some point it occurred to me that this might be a nice blog challenge.
I think the exact moment was when Tyson Seburn (@seburnt) over at 4C in ELT shared the post on Twitter. You see, Tyson previously suggested that my Movie quotes/Big Lebowski in ELT post could be a nice blog challenge. I wasn’t really so familiar with the process at that point. It seems that there will be a few takers. The blog challenge is something like: Why not list a few cool things that happened in the general vicinity of school for a day and share them? I am really keen to read more of them and it is quite a bit of fun. I will be sure to update any takers on the list below.

Update 2:
a) Carol Goodey (@goodey) took the challenge and her lovely post about her experiences teaching (I think) recent arrivals to Scotland can be found here.
b) Another interesting list of cool things was provided by Tom Randolph(@tomtesol) from his experiences right up the way here in Seoul.
c) Gemma Lunn (@GemL1) also supplied a golden list of cool things from her interactions in the past few days at her middle school in Busan.
d) In her new blogging home the gifted, talented, funny and optimistic Ann Loseva shared several cool things she recently experienced teaching in her native Moscow.
e) Tyson also shared his list of (mostly) cool things and shared lots of insights about what is going on in his EAP classes in Canada.
f) Though nobody suddenly belted out an Abba tune Kevin Stein (@kevchanwow) had a plethora of coolness today (much more, in fact, than yesterday).
g) The first person to publicly accept the challenge might have been my friend Yitzha Sarwono (@yitzha_sarwano). I was waiting patiently and excitedly for Icha’s post all week and her post was well worth the wait.
h) Ava Fruin (@avafruin) joins the band and jumps on the bandwagon in style with one very cool thing  (which can also be seen as the avoidance of uncool things from my view).
i) Ratnavathy Ragunthan-Chandrasegaran  shares some awesomeness and her cool groove with the world here. Best of luck, my friend and a well-deserved congrats on the coolness surrounding you.
j) Here, Laura Phelps shares some cool and interesting things that recently occurred in Tbilisi as she winds down her time there. I am extremely happy that the blog challenge “tricked” her into posting this because I love her writing.
k) There is no such thing as too late when talking about cool things. Here is Dave Dodgson’s very cool list of cool goings on as of late. 

Written by mikecorea Posted in Reflections Tagged with blog challenge, cool things, culture, ELF, ELT, gratitude, happy, Korea, mikecorea, PLN, random