The end

Wow. Hello everyone. You did a fantastic job on today’s test. Very, very impressive. I know that it would have been very difficult to talk about such issues as gender equality for 10 minutes 4 months ago. Anyway, it was a great job.

It was also very sad and bittersweet to finish the semester.  I wish you all the best, and I am sure that I will see some of you very soon. That makes me happy.

Again, great job this semester and take care.

 

 

All the best,
Sincerely yours,
Yours,
Truly yours,
Take care,
Best,
Cheers,
Until next time,
Keep it real,
Respectfully,
Warm regards,
Warm wishes,
God bless,
Sincerely,
Cordially yours,
Until next time,

“Mike” Michael Griffin

mike underscore korea with a c at yahoo dot com

(mike_corea at yahoo.com )

 

PS–Thank you for the CD…I am listening to it right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 20…Final lessons, Final Exam

Hello everyone.

How was your first day of final exams? It seemed that everyone was a little stressed out today when I saw you. I wonder if you will study a lot for the L/S final. How will you study? I think by now you know my advice for studying. Check this blog for topics and think about how you would answer the questions that are here. Another good idea is to think about what questions you might ask  partner if you are given a topic. Also, I suggest that you take a quick look at some of the common errors and try to avoid them.  Of course you can check the blog to find the likely topics.  Speaking of this blog, some people asked if I will keep this blog open. The answer is yes. I will keep it up for at least a year. If you make a comment I will do my best to write one back soon as well.

We only had two classes this week. The first one was on Monday and it was a again a “free topic” Monday. I cannot say too much how happy I am with your progress on these days. It is really impressive.

Some words that we talked about in this class were:

Freudian slip     We all thought it was a Freudian slip when he said sex instead of six.

bittersweet     Ending class is a bittersweet feeling, I am both happy and sad.

second-hand smoke     Anni thinks that second hand smoke is more dangerous than                                                  smoking.

indecisive     Indecisive people have a very hard time making up their minds.

decisive     Jessica is very decisive, she makes decisions easily.

appointment     I cannot meet you tomorrow because I have an appointment with
my lawyer.

I pointed out some mistakes that I heard during this class.

The sentences were:

1) When I met my boyfriend he doesn’t smoke.

2) This weekend I just hang out at home. 

3) Sometimes I went to Jong-ro.

4) When I meet him for the first time he was kind. 

5) I used to went there when I was young. 

I would change those sentences like this:

1) When I met my boyfriend he didn’t smoke. (but now he does)

My boyfriend doesn’t smoke when he is with me. 

2) This weekend I just hung out at home. 

I just hung out at home this weekend.

3) Sometimes I go to Jongro. 

I used to go to Jong-ro.

4) When I met he for the first time he was kind. 

5) I used to go there when I was young. 

Tuesday’s class was spent looking over your first homework assignment. I thought it was interesting to watch everyone look at the answers that they gave me 20 weeks ago. Actually, it was hard at first because everyone was so interested in their past answers that they didn’t discuss the questions. After some pouting  from me people got on task an talked to their partners about their goals and this course.

After a while it was time for the final event of class. I was really bummed out (sad) that I didn’t have the CD that we made, but I was very happy that Anni had one because I wanted to hear the music. The final event was a small party while talking to everyone. I gave everyone some time to think of questions that we might ask in this situation. Many people had similar  questions but that is normal in this situation.  We spent some time listening to music and talking in English a little and being a bit shy and then it we took some pictures (where are the pictures?) and it was time to go.

So…I am looking forward to seeing you guys on Friday. Good luck with everything until then! Don’t worry, I will be wearing a tie on Friday as well. Take care!

Personality Tests

Many people seemed excited with the personality questions on Wednesday so we did some personality tests on Thursday. We did not have enough time for everyone to do every test, so I suggest that you ask a classmate to give you the questions, they are pretty interesting.

The questionnaires that we took were:

Are you a lion or a mouse? (are you brave)

How happy are you?

Are you the perfect partner?

How superstitious are you?

There were not so many grammar mistakes in this class. I guess the biggest problem was trying to figure out new words/phrases. There were lots of new words. Some of them were:

flattered     He flattered her with all the compliments that he gave her.

dull     My night was not interesting at all, it was pretty dull and boring.

room for improvement    His English is getting better but there is still room for improvement.

shortcomings     One of his many shortcomings is that he is very stubborn.

feel sorry for yourself     Don’t feel sorry for yourself, cheer up.

persuade     Don’t let him persuade you to change your mind, you are right.

side-effects     Some medicine causes side effects like headaches or loss of appetite.
second opinion    Many American people seek a second opinion when they don’t trust their doctor.
keep the peace     It is often much harder to try to keep the peace than to fight.

hard-headed     He is extremely hard-headed, he doesn’t listen to others.

strike a balance     It is important to strike a balance between work and play.

skepticism     I am filled with skepticism when  hear about ghost stories.

fling     She had a few casual flings while her boyfriend was away in the army.

old flames    He sometimes calls up one of his old flames when he is lonely.

take an interest    It is important to take an interest in other people’s lives.

