Author: Joseph

Song: El Condor Pasa (If I Could)

Idiomatic usage for the conditional is strong:

If… could…, …would….

El Cóndor Pasa (If I could)
Simon & Garfunkel

I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would

I’d rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would

Away, I’d rather sail away
Like a swan that’s here and gone

A man gets tied up to the ground
He gives the world its saddest sound
Its saddest sound

I’d rather be a forest than a street
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would

I’d rather feel the earth beneath my feet
Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would

In conversations in general – and speaking tests specifically – you will almost certainly answer any question with the same verb and in the same tense that the question gets asked.

For speaking tests, we need to speak only in a limited number of verb tenses.  One of those verb tenses is the conditional hypothetical.  Speaking tests lend themselves to hypothetical questions because hypothetical questions are fun, counter-factual, and impersonal.  Impersonal, yet everyone can answer them.

Give a P.R.E.P. answer to any of these questions.  You should use the conditional tense (“if”) verb tense.  Give good reasons and examples.

  • If you could go back to university and change your major, what major would you choose?
  • If you could live anywhere, where would you live?
  • If you could time travel, where would you go, and what would you do?
  • If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do?
  • If you could have one wish, what would you wish for?
  • If you could have a superpower, which superpower would you choose?
  • If you could live a moment in your life over again, which moment would you choose?
    • Would you choose to live that moment over again for the memory or to change your actions?
  • If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three material things would you want with you?
  • If you could have been told one thing that you weren’t told when you were a teenager, what would you like to have heard?
  • If you had one extra hour of free time per day, how would you use it?
  • If you had to lose one of your five senses (taste, touch, sight, smell, hearing), which one of them would you prefer to lose and why?
  • If you were president, what would you do?
  • If you could change one thing about your looks what would you change?
  • If you could keep only one memory, which memory would you keep?

P – If I could…, I would…
R – …because….
E – [For example] ….
P – So, if I could…, I would….

I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail

I’d rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes, I would.  If I could, I surely would

Ouch.

I’d rather be a hammer than a nail

I’d rather be a forest than a street

Online Videos Ruining Kids’ Reading Comprehension

Vocabulary, Idioms, and Expressions

  • hooked on – addicted
    • “hooked on drugs”
    • “hooked on video games”
    • sometimes used for “like doing very much”
      • I’m hooked on BTS’s new song.
  • lost at sea – adrift, without direction, lost
  1. “Teachers also blame ‘progressive’ education officials who have gotten rid of conventional dictation, reading and writing lessons in favor of student-centered and non-competitive learning that leaves kids at sea.”
    • Korean middle schools stopped testing first grade middle school students. Are you for or against this policy?
    • What are the advantages of testing?
    • What are the disadvantages of testing
    • Do you think students should not have tests?
    • What do you suggest as a measurement other than tests?
  2. “Getting rid of testing because it supposedly threatens kids’ confidence resulted in the kids lacking a sense of what they do or don’t know,” one said.
    • Have you talked to teachers about what they think about tests?
    • What do parents think about tests?

A growing number of children are hooked on YouTube at the expense of books and have increasing trouble understanding written texts.

Teachers say the problem is getting serious. The Chosun Ilbo and the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations surveyed 1,152 teachers and found that 37.9 percent rated students’ reading comprehension at 70 out of 100 and 35.1 percent at 60 out of 100, while only 15.4 percent rated it 80 out of 100. Some 9.4 percent rated it less than 59 out of 100 or fail.

One middle school in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province has started teaching remedial Korean vocabulary classes after hours. Such classes are usually needed only for English and math, but the school found that growing numbers of students lacked even basic vocabulary.

“We had to starting the lessons because students had problems reading more than three sentences at a time and couldn’t connect the meanings of different sentences.” 

Teachers also blame “progressive” education officials who have gotten rid of conventional dictation, reading and writing lessons in favor of student-centered and non-competitive learning that leaves kids at sea.

“Getting rid of testing because it supposedly threatens kids’ confidence resulted in the kids lacking a sense of what they do or don’t know,” one said.

Ironically, these steps were aimed at helping kids from less privileged background but ended up hurting them most. Students with more affluent and better educated parents can always go to crammers or learn from their parents, but the less privileged rely on the haphazard school curriculum.

Lesson Plans

October 20, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Saturday:
    • Buan County Office of Education – Weekend English Camp
  • Joey & Sophie last night: (They’re still kids)
  • “My Fault as a Father who Failed to Raise His Child Properly” Chang Je-won Steps down from Yoon Seok-youl’s Election Campaign
    • “On September 28, People Power Party lawmaker Chang Je-won apologized for his son, Chang Yong-jun, also known as the rapper Noel, who assaulted a police officer, and said, “I deeply regret my fault as a father who failed to raise his child properly, and I will take time to reflect on myself.” He also announced that he was stepping down as head of former prosecutor general Yoon Seok-youl’s presidential campaign.”

      Chang’s son, Yong-jun was arrested for assaulting a police officer who tried to test him to see if he was drinking and driving on September 18. At the time, the rapper was driving without a license. In 2019, he received a suspended sentence in court for trying to switch the driver after crashing into a motorcycle while driving under the influence.”
    • Would you have resigned?
    • How much responsibility would you feel for your adult son’s behavior?

