Inside the mind of a Korean ESL student in Canada
99% of my ESL students immigrated from South Korea and, before this job, I actually hadn't had any experience with Koreans outside of a few lame romantic dramas. So with all the kids on spring break this week and me with a lot of free time, I thought I'd share some of my observations over the past few months . .
On Japan
All my students hate Japan. Really hate Japan, in a "destroy the whole country" sorta way. It's really scary hearing 10 year olds ranting on about war crimes and it makes me wonder if they're being coerced by the older generations. Anyway, I called them out on all their Hello Kitty pens and pencil boxes, but nope, that's different. :P
Man, East Asia sure has trouble getting along. China vs. Japan, China vs. Taiwan, North vs. South Korea, North Korea vs. Japan and now South Korea vs. Japan. I thought things were all rosy between the two after Bae Yon Joon and Winter Sonata . . maybe the Korean Wave is a one-way street?
On Religion
All my students are devout Christians. Which is fine, I'm not gonna push my atheist values on ya. ;) BUT sometimes I wonder WHO is pushing religion into them? Because from what I know, the students' families back in Korea aren't religious, but family members who followed them to Canada are. So sometimes you'll have the mom in Canada who's Christian and the dad in Korea who isn't. Hmm . . smells like assimilation. :P I blame the homestay families for one . . at least, that's who a few students told me introduced them to God.
Look, it's fine if you want to join a religion, just do it on your own free will, don't get brainwashed into it. I use brainwash because that's all I could think about when one of my youngest students suddenly started writing "I give my loves to Jesus!" all over the whiteboard while her 9 year old sister sang "I love Jesus!" in the background. They've only been in Canada for 3 months and weren't religious in Korea. o_O Another student scolded me for saying "Oh my God!" because her host family warned her that it was blasphemous!! o_O; And many students have Harry Potter banned in their homestays . . I used to use Harry Potter all the time in Japan, but still can't use it in Canada. Oh my . . gosh. >_<
Fun fact: One student told me "God" in Korean is pronounced "Sin." o_O
On Pop Culture for Girls
One Korean drama that the girls love to talk about is Goong. Or as I like to mispronounce it, "Goon-GUH!!" I actually watched an episode just so I could say "Goon-GUH!!" more often. ;) And also to use pictures from the show for the class. Example:
The girls go nuts when I show this picture . .
. . aaand I had to stop using pictures after the girls kept fighting over that picture. :P
( Impromptu Mini-Review of Ep 1: not bad, but not good enough to make me wanna watch the other 23. Not to mention that it appears to be going down the same path as Hana Yori Dango as its storyline is eerily similar, ie. the leader of 4 rich pretty high school boys and the one girl in school who doesn't like him end up falling in love. Then again, I've only seen one episode so who knows? Maybe they never fall in love and end up killing each other in an all-out Tony Jaa-style street fight. I mean, what kind of a romantic title is "Goon-GUH!!"? )
On Pop Culture for Boys
For the boys, I tried to befriend them by getting acquainted with the popular Korean on-line game, "Maple Story." After 15 minutes of playing it, I got bored and uninstalled it. What's so fun about hitting snails with twigs?
And on random pop culture, I was flipping through Google Zeitgeist to see what was hot in Korea, and I noticed in December that the #2 most searched item was "Canadian English Instructor." Huh, what's the story behind that??
On the Environment
My students eating and drinking habits scare me the most. Every break, they take a styrofoam cup, make hot chocolate with HALF a cup of cocoa powder and then after they drink it, they proceed to EAT the cup, crush it and throw it away. Only to get *another* styrofoam cup and repeat after class. o_O This isn't a generalization . . *every* one of my students does this! And I've talk to other teachers and their students do it too!
Maybe we should spend one class watching An Inconvenient Truth. ;)
On Slang
To show how out of touch I am with the new generation, here are a few phrases often heard during class . .
- "BURN!" One girl keeps saying this in class. I have no idea what this means. Is she practicing witchcraft?
- "Gay!" I asked a boy to write an argumentative essay about violence in media as part of his SSAT preparations and his thesis was, "Violence on TV is gay" and preceded writing about how gay it was many, many times. -_-;
- "Smack that!" The boys like to say this a lot and keep asking me to explain what it means. NO means NO. >_<
On Miscellaneous
"So what could have been done to prevent the Titanic disaster?," the textbook asks. My student's ingenious answer . .
J-Music Video ticker: Matsu Takako - Minna Hitori . . is possibly the most beautiful song of last year. *_* Who is this woman, and what is her phone number??!1/!?!
Wrestling ticker: Mr. Perfect - The Perfect Football Passer. A classic clip. More examples of Mr. Perfect playing sports perfectly here.
Links ticker: FoxIt is a free PDF reader that's 1/10th the size of Adobe's but loads 10x faster! I never thought I'd see the day when I could open a PDF and my computer DOESN'T CRASH!!!
