Beginners like me are boring for language teachers. We don't understand much. They are restricted in what they can talk about. The language teachers want to talk naturally. I do realize this and appreciate what the teachers are trying to do. Maybe I should just let them talk about whatever they like. That way, they can just talk and not worry too much whether I understand or not. I don't want them to engage me in conversation too much because my speaking is poor.
With beginners, you easily exhaust beginner topics. I think it's best if the teachers just ignore the fact that the student is a beginner and just talk about things they like and just rip away!
As a student, I will pick up a word here and there.
If we have an activity, the task of teaching conversation becomes easier. The vocab range is restricted to the activity at hand. We have an inbuilt test of understanding - whether I can complete the activity or not by following instructions or not.
So today I will test this by choosing an activity with the conversation teacher. I want to make it fun so it goes fast.
We might try reading manga. We might teach other a card game. We can play charades. We can play "Who is this person?". All sorts of parlour games. I can ask him to help me find computer games in Korean to play. It might be a problem if the games are not compatible with mac though.
So I have to be creative and find materials that will be useful for this kind of thing.
In the last 15 minutes, we can talk freely in English.
Cooking? Too messy. And I don't have all the ingredients for some of the things ..... I think making cookies is good. Today, I have the young man coming at 10 and then I have the science teacher coming at 7pm. I must not forget this.
I have to prepare something. Maybe I will try cooking/baking with the science lady. The Korean man can help me find Korean computer games. We can play charade games. Name this person - someone famous ... describe everything he or she does without actually naming the person. I will use this as an experiment. I think I want to move beyond introductions. Name a fairytale. That would be a good game.
Prepare all sorts of fun games. Read a little of Saint Marie.
So I think the time will go quickly.