Socializing Trumps Exercise in Combating Aging

October 13, 2021 (Wednesday)

No class

October 6, 2021 (Wednesday)

Thank you
  • Chuseok, 2021
    • Do you have a post-Chuseok letdown?
    • Are you glad or sad it’s over?
  • Squid Game (오징어 게임)
    • Choseun Ilbo: Korea’s ‘Squid Game’ Sweeps Global Netflix Charts
    • Have you finished 오징어 게임?
      • What did you think?
    • Did you play any of the Squid Game games when you were a child?
    • Why do you think that 오징어 게임 has become such a worldwide phenomenon?
      • Korea Bizwire: ‘Squid Game’ Exposes Social Realities, Much Like ‘Parasite’
      • Korea Herald: From childhood games to iconic track suits, Netflix ‘Squid Game’ syndrome grips the world
        • “The show’s childhood games may have evoked nostalgia among many South Korean viewers, but global audiences seem to be addicted to other details of the show.”
        • “‘Squid Game’ seems very dramatic, but the show is a great metaphor for Korea‘s highly competitive society. Surprisingly, South Korea is not the only country experiencing intense competition. Unlike many drama series offering message of hopes and suggesting what to do, ‘Squid Game’ provides a sharp insight to our harsh reality. I think this is the reason why many viewers find it to be an emotional catharsis,” culture critic Jung Duk-hyun said in a phone interview with The Korea Herald on Tuesday.
  • S. Koreans to get cash back on card spending in latest COVID-19 relief fund
    • “From October to the last day of this November, those who spend more than usual will get a sliver of their card spending added back to their bank accounts.

      The Finance Ministry announced on Monday that anybody in South Korea who spends at least three percent more than their average monthly spending in the second quarter, will get ten percent of their extra expenses back, up to a maximum of (W100,000).”
    • Can you, in English (or maybe falling back into a little Korean), figure out what this means and how this would work?
    • Will this affect your spending?
    • Will you be able to benefit from this?
  • [Korea Bizwire] Two-thirds of Unmarried Couples Feel Satisfaction in Their Relationship: Survey
    • Among the respondents, 63 percent said that they were satisfied with the relationship with their unmarried partner.
    • This figure is 6 percentage points higher than the result of another satisfaction survey on the relationship with spouses that was conducted in the same year. The satisfaction rate for the relationship with spouses stood at 57 percent.
    • Are you surprised?
    • [Had |Did] you live together before you [got | had gotten] married?
    • Do you think that couples living together before marriage is a good idea or bad idea?
  • What would you do? How do you decide?
  • Wine Becomes Most Popular Booze Import
    • Do you drink wine?
    • Can you tell the difference between expensive and inexpensive or even cheap wine?
    • What kind of wine do you like?
    • What is the most that you’ve ever paid for a bottle of wine?
  • (Yonhap Feature) Buycotts as ‘good influence’ gain traction in S. Korea
    • buycott vs. boycott
    • “In support of the county’s decision…, people flocked to the county-run online market to buy Jincheon regional specialties, such as rice, other grains and fruit.”
    • “With the purchase orders pouring in, the officials had to shut down the website for a few days in order to process the deliveries. According to the county, the sales for four days surged to an amount surpassing its monthly average.”
    • “Efforts to spend money for an individual or entity in support of their right choices or ethical deeds are gathering steam in South Korea, amid a growing consumer trend that seeks to find value and meaning in purchases.”
    • Have you ever boycotted or buycotted?
      • Is there anything or any company that you would never buy from?
      • Is there anything you support even though it costs more?
  • Educators, city gov’t at odds over ‘Seoul Learn’
    • “Seoul Learn, one of Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s campaign promises to provide underprivileged students with online lectures from well-known private academies (“hagwon” in Korean) for free, began operating officially at the end of last month.”
      • Is this a business opportunity?
    • “Although the goal is to bridge the educational disparity between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, a controversy has arisen as the education community is raising questions about whether it is effective and criticizes it for promoting education via private academies instead of supporting public schools.”
      • What do you think, should the gov’t pay private companies or support more public education?
    • “According to data from Statistics Korea, as of 2020, households with a monthly income of less than 2 million won ($170) spent 99,000 won per month on private education, but households with a monthly income of 8 million won or more spent 504,000 won on private education, which is five times more. It is clear that income inequality leads to educational inequality.”
      • Are you surprised?
        • W99,000 is about 5% of W2,000,000.
        • W504,000 is about 6.25% of W8 million
        • Which surprises you more, the amount that high income households or low income households spends?

September 29, 2021 (Wednesday)

Squid Game

September 22, 2021 (Wednesday)

Chuseok Holiday

September 15, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Do you remember P.R.E.P.?
  • One has to go….
    • What if you could only live in one?
  • Korean Kids Turn their backs on foreign languages
    • Turn their backs on….
    • What do you think the idiom means?
    • Have you noticed a difference?
    • What do you think are foreign languages?
    • Do you think of English as a foreign language?

September 8, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • More office workers juggle second job
    • juggling
      • juggling a schedule
    • Have you ever worked a second job?
    • Did you have a job in high school?
    • Did you work while you were a university student?
    • What did you like about those jobs?
    • What did you dislike?
    • “Second jobs are often in the same field as their main salaried position and tap into existing contacts.”
      • Do you think this is a conflict of interest?
  • “There are also cases of office workers turning their hobbies into second jobs.”
    • Do you have a hobby or interest that you can turn into a cash cow, make money from?

September 1, 2021 (Wednesday)

Thank you
  • Eunseon likes your plan and your program
    • “Today was very productive.”
      • I went to socialize.
  • Eunseon told me that she wants to go to your office.
  • It’s September, so it’s microresolutions time!
  • We still do “no TV” during weekdays, from Sunday night to Friday night. My family has kept this since May’s microresolution.
  • September micro-resolutions
    • How did your July micro-resolutions go?
      • Ray ->
      • Lisa ->
      • Joseph -> family bedtime 11:30
        • (I should study Korean for 10 minutes / day)
  • Three reasons you don’t have good style
    • Do you have good style?
    • What is your style?
    • What is your best style tip, your best “do”
    • What is your best style “don’t”?
    • 3 reasons you don’t have anything to wear and how to solve it
      1. Buy fewer trendy and statement pieces
        • 80% basics / 20% trendy
      2. Your basics need to anchor your wardrobe
        • What is an “anchor”?
        • Dress with basics but pepper with trendy
      3. Get shoes that are both stylish and comfortable
        • “Don’t underestimate sneakers”
        • How many pairs of shoes do you own?

