Middle School Jeopardy Template

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There are a couple of factors that brought about a game of Jeopardy instead of something more fun. My English Classroom is being remodeled right now (my school has been given 60 million won to update it), so I no longer teach half classes of 20 in my room. Instead, I have to go to every individual class myself and teach a full class of 40. So, to keep everyone in their chairs and still entertained, I thought a game of Jeopardy would be fun. The other factor coming into play today is that the students begin their final exams on Tuesday, so a full review of this semester's material would be of use to them. So, here's a Jeopardy gameboard which I made from scratch. Click on any amount and it will take you to a slide with a question. Click on the question and the answer will pop up. Click anywhere else on the screen and you'll be brought back to the money grid. This Jeopardy board comes in two flavors, one for each level, with questions pertinent to that level. Head on over to our ESL Resources page, or just download the versions here. Level 1 is available in either Mac Format or PC format, while Lesson 2 is available in both Mac format and PC format as well. Even if you're not teaching those levels, the template is still usable, so you can tweak the questions as you please.

Korea's Insadong: Cookies and Culture

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A couple of weekends ago we went to Insadong in Seoul to do a bit of Christmas shopping and soak in some culture. Yes, we do have to do Christmas shopping this early (because shipping stuff overseas will take a long time). It's a really interesting neighborhood as it combines both traditional and modern Korea. The video we made was of the most touristy area; a long cobblestone street lined with shops and selling all types of traditional Korea goods. Clothing, ceramics, tea, handmade paper, artwork, jewelry, calligraphy supplies, art supplies, linens, fans, hats, and delicious street snacks. If you're visiting Korea on vacation, this is the place to go for some great souvenirs. If you follow the street until it ends and cross the road to a smaller less busy street you will find the real jewel of Insadong. A special area filled with gorgeous coffee shop and clothing stores, all oozing with their own personality. As you continue to snoop around the area, you'll find the houses have be rebuilt to look like traditional Korean homes, but these houses cost millions! It is a gorgeous neighbourhood and you're guarantied to get some amazing pictures. We'll post another video about this area when we get the chance, but for now, check out Insadong's best shopping zone here.

For now, actually, we actually have TWO VIDEOS. The first is a montage of what Insadong looks like, including its streets, its signs, its musicians, and its robots. The second is a clip from Insadong that we had to make into a movie entirely of its own. There are a few booths around Insadong with a couple of guys making and selling cookies. While they make these cookies they talk in three different languages and explain what's going on (in this case, Japanese and English for us Japanese and English tourists). It's really quite cool, so we included the movie as well. Click the picture above for our Tour of Insadong, then click on this picture here for our video on Insadong's Cookie Makers. Both are in high quality QuickTime format, so if you want to see them on YouTube check the sidebar for both movies.

Korean Robot Lockers

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Here's another one of those videos of things that amaze us about Korea. The locker system they have for their malls are computerized! Why they are computerized, we can't be too certain. The basic coin system we've known most of our lives seemed to have handled the job well enough, but, hey, computers make everything better! To use these lockers, you have to pump your cash into the computer, type in the number of the locker you want to lock with your stuff, and then turn the key. When you want to retrieve it, hit the retrieve button, type in your locker number, put in your key, and your stuff will still be there! For the life of us, we can't figure out why we need the computer as a middle man. All we know for sure is that this locker system is definitely much more appreciated by us than the sad dog locking system we noticed a while ago. Anyhow, we made a video to explain the locking and unlocking process for you, so click on the picture above for the video, or view our Korean Technologically Advanced Supercomputer Locker System Video in different formats on the sidebar.

The End of Bucheon's Autumn

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Winter hasn't officially kicked in yet, but it's starting to get mighty cold. The leaves on all of the trees are almost all off, and Martina's out looking for a new winter jacket (we couldn't pack ours from Canada because they take up too much space). Before this Winter kicks in, though, we have thoroughly enjoyed Fall in Bucheon. Jung-Ang Park, which we have shown you many times before, unleashed mountains of leaves all over the ground. Spudgy had a great time running through these leaves, and Martina loved taking pictures of them. We've compiled a bunch of these pictures together into one gallery, just so you can see what Autumn in Bucheon is like. Click the picture above to see the gallery, or click here to see Autumn in Bucheon.

Korea's Coex Aquarium

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We were looking for things to do over the weekend apart from lesson planning. We decided to go to the Coex Aquarium as a result. It didn't require a lot of planning or effort. We just hopped on the subway, took line 1 to Sindorim Station, then took line 2 to Samsung Station, which you've seen us take before, and we were there. The Coex Aquarium is actually inside of a mall, rather than being an independent building itself. The Coex Mall, by the way, is completely awesome, if you're looking to do some good shopping. It's monstrously large, very, very easy to get lost in, and home to many funky and interesting stores (as well as an aquarium!). Tickets on a Saturday afternoon cost us 14,000 won a pop, and we took a solid two hours to walk through the entire shebang. Mind you, we were taking a lot of pictures and making a lot of videos along the way, so it might take the average stroller half an hour to an hour instead. Speaking of which, we made a video of all the fishies, while Martina took a lot of pretty pictures of the fishies as well. Click on the picture above to see our video tour of Coex Aquarium (check the sidebar for the YouTube version), and make sure to check out Martina's Flickr Tour of Coex Aquarium as well.

