Posts Tagged ‘Lists’

Like “Japanese English”, “Korean English” is often used not to refer to a variety of English (like Singlish or Indian English) but to the use of English in the Korean language, including some words and expressions that were created in Korea from English and other European roots and don’t exist outside Korea. As I am using this meaning of “Konglish”, the expressions below are neither wrong English nor a variety of English but simply a category of Korean vocabulary similar to “French” expressions like “cul de sac” in English. The reasons for including them on a blog about English teaching are:
1. Korean people speaking English sometimes think they are used in other countries, and so they are an important source for error correction (in a recent Pre-Intermediate class of mine doing The Alibi Game, almost all the vocabulary mistakes were ones that were in this list), as long as it doesn’t make the students paranoid about using the vast majority of English phrases in Korean that have more or less the same meaning
2. It’s the one part of the Korean language that is interesting and accessible to people who will never even come here, including people who are teaching Korean students in other countries
3. This list took me hours, and until I manage to work out how to make some fun worksheets out of this, putting them on the blog makes me feel it wasn’t a complete waste of time…

Sorry about the uncharacteristically serious intro, but I was accused of being a racist (!) for doing a similar list of Japanese English, and have only just got over the trauma of that enough to do this with a new language and to use that list to label ones that are the same in Japanese (as well as other languages in the few cases I know) below:

• accel- accelerator- same in Japanese
• accessory- jewellery
• agree! – I agree
• all ri (from “all right”) - only used when backing up a car - same in Japanese
• American coffee- (more…)

adjacency pairs- the strange connection between students being sat beside each other in the first lesson and forming couples

back channelling- TEFL euphemism for shirt lifting

boundary marker-use of textbooks to stake out territory on a desk

caretaker talk- (more…)

androgogy- teaching like a girly man

behaviourism- the theory that making your students pretend they have stiff upper lips will make them act and speak like Englishmen, and wearing a crown in class will make them speak Queen’s English

co-hyponym - Getting students to hypnotize each other to help with vocabulary learning

communicative weight- the difficulty of where to look when talking to the obese

feminist pedagogy- (more…)

More making up for the fact that Dr Johnson was never lucky enough to be a TEFL teacher, this time with one of my favourite TEFL games ever, Call My Bluff. In the classroom version you get the students to make up the wrong definitions to try and fool the other student or team with, but even on my last day in my previous job I wasn’t slack enough to get my students to write my blog for me so you have to choose the real definition from Dr Johnson’s dictionary via Henry Hitchings, not being fooled by the fake definition made up very quickly by me to stop wasting any more time on the TEFL otaku topic… (answers at the bottom of the page)

1. Is an amatorcultist (a) a little insignificant lover, or (b) a lover of the art of gardening?
 
2. Is a bellygod (a) one who makes a god of his belly, or (b) a drug that calms the troubled gut?
 
3. Is deosculation (a) the art of kissing, or (b) losing an eye or part of an eye?

4. Is kissingcrust (a) a crust formed when one loaf in the oven touches another, or (b) a soreness upon the lips caused by an excess of kissing?

5. Is gazingstock (a) a person gazed at with scorn or abhorrence (related to ‘laughingstock’), or (b) cattle that stare at you as you pass?

6. Is potvaliant (a) heated with courage by a strong drink, or (b) culinary adventurousness?
 
7. Is subderisorious (a) scoffing or ridiculing with tenderness or delicacy, or (b) contemptuous of someone below you?
 
8. Is vaticide (a) a murderer of poets, or (b) a murderer of popes?
 
9. Is rhabdomancy (a) divination by a wand, or (b) Scottish witchery?
 
10. Is suppedaneous (a) placed upon the feet, (b) connected to the evening meal?
 
11. Is anatiferous (a) producing ducks, or (b) the burning of phosphor? (more…)

Even with all the things written about Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, I think I might be the first to try adding some TEFL-style pointless elicitation. And so here goes… Try to work out which word he was defining in each case then scroll down the screen to check (it’s a bit like the classroom activities The Definition Game and Taboo):
 
1. belonging to an ass
—————
—————
————–
asinine
 
2. a hog dressed whole, in the West Indian manner
—————
—————
————–
barbecue

3. a stone in the bladder
—————
—————
————– (more…)

This is when my studies with the Lonely Planet phrasebook started getting completely out of hand, I think I might have been just short of giggling like a school boy on the train at one point… Not that hysterics is a bad thing for language learning, mind you.

chim pogwanhami issossumyon hanundeyo = I’d like to store my luggage
 
ilbon ch’ulgu = entrance number 1
 
kaduk ch’aewojuseyo = please fill the tank

chuch’a hanunde olmaeyo = how much does it cost to park here

kio sut’ik (more…)

Here is another attempt of mine to cope with my complete lack of language learning motivation, Playstation-generation attention span and need for something new every couple of hours. And the new method is- trying to find as many rude things in the language as I can… Not a method that many schools advocate, but I think they might be missing out on a real motivator with teenage classes!

As with My Lonely Planet Is Full of Eels, all the sentences below come straight out of the Lonely Planet Korean phrasebook but it is no reflection on this rather useful publication that I found the things below amusing and so learnt them easier that way:

han-gugesonun igol ottok’e haeyo? = How do you do this in your country?

hajinun ank’o pogiman halkkeyo = I don’t mind watching, but I’d prefer not to participate (more…)

96. “Sick of our dirty classrooms? Home lessons available for just 50% more!”
97. “And your thought only pizza delivery boys would travel all the way to your house！”
98. “Our 100th international branch right here in your town is in a newer building than our Rome branch, less expensive than our London branch, more flexible than our Frankfurt branch, cleaner than our Naples branch, and with more polite staff than our Paris branch”
99. “We make illegal copies so you don’t have to” (more…)

Did you know that what you dream about can tell you what will happen in your classes? Try reading the descriptions below and in Part One to find something you have dreamed about, and then write it in the aims section of your observed lesson’s lesson plan…

What animals in your dreams tell you about your future lessons:

A dog/ a moose - you will have an exceedingly ugly student with a crush on you
 
Horses - you will be distracted from your grammar explanations etc. by a student’s extremely odd teeth

Cats- One of your students will start singing along unprompted when you do Tom’s Diner in your Present Continuous lesson

A flying bird- You will escape TEFL

Rats- The management of your school will leave as they find out about the financial problems in the company, without telling any of the teachers

Parrots - Too much drilling will make your students repeat everything you say, including questions and game instructions
 
Ants - Your boss will introduce even more paperwork aimed at standardizing lessons
 
Bees/ wasps - Your seemingly happy students will complain about too many games in the end of term feedback sheets
 
Bears- One student will be so disgusted by the chest hair showing when you wear an open collar shirt that they will ask to change classes
 
Hyenas - A student with a loud laugh that distracts the other groups will join the class

70. ”If you want to chatter away in your own language, what the hell- you’re paying!”
71. ”We’ve found the dead rat under classroom 7B”
72. ”We will keep your teacher’s passport until you pass the FCE”
73. ”You just never know what will happen in the next class!” (more…)