August 25, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Household Debt Still Soars 2.7 Times Faster Than Income
    • “Disposable household income therefore inched up only 1.2 percent to W47.3 million, which was also a record low.”
    • What was “a record low”?
    • Does Koreans’ increase in household debt make you nervous about the future?
      • “Does Koreans’ increase in household debt…” OR “Do Koreans’ increase in household debt…”?
  • Should BTS Be Exempted from the Draft?
  • Bill reignites controversy over BTS conscription
    • “On Tuesday, Rep. Sung Il-jong of the main opposition People Power Party said he had proposed a bill that would excuse men from military service if they promoted national prestige. The exemptions would apply to top K-pop stars, such as the members of boy band BTS, and athletes who set national records.

      The regulations were revised in December to allow leading pop culture artists to postpone service until the age of 30, instead of 28. The change enabled BTS’ oldest member — Kim Seok-jin, 28 — to continue performing for two more years.

      The latest bill would enable him to avoid conscription altogether.”
    • Rep. Sung said, “The current system only benefits those in elite-oriented classical art as well as sports (in which) medals are highly likely. The revision of the law is aimed at securing equity.”
      • equity vs equality

August 18, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Rising Prices Add to Mom-and-Pop Stores’ Woes
    • What do you think “woes” means?
    • What part of speech is it?
    • “Price inflation is hitting mom-and-pop businesses particularly hard after they were already battered by the coronavirus pandemic.”
    • ‘Lee Sang-bong, who has run a bar in Daechi-dong for six years, is one example. “Sales have now plummeted from W30 million to W7 million a month,” Lee said (US$1=W1,149). But Lee has to repay a W90 million loan he took out when he started it. “I should’ve closed it earlier” before losses have snowballed, he admits.’
      • Mom-and-pops
      • hitting (them) hard
      • Has the pandemic hit your business hard?
      • Snowballed
        • ‘”I should’ve closed it earlier” before losses have snowballed, he admits.’
      • How about personally? Has the pandemic hit you hard?
    • “…many are taking out even more loans to stay afloat. Loans to mom-and-pop business owners surged from W700 trillion in the first quarter of last year to W841 trillion in the second quarter this year, and the amount is probably much higher if loan sharks are included.”
      • Do you know how much W700 trillion is in terms of Korea’s GDP?
      • Are you nervous for Korea’s economy?
    • Are you surprised?

August 11, 2021 (Wednesday)

(No Class)

August 4, 2021 (Wednesday)

(No Class)

July 28, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Likeable Social Media
  • Pandemic Shoppers Stick with Tried and Tested
    • tried and tested
      • “Lockdown-addled consumers are favoring shops and restaurants they are familiar with instead of being tempted by novelty, credit card data suggest.”
        • Data suggest or suggests?
      • What do you think “tried and tested” means?
      • Do you stick with tried and tested or do you go for new and different?
      • “The main reason is that lockdown offered fewer opportunities for window shopping and leisurely exploration. The coronavirus pandemic also reduced the distances consumers traveled.”
      • “Korea Credit Data analyzed the plastic transactions of 700,000 businesses and found that spending at newly opened stores declined 27.7 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the carefree first quarter of 2019. But in stores they had already visited in the past year, purchases declined only 8.7 percent.”
        • Who are they?
        • Does such credit card purchase tracking make you nervous?
        • Do you use cash or credit cards for your purchases?
        • Are you mindful of what you purchase with your credit card?
  • Global Audio Book: The Tiger Brother
    • Do you know this story?
    • Is this story well known in Korean culture?
    • Do Korean parents tell this story to their children?
    • Does this story remind you of any western fairytales?

July 21, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Koreans Rush to Hospital More Often Than Most
    • “As Korean society ages, the country tops OECD member states in terms of outpatient visits to hospital per person, although the number of medical professionals is smaller than the OECD average.”
      • Are you surprised?
      • Do you use outpatient services more than others?
    • “The percentage of overweight or obese people is 33.7 percent, the second lowest after Japan’s 27.2 percent. But Korea’s proportion of overweight and obese people increased from 30.5 percent in 2009 to 33.7 percent in 2019.”
      • Are you surprised?
      • Did you think the percentage would be higher or lower?
      • Do you know how they calculate “overweight”?
      • Do you know your BMI?

July 14, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Speaking contest
    • Live speaking contest vs. video speaking contest
    • Two first place winners and one second place
      • Eunseon was unimpressed.
        • She told me one of her students won for all of TunTun.
      • Kids were volunteers
      • Kids I wanted to enter didn’t want to.
        • (They were older and knew to be scared.)
    • What are your tips?
  • Global Audio Book: The Lazy Boy Who Turned into an Ox
    • Do you know this story?
    • Is this story well known in Korean culture?
    • Do Korean parents tell this story to their children?
    • Does this story remind you of any western fairytales?
  • Global Audio Book: The Tiger Brother
    • Do you know this story?
    • Is this story well known in Korean culture?
    • Do Korean parents tell this story to their children?
    • Does this story remind you of any western fairytales?

