Rounding Up the Week..

I've been an uncertain blogespondant this week. With the OAF landing and the first five-day work week in a few, I've been kind of busy.

I'll start with that photo over there on the left. This is courtesy of Koreabeat. It is a picture one of many low-income elderly couples, who were too poor throughout their lives to afford a wedding ceremony. So this week, in Seoul, they were given free wedding ceremonies. Couples had to be at least 65 and married for at least 20 years. Weddings in Korea are expensive and have a lot of mandatory "procedures" and these folks couldn't swing it.

Nice photo!

As to me, Monday was "Senior English Test Day" at BPU. BPU claims that all it's graduates can speak English, so at the end of their tour, graduates must take the test that proves it.

That the test is 5 minutes long (that is our upper limit) and contains such questions as, "what is your name?" is irrelevant. I did my time and it was ok. The Korean professor I was working with was a good guy, and he completely stone-faced the one or two students who tried to ask him about the questions I was asking in English. The unspoken rule of this test is, of course, you absolutely cannot fail someone and I was lucky enough to be working with Korean students who, despite being clearly scared, could work out reasonable answers.

A couple of the kids were even gamers. We asked them a question like, "what sports are absolutely horrific?" Not a single one knew the word "horrific," but about three of them figured out that all they needed to do was fit a sport into their answer ("I find soccer horrific.") and they'd be good.

Other English Profs had the students being fed answers by the Korean profs, and at least one English Prof failed multiple students. An unwise approach, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop on that. Some English Profs (EP from now on) here are unable to lose the model in their heads of English in musty halls contained in brick buildings covered with ivy. This is NOT what the Korean education system is about. The English requirement is largely a symbolic one (this result is a tangle of Korea's conflicted interest in English, it's focus on test scores as rubric for achievment, and the fact that Korea does not target those students who need English, rather it tries the shotgun approach).

Anyway, all my kids passed and it made me so happy that on Thursday I tried to teach my students some things. This resulted in my re-working my blackboard style.. mostly successfully... and that will be the topic of my next post..

.... after I take a quick shower.

In beer and soju!