Quiznos ticker: The dill pickles in the new "Double Stack Pastrami" are so sour, hot steam was blowing out of my nose. Wow, nose-opening experience that I don't want to revisit anytime soon. Grade: B
On Japan
All my students hate Japan. Really hate Japan, in a "destroy the whole country" sorta way. It's really scary hearing 10 year olds ranting on about war crimes and it makes me wonder if they're being coerced by the older generations. Anyway, I called them out on all their Hello Kitty pens and pencil boxes, but nope, that's different. :P
Man, East Asia sure has trouble getting along. China vs. Japan, China vs. Taiwan, North vs. South Korea, North Korea vs. Japan and now South Korea vs. Japan. I thought things were all rosy between the two after Bae Yon Joon and Winter Sonata . . maybe the Korean Wave is a one-way street?
On Religion
All my students are devout Christians. Which is fine, I'm not gonna push my atheist values on ya. ;) BUT sometimes I wonder WHO is pushing religion into them? Because from what I know, the students' families back in Korea aren't religious, but family members who followed them to Canada are. So sometimes you'll have the mom in Canada who's Christian and the dad in Korea who isn't. Hmm . . smells like assimilation. :P I blame the homestay families for one . . at least, that's who a few students told me introduced them to God.
Look, it's fine if you want to join a religion, just do it on your own free will, don't get brainwashed into it. I use brainwash because that's all I could think about when one of my youngest students suddenly started writing "I give my loves to Jesus!" all over the whiteboard while her 9 year old sister sang "I love Jesus!" in the background. They've only been in Canada for 3 months and weren't religious in Korea. o_O Another student scolded me for saying "Oh my God!" because her host family warned her that it was blasphemous!! o_O; And many students have Harry Potter banned in their homestays . . I used to use Harry Potter all the time in Japan, but still can't use it in Canada. Oh my . . gosh. >_<
Fun fact: One student told me "God" in Korean is pronounced "Sin." o_O
On Pop Culture for Girls
One Korean drama that the girls love to talk about is Goong. Or as I like to mispronounce it, "Goon-GUH!!" I actually watched an episode just so I could say "Goon-GUH!!" more often. ;) And also to use pictures from the show for the class. Example:
The girls go nuts when I show this picture . .
. . aaand I had to stop using pictures after the girls kept fighting over that picture. :P
( Impromptu Mini-Review of Ep 1: not bad, but not good enough to make me wanna watch the other 23. Not to mention that it appears to be going down the same path as Hana Yori Dango as its storyline is eerily similar, ie. the leader of 4 rich pretty high school boys and the one girl in school who doesn't like him end up falling in love. Then again, I've only seen one episode so who knows? Maybe they never fall in love and end up killing each other in an all-out Tony Jaa-style street fight. I mean, what kind of a romantic title is "Goon-GUH!!"? )
On Pop Culture for Boys
For the boys, I tried to befriend them by getting acquainted with the popular Korean on-line game, "Maple Story." After 15 minutes of playing it, I got bored and uninstalled it. What's so fun about hitting snails with twigs?
And on random pop culture, I was flipping through Google Zeitgeist to see what was hot in Korea, and I noticed in December that the #2 most searched item was "Canadian English Instructor." Huh, what's the story behind that??
On the Environment
My students eating and drinking habits scare me the most. Every break, they take a styrofoam cup, make hot chocolate with HALF a cup of cocoa powder and then after they drink it, they proceed to EAT the cup, crush it and throw it away. Only to get *another* styrofoam cup and repeat after class. o_O This isn't a generalization . . *every* one of my students does this! And I've talk to other teachers and their students do it too!
Maybe we should spend one class watching An Inconvenient Truth. ;)
On Slang
To show how out of touch I am with the new generation, here are a few phrases often heard during class . .
- "BURN!" One girl keeps saying this in class. I have no idea what this means. Is she practicing witchcraft?
- "Gay!" I asked a boy to write an argumentative essay about violence in media as part of his SSAT preparations and his thesis was, "Violence on TV is gay" and preceded writing about how gay it was many, many times. -_-;
- "Smack that!" The boys like to say this a lot and keep asking me to explain what it means. NO means NO. >_<
On Miscellaneous
"So what could have been done to prevent the Titanic disaster?," the textbook asks. My student's ingenious answer . .
J-Music Video ticker: Matsu Takako - Minna Hitori . . is possibly the most beautiful song of last year. *_* Who is this woman, and what is her phone number??!1/!?!
Wrestling ticker: Mr. Perfect - The Perfect Football Passer. A classic clip. More examples of Mr. Perfect playing sports perfectly here.
Links ticker: FoxIt is a free PDF reader that's 1/10th the size of Adobe's but loads 10x faster! I never thought I'd see the day when I could open a PDF and my computer DOESN'T CRASH!!!
Quiznos ticker: The dill pickles in the new "Double Stack Pastrami" are so sour, hot steam was blowing out of my nose. Wow, nose-opening experience that I don't want to revisit anytime soon. Grade: B