Continued from last week:

  • Chosun Ilbo: Things You Don’t Know
    • Writing with an accent
    • The pronoun problem in business writing
      • How to fix it? (What is “it”)?
        1. Prefer nouns to pronouns
        2. Edit
        3. Get a second set of eyes

July 7, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • School Teachers Angered by Mandatory Drug Screening
    • Is this policy fair or unfair?
    • Are you for or against it?
    • “It was unpleasant, being treated like a potential drug addict,” she told The Korea Times. She also experienced frustration due to a lack of guidance from the education authorities on the procedure.
      • How would you feel?
    • “I was only told to hand in the test results by July 17, without proper guidance on where I should take the test or whether I would be able to take a leave of absence.” She had to pay for the test, which cost around 40,000 won ($35), herself after being told that it wouldn’t be covered by the government.
      • Do you think that the employer or the employee should pay for the drug test?
    • Have you ever taken a drug test, a drug screening?
  • Tesla’s Sales Volume Continues to Increase
    • Do you have Tesla envy?
    • Do you want to buy an electric car?
    • What would be the necessary conditions for you to buy an electric car?

June 30, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • June / July micro-resolutions
    • How did your June micro-resolutions go?
      • Ray ->
      • Lisa ->
      • Joseph -> 1 set of Push-ups and 1 set of Wim Hof Method breathing
    • How did you do with your resolutions?
  • July micro-resolutions suggestions for…
    • Ray ->
    • Lisa ->
    • Joseph -> Read When You Trap a Tiger to Joey and Sophie 10 mins / day before their bedtime. My goal is to finish the novel in one month.
  • Dong-A-Ilbo (Op-ed): One’s mother tongue is his country
    • I thought “this is an illogical comparison”
      • …then I read the article
    • Is English teaching a form of cultural colonization?
  • Women Still Spend More Time Than Men on Household Chores
    • Idiom: “spend time”
      • We have many idioms that use the same words for time and money.
        • We even say “time is money”.
      • Spend time / spend money
      • Waste time / waste money
    • How much time do you spend on household chores?
    • How much time did your father spend on household chores?
    • How much time did your mother spend on household chores?
    • Do you think that how much time you spend on household chores is fair?
    • Do you think that how much time your father spent on household chores was fair?

June 23, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Schools to Reopen Fully After Summer Holidays
    • Do you recognize this school?
    • Youngsters arrive in a middle school in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province on June 14.
  • “The Education Ministry on Sunday said both academic skills and interpersonal relationships among schoolchildren are seriously suffering amid the protracted lockdown. It also found no significant correlation between school attendance and coronavirus cases in the first semester.”
  • Do you think that this will be good for business or bad for business?
    • I think that reopening schools will be [good | bad] for business because ______________. First, __________. Second, ______. Third, _______.

      On the other hand, having schools closed [helped | hurt] business because _________.

      But on the whole, I think that reopening schools will be [good | bad] for business.
  • Interior Ministry to Offer All-In-One Guide Service for Campgrounds
      • In front of a camping van, citizens relax at a camping ground in Haman County, South Gyeongsang Province, on May 12, 2020.
    • “The Ministry of the Interior and Safety said Tuesday it will provide information on national and public recreation forests and campgrounds across the country through its public website.”
    • Have you ever used the public campsites?
      • Where?
      • Can you recommend a place?

June 16, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Bangtan Boys Lyrics to Be Used as Language Teaching Material
    • “There are barely any Korean textbooks for youngsters overseas despite surging demand for language lessons,” an Education Ministry spokesman said Wednesday. “Some 60 experts will develop a curriculum for primary and secondary schools and create textbooks based on it.” They will include plenty of K-pop content like BTS lyrics and videos.
    • Are BTS songs good material to learn Korean?
    • Which songs do you recommend for Korean learners?
    • Do you use English songs for your company’s teaching?
      • Which English songs?
      • How do you decide which English songs to use?
    • Which English songs would you like to learn?
  • Korea Times: High school junior found dead after being accused of cheating
    • “The bereaved family stated that it was only a short and simple test that lasted for 15 minutes while she was an excellent student who had ranked sixth in her year in the mid-term exams. The family said they believe the teacher made false accusations.”
  • More Unisex Bathrooms Open in Korea
  • “Building equal numbers of toilets for men and women creates long lines in front of ones used by ladies, so now “family” bathrooms are being increasingly built in highway rest areas. According to the Korea Expressway Corporation, 182 out of 199 highway rest stops have family bathrooms.”

June 9, 2021 (Wednesday)

June 2, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Thank you for the mangoes.
    • We got them last Friday, and Sophie had already eaten two by the time I got home.
    • She said that mangoes are her favorite: “It tastes like Thailand.”
    • My wife ordered another box on Saturday.
      • Everything with Sophie has to be fancy….
  • What are your favorite children’s books?
  • What are Lisa’s?
  • What were your son’s favorites?
  • Eric Carle, Author of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar,’ Dies at 91
    • “A self-described ‘picture writer,’ he wrote and illustrated more than 70 books for young children, selling more than 170 million copies.”
    • In 2003, he received the prestigious Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) from the American Library Association, which recognizes authors and illustrators whose books have created a lasting contribution to children’s literature.
    • Describing himself as a “picture writer,” Mr. Carle detailed much of his artistic process on his website.

May 26, 2021 (Wednesday)

Thank you!

