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. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 8:37 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 1 October 2011 1:14 AM EDT

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for listening. It's also good for speaking. For example, I learned "kandanhan" = "simple" today and I used it during speaking practice. I also picked up ke (crab) today and the lady teacher I met this evening used ke during her speech.

I tried different activities today. With the young man, we played games like "I spy with my little eye" (modified so that he would describe the thing in Korean) and "Who is this famous person?" (once again the teacher would describe the famous person and I would try and guess who that person was) and a couple of similar games. It encouraged the man to talk a lot. He said he had fun. I had fun too. I am not sure I understood a lot of what he said but I think it all helps. The effects show much much later, not immediately. 

We talked for about half an hour in English about various things, mostly about his life in America. He wanted a writing task so I set one up for him. 

I think it's all helpful. I think the science teacher speaks more simple more comprehensible Korean. I can follow what she says. She enjoys talking which is a good point. We made jam cookies today. I didn't like the taste - the walnuts were kind of stale, but she liked them and took the rest home for her family. She stayed much longer - almost an hour longer after the class. She seems to enjoy these visits. I think I am getting a lot out of her class. I don't really need to plan a lot of activities with her as she likes talking. 

The young man said he really enjoyed the activity. I was a bit worried that playing this game might have tired him out a lot but he said it hadn't. It DID make the time go fast. I enjoyed the game a lot myself. 

I have to play these games because I can't have a conversation with these people. The only problem is that we can't keep doing the same activities each time. 

I have done the "name the actor, the famous person, movie" game with the young man. So I have to think of something different next week. Let me think. We are going to meet at Starbucks so I have to think of something. 

I don't pick up new words when I have these conversation lessons. I find it hard to do that. I ask for the Korean word of an English word but I tend to forget the word straightaway. I think these conversation lessons will be beneficial mainly for the value that it trains my ear to get used to Korean. I think these conversation lessons are a good introduction but I think I will stop after one month. I don't think I will suddenly be fluent in speaking after a month of these lessons but I think it helps a little. 

The main benefit from these sorts of lessons will be obtained after I have learned masses of vocabulary and am comfortable with reading. So I will concentrate on reading comprehension and increasing reading speed for the time being. I will keep the Korean lessons to one per person. I will keep Mrs Lim to twice a week but keep the other people to once a week. I have three women and two men. I think I will just keep it at that. The young man today really was enthused about what we did today. He wouldn't stick with the program and was a bit upset when I pushed him to keep with it. He wouldn't start the game and insisted on talking about something else. I had to be firm with him and he got worried that we were not getting on. He said, "Listen, I am trying to create a good relationship between us," but after the class was over, he was happy with what I got him to do. He needs kind of a firm hand otherwise things get out of control. It's not really good when he tries to control things. He seems kind of scatterbrained actually. He didn't cancel this morning and I only found out he couldn't come when he rang me at 10 on the dot. I was kind of annoyed about that and almost canceled with him completely. He is kind of unreliable. My intuition told me that he wouldn't show up this morning. 

We are meeting next Sunday at 5pm. If he plays up again, I will cancel. I don't really need the conversation lessons at this stage so I don't need to put up with somebody who is always canceling and changing the schedule. 

I think he gets benefits out of it too. He stayed back for half an hour as I said just to talk in English. I don't think he gets many opportunities to talk in English. Also, he gets a sympathetic ear when he talks to me. He likes talking about the problems he had in the US. 

So, I will see. I don't think I will continue this beyond one month because as I said I think I will get maximum benefit when I have learned more vocabulary words. 

I really don't know whether I am picking enough grammar from listening to these Korean speakers. It's very hard to say. I might be but not be conscious of it. 

Anyhow, it's not that important. I can do listening any time - I don't have to do it now. I just want to be focused on reading and learning vocabulary. 

I enjoy studying vocab from movies. 

I wonder whether it's worth buying the Apple Cinema display to watch a drama simultaneously while I use the MacBook Air for other things. It might be worth it, I am not sure. 

I have another MacBook Air on which I can play the drama I want to watch so maybe it's overkill to buy an Apple Cinema Display. 

