I was trying to explain the book “Baby Animals Learn” to my kindergarteners. I started by explaining that they used to be babies. (hard to do, when they don’t have any understanding of English in the past tense.) So, I counted down… “Beth, how old are you?” “6”. We all held up six fingers, and counted down to 1…when Beth was a baby. I repeated this a few times, and they started to catch on. Then, to fill them all with awe, I revealed that “Janice Teacher is TWENTY-EIGHT!!” (Insert squeals of laughter here). Then, we counted down many,many,many years until Janice Teacher was a baby. …. This is when little John (not to be confused with Robin Hood’s sidekick) understood completely, and got up and ‘lifted’ me up (or tried to) as though he was cradling an infant. From that point on, for the rest of the lesson, I was “Baby Teacher”.

One of my 1st graders was relying a little too heavily on picture cues. We were going through a series of pictures, showing an animal eating, as we practiced the phrase pattern – “Squirrels eat ….nuts. Panda’s eat…bamboo, Bears eat…fish”. Finally, we came to the last picture, of a boy sitting down to a meal with his family, at which point I learned that “People eat…their families”! Yuck!

I haven’t written much lately, as we’ve started “Intensives”. Yes, it’s winter vacation for boys and girls across Korea….a time when all good parents enroll their kids for EXTRA classes at their extra-curricular learning centers. Yup, now that the poor kids are on holidays, they have lots of extra time to rush between extra Math, Computer, English, Piano and Taekwondo classes. That means that we’re all working extra hours too.

We’ve got a decent holiday coming up in a week and a half though. I (and some friends) are planning to go to the DMZ that divides North and South Korea. It should be an interesting trip!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

I had a great night last night…and into the wee hours as well. Best wishes to all for the coming year.