Parenting

  • What are your best parenting tips?
  • What do you wish that you had done more of?
  • What do you wish that you had done less of?
  • Did you become your father?
    • Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother – Amy Chua
      • What price success? (note the idiom)
      • Old cultural idiom – “What profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul in the process?”
      • Mark 8:36 – “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
      • Matthew 16:26 – “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”
      • King Midas and “the Midas touch”
    • Want to Raise Successful Kids? Science Says These 7 Habits Lead to Incredible Outcomes
    • Want to Raise Successful Kids? Science Says These 7 Habits Lead to Great Outcomes. (It’s not just one study. It’s study after study after study.)
    • Want to Raise Successful Kids? The Largest Child Development Research Study In History Reveals 7 Secrets
    • Parents Of Successful Kids Do These 10 Things In Common, Science Finds
    • Science says parents of successful kids have these 24 things in common

May 12, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • My favorite restaurant is now a coffee shop
  • Young Couples Woo Each Other with Samsung, Tesla Stocks
    • Did you give your girlfriends gifts while you were dating?
      • What kind of gifts?
    • Do you give your spouse gifts now?
      • What kind of gifts?
    • Have you heard of the book The 5 Love Languages?
      1. Words of affirmation: 23 percent
      2. Quality time: 20 percent
      3. Acts of service: 20 percent
      4. Physical touch: 19 percent
      5. Gift giving: 18 percent
    • I think I’m a little sparse on the words:

April 28, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Joey’s Birthday – 12 years ago
    • Me: “I think that today is the happiest day of my life”
    • Eunseon: _____________
  • What was the happiest day of your life?
  • Prospective classes
  • Emphasis on scalability
    • OPIc / IELTS one month or two month once per week classes
    • When You Trap a Tiger reading book and discussion
      • Target group:
        • 6th grade elementary school
        • middle school
        • first grade high school
    • Short Story book club and discussion
    • (One book per month, which will make easy for new students to join.)
      • Hundred Dresses (two months), The Monkey’s Paw, A Sound of Thunder, The Gift of the Magi,
      • Teach both story, plot, writing, and meaning
      • Target group:
        • 6th grade elementary school
        • middle school
        • first grade high school
    • Debate
      • middle school
      • high school
      • adult
    • SAT / ACT Prep Class
      • Target group: High school 2nd, 3rd grade
      • English
      • Math
      • Reading
      • Science
  • Online Class
    • Company name
    • Mission statement
      • What is English Reading Club’s mission statement?
      • What is a mission statement?
        • What’s our mission statement?
          • “maximize shareholders’ value”
          • provide inexpensive, which means good value for the money, specific English education
          • maintain good relations between partners and employees
      • Vision statement
    • Delivery considerations
      • Zoom?
      • Recorded video & live?
    • Content Consderations
      • What to teach
        • When You Trap a Tiger?
    • Business considerations
      • Getting clients
      • Payback & Split

ERC Online / Website

April 21, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Lawmaker reignites debate on women’s military service
    • “With women serving in the military we can shorten the mandatory service period, while expanding the number of people subject to the service,” Park wrote. “This can also put an end to the unnecessary controversy on sexual discrimination about whether to give advantages in hiring to those who fulfilled their military service, as well as other conflicts related to service exemptions.”
    • In the past, the country gave additional points in civil service recruitment to those who completed their military service. But in 1999, the Constitutional Court made a landmark decision saying that such an advantage was unconstitutional and essentially “discrimination based on gender,” because only a few women were subject to this program while most Korean men served in the military.
    • Those opposing women’s conscription say the debate should come only after the male-dominated culture in the military is overhauled and other forms of social discrimination against women are resolved. Along with the physical differences between men and women, critics also say men already enjoy advantages in their careers as some companies tacitly acknowledge their male employees’ military service as related to their careers and pay them higher wages compared to women.
  • Thousands Go Bankrupt as Pandemic Drags on
  • Sewol Ferry disaster + 7 years
    • Where were you ?
    • Disaster
      • What does disaster mean?
      • How do you know?
    • Has Korea changed?
  • Pronunciation Clinic
    • ‘th’ – sounds: “voiced” and “voiceless”
      • ð – the voiced dental fricative (as in “this”)
      • θ – the voiceless dental fricative (as in “thing”)
  1. th at the beginning of a word:
    • th is voiceless /θ/ in most cases
      • threat, thought, think, throw,
    • th is voiceless /θ/ when followed by consonants
      • three, threat
    • Function words usually begin with the voiced /ð/
      • as in the pronouns they, them, their, the, this, that, these, those 
      • and as in the adverbs and conjunctions then, there, than, thus, though, therefore, thereby, thereafter, ….
  2. th in the middle of a word:
    • Most (pure) English words have a voiced /ð/ in the middle (when there is a th)
      • as in either, father, mother, brother, rather, further, together, weather, whether, ….
    • Most loan (“foreign” English) words have a voiceless /θ/ in the middle when there is a th,
      • as in cathedral, enthusiasm, ethics, mathematics, lethal, method, mythical, …
  3. th at the end of a word:
    • Nouns and adjectives usually end in a voiceless /θ/
      • as in bath, cloth, breath, tooth, teeth, ….
    • Verbs usually end in a voiced /ð/ when there is a th
      • as in breathe, loathe, soothe, writhe, ….
  • Online Class
    • Delivery considerations
      • Zoom?
      • Recorded video & live?
    • Content Consderations
      • What to teach
        • When You Trap a Tiger?
    • Business considerations
      • Getting clients
      • Payback & Split
  • Connotation and denotation
    • Words have denotation, dictionary definitions, and connotations, feelings.
      • 아줌마
        • 아줌마 – denotation
        • 아줌마 – connotation
    • Understanding meaning of new and unfamiliar words
      • context
        • Does the word feel good or bad, positive or negative?
        • etymologies
          • logos
    • Prefixes: Ben & Mal and Eu & Dis (Dys)
  • When You Trap a Tiger
  • by Tae Keller was a child author and daughter of Nora Okja Keller.
  • “…the story of Lily and her relationship with her aging and ill Korean grandmother, wrapped around the Korean folktales her grandmother tells her at bedtime.”
  • First lines
    • Do you know any first lines of books?
    • Have you ever thought about writing a novel or short story?
      • How would you begin?
    • Famous first lines
      • 100 Best First Lines from Novels – American Book Review
      • 15 of the best first lines in fiction – Penguin Books
      • “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” ~ Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
      • “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” ~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
        • parallelism
        • juxtaposition
        • thesis & antithesis
      • “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” ~ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
    • Famously bad first line: “It was a dark and stormy night.”
  • “I can turn invisible.” (first line, When You Trap a Tiger)
    • What does this first line tell us?
    • Ask yourself “do I want to continue?”