I am really undecided about this. 

Tonight I will spend a little time studying watching the King Gwanggaeto the Great and figuring out whether I am getting a lot of benefit from this or not. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 8:07 AM EDT

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I think this is true. I keep thinking about the polyglots who studied so many languages. Most of them never ventured far from their own home. They mostly learned the languages in their own country and did not do immersion by living in the nation of the language they were learning. And these polyglots are fantastic at speaking these languages as well as at writing these languages. So I don't think it's necessary to do 'immersion' as such (living in the nation of the language you are learning). You can do your own artificial immersion by listening to recordings, watching movies and so on.

I want to watch King Gwanggaeto the Great tonight and do some vocabulary work. I really enjoy this series. I don't like the fact that the subtitled episodes are eight to ten episodes behind the non-subtitled episodes however. 

I don't want to watch much else. I don't like romance dramas very much. 

I think I will finish watching Dang Geum Jeum ("Jewel of the Palace"). It kind of drags but I like the romance between the heroine and the officer. I think it's sweet how she saved his life and both are unaware of this. 

I watched Yi Soon Shin but I was really disappointed by this drama. 

The only other sageuks I like are Jumong and Emperor of the Sea. I didn't like the last few episodes of Emperor of the Sea though. I didn't like the second half of Jumong as much as the first half. But I don't want to watch them again. 

I don't really like Winter Bird. It's kind of slow and depressing. The heroine is unappealing. 

I don't know what else I should watch. I want to watch a comedy. But lately there haven't been many good movies coming out of Korea's movie studios lately. 

I am not interested in any other dramas. I suppose there might be some good ones out there but I don't know which ones they are and many don't have subtitles. I might visit Sinyongsan again, I don't know. There was one helpful guy and he suggested many dramas that had English AND Korean subtitles. I don't think I will worry about Korean subtitles that much. I really liked Bulsae but I don't want to watch it again. 

I don't think I will finish Chuno. I didn't like that drama series. I didn't like the fusion nature of it and I didn't warm up to the main protagonist: Jang Hyuk. I didn't like the heroine. I found her very unattractive. I don't know why she appears in so many dramas as the main character. 

She is in another drama (a contemporary romance drama) that I bought from Singyongsan so I don't feel like watching that drama though I paid a lot of money for it. 

I think I like romantic comedy dramas. I don't like dramas like Winter Sonata. I watched a couple of episodes and it bored me to kingdom come. I really find Yonsama UGLY. I can't stop thinking he has a frog's face. And he's kind of too quiet and uninteresting. I don't know why he was such a big hit in Japan. 

As I have said, I don't like Boys Over Flowers - it's too immature for me and badly acted by the main character - the girl - and I don't really like Baker King. I watched a few episodes but could not really get into it much and watched the ending and that was it. 

I don't like Sweet Spy that much. I think I will watch the ending and that's it. I have to find out what happens in the end. 

And I kind of liked "Dear Heaven" but after the couple got married, the drama went downhill rapidly for me. I found the bitchy girl quite interesting but after they got married, she didn't feature in it as much. But at the end of the day, the drama was a bit immature. I liked the glimpses into Korean culture that the drama series showed however. I learned a lot about traditional Korean culture from that. 

I think I will do some volunteer activities in the near future. I want to interact with people who have the same interests as me. I know they are out there. I have to get involved. 

I should relax. I wound myself up thinking about all the vocab I still have to learn. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 3:17 AM EDT

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I find that freeing. Though now I am being swamped by anxieties over whether I am learning enough vocab and if I can learn enough vocab in the allotted time and so on. I really shouldn't stress about ANYTHING. Just do what you need to do and enjoy the process.

What do I enjoy? I enjoy watching my favorite dramas and understanding what's going on without reading the subtitles. I enjoy reading easy stories and understanding them quite well without looking at the English translations too much. 

I don't like cramming vocabulary. Sometimes, it's lonely studying on your own. 

I don't like reading boring or depressing long stories - some fairytales were like this. 

I don't like reading articles that are too hard to understand - even with the translation available. I don't like translations that don't stick to the original words as closely as possible. 