Middle School Password Games

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We've been mighty busy over the past week, so please forgive the lack of activity here. Most of that busy time was spent in tweaking this lesson. I used the same idea for both classes, but covered different materials for the different levels. The first graders are working on "I like drawing cartoons. I want to be a cartoonist" or "I like helping sick people. I want to be a doctor," so on and so forth. The second graders are reviewing for the upcoming exams, so we're going over passive structure again. For both lessons, essentially, they have to fill in the blanks to a handout, using only the words from the word bank. Every word has a numerical value as well. Once they fill in the blanks with the words, they have to plug in the number values into a formula. The results, when gathered all together from all of the different questions, form a "Password." I lock my computer with this password as well; the first student to be able to crack the lock on my computer gets the prize, which is just a small set of lollies. For the second graders, since they finish this game sooner than the first graders, I have a backup gameboard, similar to the past tense gameboard for level 1, in which - for every spot they land on - they have to form a sentence in passive structure with the supplied words.

If you're interested in these lessons, head on over to the ESL Resources section to check them out. Or, you can just download the Level 1 Lesson on Future Jobs in both Mac and PC format, or you can get the Level 2 lesson on Passive Structure in both Mac and PC format as well.

Korean Car Greeters

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Customer service in Korea has its ups and downs. One major annoyance is that, everywhere you walk in a store, the employees shadow you like you're going to steal something. They're not being suspicious - not at all. Turn around and you'll find them smiling and waiting to help. It's just annoying to not have any personal space. One super awesome thing about Korean Customer service, though, is that it starts long before you get to the store. Drive up to any department store and you'll find a thwack of people, men and women, in matching suits and outfits, bowing to your car and greeting you through a microphone (but we can't understand what they're saying, because we don't speak Korean).

So here we have a video of these greetings in action. You'll see the greeters and the traffic directors in matching attire, but this time you won't see any Dancing Traffic Directors. If you're not from Korea you really need to see this. Click on the picture above to see our video on Korean Car Greeters, or go to the sidebar to view it in different formats.

Intro to Pepero Day in Korea

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Yesterday was a very solemn holiday in Canada: Remembrance Day. We were surprised, though, to find a different holiday being celebrated here in Korea on the same day. Instead of honoring the soldiers that fell in war, Korea celebrates something known as Pepero Day. You may know Pepero as "Pocky" instead, the chocolate dipped sesame sticks that you snack on. In Korea they don't call them Pocky at all, by the way, just Pepero. Anyhow, November 11th, if you look at the numbers, is 11/11, which some genius over at the Pepero factory suggested looks like four sticks of Pepero. The Pepero company capitalized on this idea, and declared that on this day everyone will give out Pepero Sticks. In Canada, we wear Poppies; in Korea, we eat Pockies.

Sure, that sounds silly, but the declaration actually stuck, and now everybody celebrates Pepero Day. Yesterday Simon received around eight boxes of Pepero from his students. Teachers gave pepperos to each other as well. The days leading up to Pepero had stores full of Pepero Sticks, Pepero stuffed toys, and Pepero gift baskets. In fact, when Simon bought a shirt at a clothing store, they gave him a free box of Pepero as well. Pepero Day is almost like Valentine's Day, except it isn't as demandingly romantic. Sure, you'll give Peperos to your girlfriends and boyfriends, but your regular friends will be expecting them as well.

This ain't no small holiday, as some people may believe, so we made a video to show you what some of the street stalls look like, and just how elaborate this day can get. Sorry we couldn't post this sooner, but we went through a bit of a YouTube epidemic over the past two days, so we didn't get a chance to put this up when we wanted to. Anyhow, click on the picture above for the video of Korea's Pepero Day, or view it in different formats in the sidebar.