April 14, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • How did your office move go?
  • Do you feel stress?
  • Does Lisa feel stress?

Lake Baikal: The bitter battle over tourism at Russia’s ‘Sacred Sea’

  • “April is the cruelest month” ~ T.S. Eliot
    • Is April the cruelest month?
  • Do certain months have certain feelings for you?
  • Children’s books
    • The Five Chinese Brothers
      • Reception and controversy
        • Though often considered a classic of children’s literature, The Five Chinese Brothers has been accused of promoting ethnic stereotypes about the Chinese, particularly through its illustrations,[1][2][3] and many teachers have removed the book from their classrooms.[4] However, the book has had some defenders. In a 1977 School Library Journal article, Selma G. Lanes described the illustrations as “cheerful and highly appealing”, characterizing Wiese’s “broad cartoon style” as “well suited to the folk-tale, a genre which deals in broad truths”. She added, “I cannot remember a tale during my childhood that gave me a cozier sense of all being right with the world.”
  • Examining The Five Chinese Brothers
    • Complaint #1: everyone in the crowd looks exactly alike in a stereotypical way.
    • Complaint #2: Chinese people are not yellow like that.
    • Complaint #3: Not only the people in the crowd, the other characters all look the same, too.
    • Complaint #4: these people all have the stereotypical slanted eyes.
    • Complaint #5: Bishop didn’t cite a source of this “Chinese” tale.
  • Scholastic.com: Teaching “The Five Chinese Brothers”
  • The Little Engine That Could
  • How’s business?
  • My business:
    • ACT / SAT test prep
    • Job interviewing skills
  • Are you happy?
  • How happy are you?
  • Are you surprised by Koreans’ “self-reported happiness”?
  • Pronunciation Clinic
  • YouTube Videos Shift to Cooking as Pandemic Drags On
    • Has your coronavirus TV / YouTube viewing changed during the coronavirus?
    • Article: “With the coronavirus pandemic showing no signs of a letup, YouTube videos are shifting from ‘mukbang’ (a portmanteau in Korean of ‘eating’ and ‘broadcast’) to ‘cookbang’ (‘cooking’ and ‘broadcast’).’
      • What does “portmanteau” mean?
        • What does “port” mean?
        • Etymology, word origin (in this context) :
          • Lewis Carroll used “portmanteau”, which was a type of luggage, in “Through the Looking-Glass”. Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice the coinage of unusual words used in “Jabberwocky”. “Slithy” meant “slimy and lithe” and mimsy meant “miserable and flimsy”. Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice combining words in various ways: “You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.”
    • Do you know any portmanteaus?
      • smog
      • motel
      • brunch
      • Microsoft
      • dramady / sitcom / romcom
      • frenemy
        • (Note: none of the above results in a red squiggly line underneath it.)
    • Portmanteaus vs. compound words
      • watermelon
      • starfish
    • Why are Koreans particularly keen on portmanteaus?
    • What are your favorite portmanteaus?
    • Where is Korea’s list of portmanteaus?
      • French, Hebrew, Spanish, and Japanese have their own Wikipedia sections.
      • Do you want to write our own list for Wikipedia?
        • What words should we include?
    • List of portmanteaus (English)
It’s micro-resolution time again!

April 7, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • No class

March 31, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • How is your office move going?
  • Do you feel stress?
  • Does Lisa feel stress?
  • What are some minor Korean holidays, holidays that are not red days but Koreans have some kinds of customs, traditions, or activities?
  • Are you happy?
  • How happy are you?
  • Are you surprised by Koreans’ “self-reported happiness”?
  • YouTube Videos Shift to Cooking as Pandemic Drags On
    • Has your coronavirus TV / YouTube viewing changed during the coronavirus?
    • Article: “With the coronavirus pandemic showing no signs of a letup, YouTube videos are shifting from ‘mukbang’ (a portmanteau in Korean of ‘eating’ and ‘broadcast’) to ‘cookbang’ (‘cooking’ and ‘broadcast’).’
      • What does “portmanteau” mean?
        • What does “port” mean?
        • Etymology, word origin (in this context) :
          • Lewis Carroll used “portmanteau”, which was a type of luggage, in “Through the Looking-Glass”. Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice the coinage of unusual words used in “Jabberwocky”. “Slithy” meant “slimy and lithe” and mimsy meant “miserable and flimsy”. Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice combining words in various ways: “You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.”
    • Do you know any portmanteaus?
      • smog
      • motel
      • brunch
      • Microsoft
      • dramady / sitcom / romcom
      • frenemy
        • (Note: none of the above results in a red squiggly line underneath it.)
    • Portmanteaus vs. compound words
      • watermelon
      • starfish
    • Why are Koreans particularly keen on portmanteaus?
    • What are your favorite portmanteaus?
    • Where is Korea’s list of portmanteaus?
      • French, Hebrew, Spanish, and Japanese have their own Wikipedia sections.
      • Do you want to write our own list for Wikipedia?
        • What words should we include?
    • List of portmanteaus (English)
It’s micro-resolution time again!
  • FB ad in my feed:

March 24, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Valor International School
    • Interview
    • AP Economics (micro, macro)
    • Computer coding