I hope your personality test came out OK. I also hope that they were not too difficult. T

Here we come to the final week!

Personality questions and job interviews

Week 19 is here. We started out the week in usual fashion, with “free-talk” on Monday. Again, I am continually impressed with how well you guys handle this task.

Tuesday’s main topic was job interviews. The question that we started out with was:

Have you ever had an interview? or Have you ever had a job interview?
I think most people have not had job interviews so I expected Charles and Chang-bo to share their experiences with their classmates. They both did a good job with this. Actually, many people had interview experiences for part-time jobs or for university entrance.

We thought about some common interview questions. One question that stuck out was, “What would you do if your kid was sick and you had an important interview?”
This question is both interesting and a good example of the second conditional. Other common questions that we looked at include:

Tell me about yourself. (not really a question but more of a command)
How would a good friend describe you?
How well do you work with other people?
What was the most recent you’ve read?
Why should I hire you?

We spent some time using these questions to make a conversation. Other examples of common job interview questions (in the states) can be found here.

On Wednesday we took a few minutes to practice some of the above questions and then started a personality test. I asked everyone to answer just yes/no to each of this statements.

1. I learn more by reading than by group discussions.
2. Money can bring happiness.
3. The best way to deal with people is to tell them what they want to hear.
4. Love is more important than success.
5. Being lucky is the most important thing for getting a good job.
6. Fate controls our lives.
7. People should admit their mistakes.
8. Nice people have many friends.
9. A good leader lets people make choices.
10. Traditions are important.

After answering the questions alone, everyone talked about their answers with a partner. Then all the students tried to guess what my answers would be. Were you surprised? Why? After break the next job was to talk to a new partner and think about each persons answers and what they mean about that person’s personality. I thought this was quite interesting.

Next, we had to imagine that these were job interview questions (they sometimes are!) and we had to think about what the “correct” answers would be. Why did I say “correct“? Well, because there are actually not any correct answers to these questions. Every answer is simply just someones opinion. We spent a lot of time considering what interviewers would want to hear in an interview. My next question to consider was what the “right” answers would be for someone applying to become a member of a religious group. Of course, these “correct” answers were often different than the “correct” answers in a job interview.

At the end of class we talked about some words and phrases that came up during Wednesday’s class. They were:

gut feeling I cannot explain it, my gut feeling gave me all the answers I needed.

white lie Is telling a white lie really lying?

flattery “Flattery makes friends and truth makes enemies.”

a compliment “Compliments can make a whale dance.“

fifty-fifty I really cannot decide. It is fifty-fifty
(don’t forget about sixty-forty, seventy-thirty and so on)

luck “Luck is what happens when preparations meets opportunity.”

lucky Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

Of course there are some errors to review too!

I very hate that idea. >>> I hate that idea very much.

Last year I went to abroad. >>> I went abroad last year./Last year I went abroad.

In my case >>> OK. “In my case” is actually English and I cannot say that it is wrong…BUT it is not so common. I would suggest, “for me” as a much more natural phrase. In my case, I don’t think that I have ever said “In my case” in America. Good job today guys. Tomorrow we will have a personality test. I hope you are ready!

Week 18

Another week finished. Wow. Actually we only had three classes this week because Thursday was a holiday and we never have class on Fridays. Monday’s class was the usual “no topic” class and was very impressive. I feel like I cannot say enough how amazing it is to watch you guys talk in English for a whole hour. It is really amazing. Great job.

On Monday, June 6th everyone talked to one (or two) partners for 25 minutes each.  Some useful sentences that came up where:

Did you get a haircut? 
What’s your plan for ____? (this summer, tonight, next year)
Do your best!

Also someone was asking me how you describe the situation where someone listens to you but doesn’t really listen. My idea was, “In one ear and out the other” which means that what you say comes in through their ear and then automatically leaves out the other ear. They hear you but they don’t take in what you are saying.