I liked studying the Magic vocab book. 

I don't like thinking up mnemonics. Sometimes it's hard with Korean words. 

I didn't know what I was getting into when I started learning Korean. 

I think for fun I will study an article featuring an interview with a Korean actor that I like. 

Frankly, I am sick of the materials I am studying. They seem a bit childish and boring. For example, the fairytales are starting to pall on me. I am sick of the WOW comics which are also fairytales or morality tales. I want to break out and read more current stuff to be honest. I want to read about the news in Korea, about Korean celebrities and so on. 

I have four more months to meet my deadline. I hope I've made a lot of progress by then. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 1:45 AM EDT

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On the weekend, when I have more time, I will attempt studying a newspaper article. I will try and decipher it by firstly getting the vocabulary down and then reading it looking at the grammar and trying to work out the meaning of the sentences.

Korean grammar is a real killer. I wonder what the western polyglots think about Korean. Do they find it especially hard? 

Also, Korean words don't sound nice and are not memorable. That is my impression. They are very much unlike Latin words in this sense. I don't know whether it's because of the high content of Chinese words in the Korean language (people have been saying it's 70%) or whether it's the native Korean words  or something else. I really do not like Korean words. 

At least Hangeul is not that hard to read (though I prefer Latin writing and characters) so I can't complain too much. Imagine struggling with Hanja AS WELL AS learning a foreign language. Ugh! 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 1:40 AM EDT

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I think this will come in time, and I feel that this is under my control anyway. Anytime that I want to achieve verbal fluency, I can immerse myself (artificially) by hiring one-on-one teachers (which is cheap in Korea) and do that. So I am not as concerned about this as I used to be. I don't think verbal fluency is the be-all and end-all anyway. There is also fluency in reading (and writing). And who wants to sit around and talk in Korean with Koreans? What can you talk about?

I don't know if I will ever make good friends with Korean people who don't speak English well. If they befriend me, I will always be wondering if they are trying to learn English from me and why they befriended me. It has happened. People want to be your friend INSTANTLY once they realize you come from a western nation and are a native English speaker. After a while, when they realize you aren't really compatible as friends, they DROP you. I don't need that. 

Korean people are rather foolish in that way. The ones who have been overseas are a little different. They're not as in awe as these other Koreans. These Koreans that are in awe are a particular type. They are kind of like country bumpkins in their approach to things western. They are really annoying sort of people, I must say. 

The response from that ad was overwhelming. It was mostly because these Koreans thought they would sneak-learn English from me. They should really approach it as a job and be professional about it. I made it clear what they had to do in the ad. If they don't like the conditions, they shouldn't apply. I am a beginner and cannot really spend time conversing with them in English. I am trying to pick up as much Korean as I can in the 45 minutes. I have relented since the ad and allow talking in English for the last 15 minutes. I think the people should be happy with that. Anyway the current crop of teachers are OK. I explained everything to them from the first class so they know what they have to do now, and we can proceed professionally. You really cannot learn English by teaching Korean to a beginner. The beginner does not want to converse in English with you for the majority of the class time. 

Anyhow, as I said, I no longer need to worry about becoming fluent as a speaker of Korean. In fact, I don't really need to have these conversation lessons at this point in time. 

But I will continue for a little while longer - for a month - because I asked these teachers to commit for a month at least so I should do the same. 

I think it's OK now. I was getting confused because I had so many teachers on the books. Now I have a stable of teachers that I know well except for the young man who canceled this morning's class and who I will see this afternoon. 

I will test him out. It's hard to tell what sort of teacher he will be. He's already directing the show which I don't really like. 

I can do immersion for a few months at any point in the future and achieve verbal fluency. I can make the immersion as deep or as light as I want. So I am not in a hurry any more to achieve verbal fluency.

And I don't think achieving verbal fluency really helps that much with acquiring grammar in my case. I can watch movies and so on to listen to people talk and pick up grammar that way. I can learn vocab on my own and I think it's better if I put off the immersion until I have more vocab under my belt  ... but I've started with these lessons now so I won't cancel them now but persist with them for a month and see how I go. 

