Saturday, December 11, 2010

"Do you know what a chick sexer is?"

My kids were, on the whole, terrible this week. I don’t know what their collective issue was. Perhaps they got together unbeknownst to me and created the first annual “Make Kimbelly Teacher’s Life Terrible Week.” As I think I’ve mentioned before, I am a terrible disciplinarian. As a result, I now have two classes who simply will not listen to me at all. I spend a lot of time imploring children, “Ok, please stop hitting each other....Ok, no, really, please stop...Ok, I’m serious get off the window ledge and stop hitting him....Ok, please get off your chair...No, really, please get off the window ledge...No, get off the window ledge and sit in your chair...Ok, actually, can you please put your head outside your jacket so you can see what we’re doing...No, really, please come out from the inside of your jacket and stop kicking each other.” It is not a pretty situation and at times I just get so exhausted by them not listening, particularly in terms of them talking ALL THE TIME! I have one class that just will not stop talking and they drive me insane. The problem is exacerbated by the language barrier, as it’s a lower level class, and disciplining them in English is much less effective and much easier for them to ignore.
    While they are so naughty sometimes, they also crack me up a lot. Kids are weird. Kids become extra weird when they’re attempting to communicate in a language they speak poorly or barely at all. This is an example of one of the finer moments of learning in one of my classes. The essay topic was “Write about the most amazing thing you have ever seen.” This was the result:

  
Dietary restrictions are not really a part of Korean culture like they are in the US, so people here often think that not eating meat or seafood is very strange and even unhealthy. People always ask me here, “You don’t eat meat or fish!? What do you eat...bread?” Bread is always the go to. There are apparently an appalling number of people who think that three foods exist in the world: meat, seafood, and bread.

Here’s another little gem for your reading pleasure. This is out of one of the lower level reading text books. Read the text.

This is the question page for that inexplicable reading. Take special note of question three.


In case it proves difficult to read, question three is as follows: "A ______ determines the gender of chickens.  a) chick sexer   b) chick lover   c) chick player"  I can just picture a bunch of stoned foreign English teachers here who decided they possessed the ability to read English at a 3rd grade level and therefore the ability to write and publish a series of textbooks. This was the result, and I now have to read this to groups of children with a straight face.

1 comment:

  1. Wow! Now that's one you would have to prepare for before you walked into class. Sounds like there was a boooored foreigner working in a text book factory, having to crank out material.

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