Dealing with common errors

On Thursday, we began the class by teaching a partner some words or sentences that we learned lately. I was surprised because I did not hear the same word or sentence from any two people. I am sorry that I did not get a chance to write down everything that I heard because I think that these words/phrases/sentences would be very useful for everyone to review.

The main points of the class were to consider some common errors and to practice explaining words to a partner in English. The word combinations that we talked about were:

drunk/drunken

(dead/died/death)

cook/cooker

see/look/watch

hear/listen

put on/wear

trip/journey/travel

envious/jealous

shadow/shade

for sale/on sale

beat/win

appointment/promise

say/tell/speak/talk

lend/borrow

fun/funny/interesting

Which of these are still problematic for you? Please let me know and I will try to explain more fully. I am a little worried that the book that I used is not great, because I noticed some strange sentences. Also, Monica told me that the explanation of jealous and envious was different than what she learned from Matthew.

So, you have 2 things to let me know.

1) What you think about my plan to extend class on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday

2) Which of these word groups do you want a complete explanation for?

Have a great weekend. Enjoy.

Take Care!

Excuse me…just a minute, sorry to interrupt…can I say something?

On Wednesday, we talked about a very important skill in another language-interrupting.

We started off the class talking about what we did the night before. This was mostly so we would be ready to talk about this topic later when our partner continually interrupted us.

Next, we talked about how to interrupt in Korean and in English.  Some of the ways to interrupt were:

Shut up!
Hey!
Sorry.

Excuse me.

Just a moment/minute/second.
Wait a moment/minute/second.
Could you wait a moment/minute/second?
Would you wait a moment/minute/second?
Can you wait a moment/minute/second/sec? 

(Please) Hold on. 

Could I say something/ask you a question?

Can I say one thing/something?

Sorry to interrupt, but…

After discussing and practicing these ways to interrupt we changed partners and discussed what we did last. This time, the parter continually interrupted. I thought that everyone did a good job to interrupt and ask lots and lots of questions.

Next, we thought of ways for the speaker to return to the point.  Some of these phrases were:

To continue,…

As I was saying…

I’ll go ahead.

Anyway, …

Where was I?

Where were we? 

What was I saying?

While repeating these phrases we took a much needed break. When we came back we practiced the sentences a bit more and then one partner tried to explain about their last night while the partner who was originally interrupted got some revenge.

To finish the class we worked with some worksheets with 2 partners, where one person would ask a question, one person would try to answer the question and a third person would  continually interrupt. This seemed to be pretty good practice and everyone was interrupting a lot by the end of the class. Actually, I am worried that we might interrupt each other too much!

Tuesday’s Class–What is happening with _____?

I was worried that we were not going to have enough topics to talk about on Monday so I brought something with me in case the conversations broke down. As I said earlier, they did not and I was very impressed. The information that I brought with me for Monday’s class was a list of the ten most searched words on Naver. A link to the article can be found here. I thought this list was quite interesting, even if I was only familiar with two people on the list. (I had heard of the K-1 fighter before.)

There was not a full class on Tuesday, and energy levels were pretty low. I was surprised because I thought this topic was a pretty interesting one. These were the people that were most searched, so I thought that they might be hot topics. Were some of the people new to you? I guessed that talking about the people that were most searched might be most like what people would talk about in Korean. I am thinking that maybe Tuesday was just not a great day…. no problem. (I think I will bring a new list on Monday just in case our new system of “no topic” breaks down.)

There were not many corrections in this class. I talked about using, “happening” as a noun. As you can see from the dictionary, it is not wrong. I think I would usually use “event” in the situations that I hear you guys say happening.

However, “What’s happening with ____?” is a very usual and useful question in this kind of situation.

Also, “What’s happening to ____?” is a good question. This sounds more like something is going on with them that they cannot really control. It is happening to them.

There was one story from the list of famous celebrities that caused some errors. Do you know the gagman gagwoman gagartist gagger comedian Kim Mi-Ryo? (I hope you can see that gagman is Konglish–the English word is comedian.) Someone said that, “She wants to singer.” We can’t really “singer” we can “sing” or “be a singer.” So in this case, we should say, “She wants to be a singer.” Or, “I want to be a cowboy” and “Royal wants to be a gangster. “

That is all for Tuesday…

Week 14

Hello! Howzit goin? What’s up? Well, this week we had a few different topics. I think Jason is still waiting for the review about the classes that he missed. I am sorry but you will have to wait until tomorrow. I promise that tomorrow (Friday) afternoon I will update for the whole week. Have a nice evening/morning and I will see you soon.

PS–I have a new idea. Please let me know what you think. I was thinking that from now, because we only have 5 more weeks, that if you guys want, we could extend the class time on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday by 10 minutes so that we have more time to study. If you are not interested, that is fine. Please let me know what you think about my idea.