I don't really care if the people pick up English from me - I won't begrudge them that. So far, they are all good except Mrs Lim at talking steadily in Korean for about an hour, and that's all I can expect them to do. 

I have to work on my language CD-ROM as well, so I am really busy with everything. Actually, I have too much on my plate and I don't like working alone. It is becoming a too big burden to shoulder all by oneself. 

Anyway, I have to keep optimistic and NEVER despair and panic. I didn't know there was such a silver lining in the fact that I did not have access to a natural immersion environment. 

The silver lining is that I can create my OWN immersion environment at my own time of choosing and at my own pace. I can select the people who will provide that immersion for me and I can choose my own materials as well: books, mp3s, movies etc. 

I haven't been watching much KBS World lately. 

I am going to keep watching more King Gwanggaeto the Great without subtitles. 

I feel fired up when I find that I understand a lot more of this drama than I thought I would. 

It is hard to find out what sort of progress you are making by learning all this vocab.  A lot? Not much?

I don't know how to measure this. 

But I will keep plugging away at learning vocabulary. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 1:16 AM EDT

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It is much better when you learn words in context. I tried this just now reading a story from Aesop's fables. I wrote the vocab out separately at first and then quickly read the story. I then memorized the vocab. I think this way works better for memorizing vocabulary. It is a pain to look up words though. But you can remember the words better because you see them in a story. And the words relate to each other well because they are part of a story.

So I think this is another good way of learning vocabulary. Once again I am reading really for the vocabulary, not for the grammar. 

I still think concentrating on vocabulary is helpful. I have learned many new words in just one short story (of Aesop's fables). 

I think that I will do this occasionally to break the monotony of learning vocab. 

There are many stories in the book of Aesop's fables. I have the translation too which is really helpful. When some words don't appear in the Google dictionary, I just write the meaning from the translation. 

So finding books like this one is very good. Books with translations are really worth their weight in gold. They seem a mass of words at first, but after I work out the vocabulary, the stories are comprehensible. Of course, I still haven't got a great handle on grammar but grammar in prose seems more 'regular' than the grammar of colloquial speech found in manwhas. 

I should just be patient and learn simple words like you find in these stories before moving onto more sophisticated vocabulary that you find in newspapers. 

I would like to study newspaper articles but the grammar is too confusing I think even if I sort out the vocabulary beforehand. 

I think I will try it once though. There are occasional translated articles online and I will find an interesting article to work on. 

I really wish I had spent the past two months on attaining vocabulary. I think I dabbled in everything over the last two months but especially in grammar. In the last three weeks I have been concentrating on vocabulary. 

Doing so has made a really big improvement in my reading comprehension. I can read many simple manwha fairytales like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs without too much difficulty now. 

I remember trying to read the WOW comics about two months ago gave me a big headache. 

I can read through those WOW comics at a moderate pace. 

I think that I should spend time learning vocabulary first before tackling reading. 

I think I will read Aesop's fables over and over again. I like the brevity of the stories. 

They are less gloomy than the fairy tales of Perrault, Anderson and Grimm. 

I am proceeding at quite a fast pace with memorizing vocab from the Voca book. 

It remains to be seen whether the words I've learned from them will help me with my reading in the future ...... 

I have to say the Magic 600-word vocab book helped me tremendously. It seemed like I made a big leap in my reading comprehension and also my grammar understanding of sentences I read improved a lot. 

So I think I will just see how I go. I want to see whether immersion with these Korean native speakers helps me or not. I just want to pick up useful phrases and attune my ear to Korean conversation .. and have a bit of fun at the same time. It's not that fun if I am just sitting there listening to a boring monologue. 

I know how hard it is to teach conversation. It is really hard to find a topic that the students can relate to. 

It's an art. You have to tell amusing anecdotes about yourself. You have to continually entertain the students. In the future, what I will do is mainly do the talking. The students just want to listen mainly and only occasionally produce speech. They are usually not ready for high-level conversation. They need to get used to hearing natural speech. Just give them exposure. Talk about a lot of things. Get articles from the newspapers and talk about them. Talk about domestic affairs and international affairs.