March 17, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • My vote for the single most important, consequential, date in history: March 15, 44 B.C.
    • “Beware the Ides of March” (Shakespeare – Julius Caesar, Act I, scene ii)
      • Caesar: “The Ides of March are come.”
      • Soothsayer: “Aye, Caesar; but not gone.”
      • Who’s Lepidus?
        • “We have crossed the Rubicon”
        • History’s lesson: Saying ‘no’ to a man with an Army is difficult
  • Review:
    • Learning platforms
      • Shakespeare – The standard high school four:
        • Romeo & Juliet
        • Julius Caesar
        • Macbeth
        • Hamlet / King Lear
      • Now out of copyright:
        • The Great Gatsby
    • Adapting to coronavirus and business opportunities
      • Online learning
      • Big boxes (movie theaters, stadiums) renting out spaces
    • Certifications / Opportunities
  • Discussion
    • National Napping Day: 5 reasons you should nap, if you don’t have ‘coronasomnia’
      • Do you still take naps?
        • Do you still take a nap?
        • Do you still nap?
      • Changing the clocks – EST (Eastern Standard Time) to EDT (Eastern Daylight Time)
    • Why Young Married Koreans Pretend to Be Singles
    • More Koreans Marry Foreigners
      • “In the past, many young men from rural areas saw no option but to find themselves mail-order brides because no Korean women would have them. But currently the increase seems to be due to Koreans of either sex getting married to foreigners they meet while studying or working abroad, which suggests that the trend has shifted to educated urban people.”
      • Are you surprised?
      • Do you think that Koreans will be more accepting of mixed couples?
    • Korean Husbands with Non-Korean Wives More Supportive in Child Rearing and Homemaking: Study
      • Are you surprised?
      • How much housework do you do?
    • Half of Koreans Have College or Higher Degrees
      • “The proportion was barely more than 10 percent as recently as the 1990s. But it started to increase as more colleges and universities opened with eased restrictions in 1995, rising to 23.8 percent in 2000 and more than doubling to 50 percent in 2019.”
      • Where do you think Korea ranks?
      • Are you surprised?
    • Stray Kids’ member admits to bullying and takes hiatus
      • “The statement comes after a netizen claimed she was the victim of abusive remarks made by Hyunjin and his male friends in a chatroom when they were in middle school.”
      • Is losing one’s job for middle school incidents too much?
    • Universities Face Dwindling Student Population
      • “For the first time in school history, Chonnam National University was only able to enroll 4,067 new students, leaving 140 slots unfilled.”

March 10, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Review:
    • Learning platforms
    • Adapting to coronavirus and business opportunities
      • Online learning
      • Big boxes (movie theaters, stadiums) renting out spaces
        • Gamers
        • Lecturers
  • Certifications / Opportunities
    • Do you or Lisa have any English certifications?
    • Here’s a FB ad that I saw:
      • TEFL / TESOL Certification:
        • You Can Now Gain Your TEFL Certificate for Free by just paying the certificate fee. The course typically costs $199 but you can join today for just $27. Become a Certified TEFL Teacher After Just Two Weeks Online Training! The “Teaching English as a Foreign Language” industry has become one of the leading online sectors in 2020. With more vacant positions than teachers to fill them, the time has never been better for you to gain your TEFL certificate.
        • This course typically costs $199, but you can access it today for FREE.
        • What’s the catch? You have to pay the $27 certification fee, and you get full access to the certificate course.
        • Here’s what you get:* Internationally Recognized TEFL Course
        • * 120 Hour TEFL/TESOL certificate
        • * Lifetime Job Club Access
        • * Online Personal TutorThe offer closes shortly.
        • Click here to get started now! https://kartra.internationaltefl.org/tefl-online-2021
    • What’s their business model?
    • Who are the competition?
  • Another “untapped” market:
  • What is a sentence?
    • A sentence has three necessary “ingredients”:
      1. _____.
      2. _____.
      3. _____.
  • Independent clauses
  • Dependent clauses
  • Discussion
    • (Coronavirus business disruptions) More Koreans Move into Hotels as Prices Plummet
      • Would you ever consider living in a hotel?
      • What do you think will happen to housing prices in Seoul and Korea?

March 3, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Thank you.
  • Review:
    • Comparisons with “as” and “than”
      • What’s the rule?
      • What is the “ambiguous” case?
      • Transitive vs intransitive verbs
  • New learning platform (FB private group link):
    • Greetings EDIK’s! I also posted this in EDIK Jobs, so let me know if this is appropriate. A new online language learning platform teaching 1-on-1 video Zoom classes is seeking native language speaking teachers for English, Hangul, and Mandarin languages. You can set your own working hours and your own hourly pay rate and the platform takes a 15% commission on all classes taught. You only need to have a college degree, teaching experience, be a native speaker, and have a Zoom Pro account license. Please PM me on how (you or your wife) can apply or to request more information. Please feel free to share this opportunity with qualified teachers.
    • Adapting to coronavirus
      • Online learning
      • Big boxes (movie theaters, stadiums) renting out spaces
        • Gamers
        • Lecturers
  • What is a sentence?
    • A sentence has three necessary “ingredients”:
      1. _____.
      2. _____.
      3. _____.
  • Independent clauses
  • Dependent clauses

February 24, 2021 (Wednesday)