How to Get McDonalds Delivered to Your Home

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We've been here for five months now and we're still amazed with all of the cool things has to offer. A while ago we made a post about Korean Home Delivery, and this can be considered an update to that with an amazing twist: Last week we happened to learn something else that's awesome about Bucheon and Korea: McDonald's delivers to your home!! That's right. Korea's food delivery service is such a huge part of the culture that McDonald's had to tap into it as well. This means that you can sit at your home, play video games all day, and get a Big Mac and a McFlurry delivered to your doorstep. How awesome is that! Here's what you need to make this happen:

Phone Number: 1600-5252.
Menu: See an image of it here. It's not the best quality, but you'll get an idea of what you can get delivered. If need be, you can get a copy of it at the McDonald's closest to you.
Options: They sell everything. Breakfast and dinner foods, as well as Sundaes and McFlurries. Everything you can buy at the store can be ordered for delivery
Price: It seems as if everything costs around 500 won more for delivery than the regular in-store prices, but, hey, if you need a Big Mac right away, it's worth the extra change.
Names: The names are pretty much the same as they are in English, except they are pronounced in a Korean way. So the McFlurry here is the "Ma-Ku-Pu-Lau-Ree" and the Big Mac is the "Bee-guh-Mah-Kuh." So, even if you can't read the Korean on the menu,

One More Thing: The phone system here isn't the number of a specific McDonalds; instead, the number is for a central system. Your order gets forwarded to the closest McDonald's delivery chain. The problem with this is that you have to give more information, (namely, your city and your region). Here in Bucheon we're in the Wonmi-Gu district. When Martina called, both she and the operator were very confused, until an operator with stronger English came on the line. Martina had to explain what landmarks we're close to (the closest being Bucheon's City Hall), and only after 10 minutes of confused explanations did we finally get our order through.

We made a video for McDelivery as well, which shows you the whole ordering and delivering process (and more). Both YouTube and High Quality QuickTime versions are available for viewing in the sidebar on the left. Enjoy!

Upcoming Jens Lekman Concert in Korea

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The two of us are pretty big music buffs, and we've been a little upset that we haven't been able to attend any concerts here in Korea. Luckily, we stumbled upon a concert that we're sure to attend: We don't know how many of you are Indie Music fans, but Jens Lekman is coming to Hongdae on November 29th. Here's what we know, from Last.fm:

Who: Jens Lekman
What: Playing Music
Where: Ssamie Space, Hongdae, South Korea
When: Saturday, November 29th, ???PM
Why: Because he's awesome.

The cost of admission we don't know. Supposedly we're just supposed to pay at the door instead of buying tickets. If anyone plans on going leave a comment or contact us. We don't know much more about the event because we just found out about it today. If anyone else has more information, let us know. Otherwise, we'll keep those of you interested up to date whenever we find more information about this, and we'll surely post videos of the concert after we've gone.

Korean Crowded Subways

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We've made a few posts and videos about the subways here in Korea, be it a View of Korea through the Subway Windows, or our other post on How to Load a Subway Card, but we haven't captured this on tape yet. Before we came to Korea we were told that the subways would be ridiculously packed. The few times that we've taken the subway we noticed that, sure, you're lucky to get a seat, and the subways are pretty crammed, but it's not really as bad as we've been told. Of course, we only thought this because we never took the subway during rush hour. Yesterday we finally did take the subway during rush hour, and, well, let's just say we've never seen the subways this crowded before in our lives. We made a shoddy video of it, just so you could see how incredibly packed this thing can get. Click on the picture above for the video, or check out our Crowded Subways video in the sidebar.

Middle School Hobbies Pictionary

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Here's this week's lesson plan, but first, a bit of explanation: there's only a lesson plan for the first graders, since the second graders are doing their oral tests this week. Next week the first graders will have their oral tests. It will be on their hobbies. So, this week's lesson will incorporate a bit of lesson 10 - The Use of Timestamps - and their Hobbies Lesson from a while ago. Essentially we're playing Pictionary. The class is divided into three teams. One person from each team will come up to draw what's on the card I show them. It will include a timestamp (such as Always, Sometimes, Often, Never, etc) and one of the hobbies from the gamecards a while ago (Cooking, Dancing, Singing, etc). First team to guess it wins a point. Hooray! Loads of fun. When we run through the cards, we play a sentence completion game. They're now in the mood to get up at the boards and perform, so in this game we keep it going. On the monitor I pop up three words and they have to make a sentence out of them. One of the words is almost always a timestamp. First one to write a proper sentence with no mistakes wins. Huzzah! If you want to download this yourself, then click here for either the Mac Version or the PC Version, or head on over to our ESL Resources page to find more, well, ESL Resources

Korean Trick or Treating

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Halloween is not celebrated here in Bucheon or the rest of Korea, so I - Simon - tried to teach my middle school students about Halloween and Trick or Treating. I did not teach it well. The only thing they learned was that strangers will give you candy once you demand it. Some thought that the louder you demand it the more candy you will get. This turned out to be terrible, terrible for me. I have documented it all: the horror, the terror, the rage. Click on the picture above for the movie, or view it in the sidebar here for different versions (YouTube and QuickTime included).

Note: If you can't tell from the movie, then please understand that these students were acting. They were given their lines, given their pay (lots of candy, of course), and fully consented to the making of this movie and the way in which it will be used. The students who did not want to participate were free to go. I have 920 students - here are not even one fifth of them. Yeah.