It IS hard, very hard, to hold the students' interests. But they're not beginners like me, I guess. 

I think I've made a lot of progress in the past two months. I think if I had gone to a hagwon it would have hampered me. It would have robbed me of the time that I needed to study and I would be bored because I had to go at the class's pace. The teacher would be teaching me stuff I already knew. That is the problem with group learning. I am not into group learning at all. I much prefer to study by myself. 

I am glad I am not as worried about immersion as I used to be. I think I panicked when I read Stephen Krashen's stuff. I didn't realize that you can create your own immersion environment and you don't necessarily have to do that from the beginning. I was obsessed with immersion to tell the truth. I really was worried a lot about that. Seeing fluent immigrants gave me an inferiority complex too. 

I shouldn't have felt like that. I think that once I get the immersion environment later, my progress will be phenomenal! I would have so much vocab and grammar under the belt, that I will just soak in all the input at a great rate and most of it will be comprehensible. 

I will catch up to the migrant workers very quickly. I would need a shorter period of immersion  than the migrant workers to show the same results. Not only that, but I would be able to read everything and be able to communicate in writing. So I don't think you need live conversation practice off the bat. For example, the Turkish guy became fluent, he said, after one year of working at his business in Korea, but I think I can be fluent in Korean after being exposed to less than one year of immersion. And I will be able to write Korean and understand it well, including reading newspapers. I don't think the Turkish guy can do that. Admittedly, he probably doesn't want to or need to, but in my case, I am aiming for fluency and high competence in all four areas of speech.

The way to accelerated learning is knowing the vocabulary. Build up the base 10,000 words any way you can, learn some basic grammar and then read, watch and converse. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat ... and eventually you will get there. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 12:27 AM EDT

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Mood:  down

1. Playing cards; teaching each other a card game
2. Playing a computer game; help with finding a free online Korean game
3. Playing charades - name the famous person, name the verb, name the noun, name the animal, name the common object, name the fairytale
4. Cooking and baking by following a recipe
5. Reading manwha
6. Watching TV together

7. Watching dramas together

8. Watching dvds together. 

9. Guess the fable (Aesop's fables) - through acting and using words in the target language. 

10. Tell a fable out of Aesop's fables using the target language. 

The emphasis is on doing ACTIVITIES and not on learning like in a classroom situation. It is not so much a teacher-student relationship as it is two people DOING things together. Using language is just a means of COMMUNICATING. So using language has a purpose and isn't meaningless chatter or small talk. Time goes by faster this way as well. We are absorbed in the activity and our attention is engaged until the activity is finished. We have a solid immediate purpose for our communicating.

Posted by honeybearsmom at 8:55 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 29 September 2011 9:19 PM EDT

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I think the trick is to make the lesson as unlike a lesson as possible. I can do study myself so I don't really need a teacher for that. What I need is to find a repertoire of activities that are fun to do for the both of us. The teacher will be motivated to teach and speak in Korean if they are enjoying the time together and the time is passing by quickly. I will learn more if I am busy engaged in doing the activity together and not really focusing on learning Korean. Because I am absorbed in the activity and interested in what I am doing, I will pick up Korean as a byproduct of that activity and this is a more enjoyable and natural way of learning Korean. Picking up Korean in other words will be relatively effortless.

And this is the best way for the beginners. I think I will try and find a range of activities and try them out. If they don't work out, find others. 

It is very easy for language teachers to lose interest when teaching beginners. Therefore, if the class doesn't seem like a class or more precisely a class for teaching a language, then the learning will take place more pleasantly. 

That is why people learn on the job or in school much more quickly than they do by attending a language course. This is because at work, the purpose of going to the place is to do the work and not to learn the language. At school, you are there to learn many subjects not just languages. Acquisition of the language is a natural inevitable byproduct of attending those places. 

So, I will try some things. I might even draw up an activity sheet and print it off so that I have a ready reference of activities. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 7:36 PM EDT

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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.  

Posted by honeybearsmom at 7:25 PM EDT

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