I don't think the cooking lesson helped me that much. Maybe a little. But the science teacher was doing the main cooking (stirring and adding ingredients to the bowl) so she wasn't really giving me instructions. I think if I do cooking in the future I will explain that I will do the cooking and they will read from the recipe and give me instructions. That might work better.
And I think watching TV was good. We can talk about various TV shows. We don't have to like the show we are watching in order to talk about them.
I have to think of more word games with the young man. His Korean is a bit difficult to understand compared to the science lady.
I actually didn't understand a lot of what he said. We can play a computer game together. But he has to talk in Korean. That might be hard to do though in Starbucks.
I have to think more about this. Maybe we will just have a chat next week. Maybe we will talk about his life in the US. I am not sure. I think I will have to think more about this. What are the games we can play? How can I get him to do communicative activities with me?
We can play competitive games with each other. I really can't think of what though. If I can't think of anything, we can just have a conversation. He seems very talkative. I don't want to talk in Korean though. I can ask him various questions: "Tell us about the most scary experience you've had in your life." Tell us about the most embarrassing thing that's happened in your life. Tell us about the most romantic experience you've had in your life. Tell us about the most successful/exhilerating experience you've had in your life.
So really he is giving a presentation and I am listening. I am happy with that. I don't really want to talk at this stage. I just want to listen and see whether I can comprehend.
Now with Seokcheol, I have to think of some activity to do. I don't think I will do translation of newspaper articles again. The vocab was too difficult. The article was too hard to understand. I am not sure what we can do. I am really a beginner. I can try playing games with him. I don't think he will like that. How can I get him to talk for forty-five minutes continuously? I don't really know. I can just ask him about his experiences in the US. But he talked a lot about that before. I will try playing games and see whether he's open to that or not.
There are charade games but they involve action and no speaking so that won't help. I really can't think of much else to talk about. We have to talk about things that I can easily understand the Korean of.
Anyway, I shouldn't really stress out too much. I am just having a lesson once a week with these people and I will stop after a month. It was mainly a light experiment. So I might just let the conversation fliow naturally. People love talking about themselves as I suspected so I will keep asking them leading questions about themselves and listen to them talk for forty-five minutes.
We can watch King Gwanggaetto the Great! Seokcheol might like that drama. I can watch an un-subtitled episode with him and can ask him to translate it for me. I will see how that goes. So I don't have any lessons for the rest of the week for the time being. I will try that. I will write down the new vocab in a notebook. So this is something we can try together. I can play a game as well and see how that carries over. The game was fun, I have to say. I wish I could take part in it as in being the one to talk about the person and giving clues. Unfortunately, it is only one way so far. I guess I can try and play too. And the other person has to ask questions in Korean. I have to work out what they are asking and answer them either in Korean or English. This could work. I think I might play this game with the instructors. I don't know whether it will work with Mrs Lim. I might ask her to bring another newspaper article. I might just buy a newspaper and go through the headings. This is an idea. I will bring a newspaper to the meeting with Seokcheol. With Mrs Lim, I might go through a newspaper article. I find this a useful activity as I picked up a couple of vocab words through this, and it gave us a chance to talk about something. With Mrs Lim, I have to focus her otherwise she turns it into an English lesson.
So with Seokcheol, I will play games, read newspaper headings and watch the sageuk together. With Mrs Lim, we can read a newspaper article together. With the science teacher, we will just have a conversation and maybe watch TV together.
With the 504 Dong lady, we can just have a conversation or read Saint Marie together. I think she also liked to talk similar to the science teacher lady. We can watch TV together as well and discuss what's on the program. I found that with the science teacher lady that the TV programs we watched made a good starting point for discussion. We can talk about the celebrities and so on.
So I think I have everyone covered. All that's left is to buy the newspaper. I might go to the station early on Monday morning and buy the newspaper before Mrs Lim's class. I think she likes coming over to my apartment. I will prepare some tasty treat for her. I might make some nice sandwiches for these people. I have to get hold of some vegemite. If I get vegemite and some nice bread I can make some nice fairy bread and also vegemite sandwiches. I can also make tuna and lettuce sandwiches, egg sandwiches and cheese and tomato sandwiches and stuff like that. I can serve this food with jasmine tea. I think they will really appreciate this food. This food is relatively simple to make what's more. I think I will go with this plan to show them what Australian food is like. My teachers really love the Lipton's tea. I might buy some Indian spices and add them to the black tea for some added oomph.
I like making things for my guests. I can buy some typical Australian food. Simple things. I wish I could get ahold of French Onion Soup mix. I could make fantastic dip with that. Blend with cream cheese and serve with crackers - absolutely delicious.
I might make some cinnamon cookies and serve them. The cinnamon cookies turned out really well the last time I made them.
I will have to drop by Itaewon to buy these things including cardamon pods for the tea. I need to buy more Lipton's tea.
I will also have to order Tintin from the BookBank. I will do that tomorrow.
So I will take things easy and just bring the newspaper to the classes or watch TV with the teachers who come to my home. I like to sit outside so with Mrs Lim, we might sit outside in the children's playground. But it might be hard to read anything out there .. I will have to think a little more about this.