Thank you
  • Comparisons with as and than
    • spoken English and formal written English
    • transitive and intransitive verbs
      • transitive verbs take an object (trans means across)
      • intransitive verbs don’t take an object (in means not)
      • some verbs can be both transitive and intransitive, depending on context.
    • “Does mommy love chocolate more than me?”
      • Compare:
        1. She runs 10k races faster than me.
        2. He loves her more than me.
      • Compare:
        1. She runs 10k races as fast as me.
        2. He loves her as much as me.
        3. Daddy loves baby as much as mommy.
  • When You Trap a Tiger, a Newbery Award, “the Noble prize of children’s literature”, winner.
    • by Tae Keller was a child author and daughter of Nora Okja Keller.
    • “…the story of Lily and her relationship with her aging and ill Korean grandmother, wrapped around the Korean folktales her grandmother tells her at bedtime.”
    • Have you heard of this book, When You Trap a Tiger?
    • Which Korean folktales do you know?
      • Do you tell your children?
      • Why do we tell our children of such folktales?
        • Culture
          • Which stories and folk tales are most important in and to Korean culture?
        • Cultural literacy
          • What is cultural literacy?
          • Are you culturally literate?
          • Are your children / family culturally literate?
          • What should Koreans know to be culturally literate?
        • Moral teaching
          • What stories are part of Korean moral teaching?
          • American children’s stories:
            • The Little Engine That Could
            • Aesop’s Fables
              • The Ant and the Grasshopper
              • The Boy Who Cried Wolf
              • (What are the moral lessons?)
            • Rip Van Winkel

February 17, 2021 (Wednesday)

New Year’s Celebrations
  • Did you have a happy Seollal?
  • Did you do anything special?
  • What do you think that you will do next year, post coronavirus?
    • What does post mean?
  • Twin Volleyball Stars Sacked for Bullying
    • How big of a problem is bullying in Korea?
    • Have you ever bullied anyone?
    • Have you ever been bullied?
    • “The twin sisters were accused of violence last week by a woman claiming to be a former middle-school teammate. The accuser listed some 21 allegations including habitual physical assault, threatening with a knife and stealing money, saying “I tried to forget it because it happened 10 years ago, but the twins seem to be ignoring their past.”
      • Should the twin sisters have been sacked from their jobs for a middle school incident?
      • “The twins quickly admitted “irresponsible behavior in the past” and apologized to the victim, but were unable to stop the avalanche of public anger and disappointment.”
        • Is “sorry” enough?
  • Apps
    • Which do you use?
    • What are the apps you most recommend?

Gongdo Middle School (First Grade) Text

February 10, 2021 (Wednesday)

New Year’s Celebrations
  • Do Koreans do something special for Seollal, lunar new year?
  • Do you or your family have special or different observations, way of celebrating or “observing”, the lunar new year?
  • What do you do for solar new year, New Year’s Day?
  • Speaking test question:
    • Tell me about an important holiday in your country
    • How is the way people celebrate the holiday today different from the way they celebrated in the past?

Gongdo Middle School (First Grade) Text

February 3, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Pandemic opportunities
    • Switch to online teaching
    • advantages and disadvantages
      • Advantages
        • scalability – to scale
      • Disadvantages
        • infrastructure
        • current business model
    • (Audio) Recorded books
    • (Video) Recorded lessons
    • Live group (Zoom) lessons
    • Live one-to-one (20-minute) lessons
    • Topic classes
      • Debate class
      • Chess class
      • Math (?) class

January 27, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Weekend plans
    • Do you ski?
    • Where have you been?
    • Where do you go?
    • What do you recommend?
      • idiom – “do’s and don’ts” (note the strange spelling)
      • Skiing do’s –
      • Skiing don’ts –
  • Making a WordPress Website
    • How is Lisa doing?
    • What do you want to do with your website?

January 20, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • Favorite historical fiction books and non-fiction books and documentaries
    • Your recommendations please for great non-fiction or historical fiction for the long dark pandemic winter.
    • Yale alumni group post
Making a WordPress Website

January 13, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • HOMEWORK:
MonthRayLisaJoseph
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
  • I have 12 micro-resolutions. How many did you make?
    • Joseph’s plans / ideas / possibilities for micro-resolutions:
      1. Obey all traffic laws
      2. Study / learn Korean for 10 mins per day
      3. Make one teaching lesson plan per day.
      4. Live an 80 / 20 life
        • Realize that I get 80% of benefits from 20% of resources, which means time, effort, cost, etc.
          • Limit myself to 1 hour TV to force myself to only view the best
          • Limit Social media (Facebook) to 30 minutes total per day
          • Read non-fiction 80 / 20
          • __________
          • __________
      5. Train with my son Joey for a 10K road race with the goal of finishing in under 1 hour
      6. Play / practice / learn chess for 10 minutes per day
      7. Write a book, “10 Minutes”, about my 10-minute life.
      8. NO TV
      9. Start my TESOL Certification course on Coursera and work on it for 1 hour per day. (I should be able to finish 2 or 3 and maybe 4 of the eight classes if I work at that pace.)
        • Are you or Lisa interested in TESOL , CELTA, DELTA, or TEFL certification?
        • …maybe do TESOL Certification in the same month as NO TV month?
      10. Contact one friend, colleague, former client, etc. per day and take a genuine interest in what they’ve been up to just because (“for no better reason than to”) reestablish our relationship.
      11. Spend 30 minutes per day making business contacts, sending resumes, applying for jobs.
      12. Read four books by using the post-it flag method
  • How to read a book a week:
Making a WordPress Website

January 6, 2021 (Wednesday)

  • What did you do for New Years Eve?
  • What did you do for New Years Day?
    • Past Tense
    • celebrate -> celebrated
    • (세상에 알리다)
    • We celebrated New Year’s Eve. I….
    • 우리는 새해 전날을 축하했습니다.give – > gave
    • get – > got
    • go -> went
    • drink -> drank
    • eat -> ate
  • What have you done since September?
    • What verb tense is “have you done” in?
    • What verb tense do you answer in?
  • Why is January called “January”?

Janus, the god for whom January is named, was an important god in the Roman pantheon (pan +theos). Janus was the Roman “god of doors”, and nearly all Roman households had an altar to Janus.

What? A god of doors?

…and Endings. Every ending is a beginning, and every beginning is an ending.

Janus is often depicted (de+pict+ed) as a two-faced god with the younger boyish face looking forward to the future and the older bearded face looking back at the past.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started