On Tuesday we played a game where we had to speak for 1 minute about a certain topic. All the words began with ‘A’ because that was voted to be the favorite letter in class 1B. The words that everyone made speeches for were:

Anni
attractive
always
air
anyways
anteater
assignment
animal
awaken
art
absent

I really enjoyed these mini-speeches. I suggested that this is something that can easily be done alone. Think of a topic and try to talk about it in English for one minute or even longer. Very good practice, except do not do it on the train because people will think you are a crazy person.

Some phrases that I heard on Tuesday:

It’s mean is _____.
When I was high school… .
I choiced…

We have talked about these kinds of errors many times. If don’t know what the problem is with these sentences is, please ask me.

I also heard sentences like this:

He has many knowledge. >>> He has lots of knowledge. 
(don’t forget how many syllables there are in knowledge)

Also, someone said “She is a lot of curious.” I think much better would be “She is very curious,” or “She has a lot of curiosity.”

I started Thursday’s class with a story. I told you that a father and his son were driving in the country side. The father was driving and he was driving a little too quickly. They had a car accident and the father was killed. The son was badly injured. An ambulance came and rushed the son to the hospital. When the son arrived at the emergency room, the doctor said, “I cannot operate on him, he is my son!”

If you do not know who the doctor is, you should ask someone, or check the vocab section at the bottom of this page.

After the story, I had you discuss what jobs are typical for women. Some of the jobs that we talked about were:

florist, telemarketer, stewardess,  flight attendant, secretary, receptionist, day care worker, baby-sitter, nanny, housekeeper, homemaker, housewife, and stay-at home mom.

I mentioned that housekeeper is a job and usually goes to many houses to clean them. I also mentioned that stay-at-home mom is becoming much more popular word for this job.

After talking about jobs for a while it was time for the discussion questions. They were:

What do you think of stay-at-home dads? 
What do you think about women in the military? 

Some sentences that gave us problems:

He is died. >>> He is dead.  or He died. 

Women birth childrens. >>> Women have babies. or Women give birth to babies. 

We also talked about the pronunciation of man/men and woman/women.

Another group of words that we discussed the pronunciation of was, live/live, life, and alive.

Some words that came up this week were:

prejudice     It was our prejudice that made it hard to guess the doctor was his mother.

generation  We see things differently because we come from a different generation.

apron   It is rare to see a man wear an apron, but she said her father does.

boar    I would be very scared if I saw a wild boar.

social      Some students are more social than others.

society     We all have to live in society so we should try to change it for the better.

set up     He is always asking for someone to set him up with a nice girl.

burned out    Many students felt burnt out by the 17th week.

the Philippines    A few students are going to the Philippines after this course.

mandatory     Military service is mandatory for males in Korea.

optional     I usually prefer to give optional homework. If people want to do it, they will.

*force   Gravity is a constant force. 

*power     I will use all my power to help you.

*Someone asked me the difference between force and power. I am actually still not 100% sure how to explain it, but maybe the answer is here.

Well, that is all for now. Great job in week 18. Only 2 more to go!

Friday

Hey guys!

How are you? I feel bad. I have a sad image of some of you checking the blog every day this week and not finding anything. I promise there is more coming soon. Have a great weekend!

By the way

I thought some of you guys might be interested in this site. It is a kind of radio show in slow and easier than usual English. I like it because it is real news, but is just slower. I guess that you could understand most of it. Givittashot, whaddayagottalose?

What would you have done if…?

Hello guys.

Well, for the first time in a long time I feel like class did not go so well. I am wondering if I did a poor job to explain things. I wanted to focus on the third conditional today.

The example that we started with was, “What would you have done if Mike had canceled class at 3:20 yesterday?”

Now, it was already Thursday and it was already impossible for me to cancel class. So, in this case we would want to use the third conditional. For even more information about the third conditional please click here.

I am truly sorry if I confused anyone in this lesson. I think that I may have confused Rose when she asked why we use “have + pp.” and I simply said that this is a conditional situation. I thought it would be an easier way to think about it. I hope Rose was not to confused because we do make the third conditional using past perfect and past participles.

After discussing what happy things everyone would have done if Mike had canceled class the previous afternoon we moved up to closer times. The next question was, “What would you have done if Mike hadn’t come to class yet?” This was, again, an impossible situation because there Mike was, in class already. I heard some interesting answers to this question. I think I liked Chang-bo’s answer the best, “I would have gone to Jeju on my personal plane.” Very nice.

We spent some more time working on similar questions. I thought the best example question that I heard was, “What would you have done if you had met Park Chung-hee? I thought this was a great question because it is perfectly impossible since he is already dead.

I hope that these examples and links have been helpful for you. If you have any other questions please let me know. Take care and see you soon!