Orientation: Tuesday

Today was a really good day of lectures:

The first one was about classroom management and was very practical, very relevant. I thought it was excellent.

The second one was about incorporating magic tricks in your lesson. I thought this was awesome!

The third one (after lunch, when I skyped Josh) was about English as a global language and the assortment of Englishes around the world.

The last one was, in my opinion, the best lecture of today and probably the whole week. It got off to a really bad start though--the coordinators screwed up the schedule and placed 100 people into a room designed for 50. The worst part is that they didn't fix it. All day. My colleagues noticed that it was a simple error that could easily have been resolved by switching the room listing on today's schedule. However, nothing was done about it, and there were thus 4 separate groups of 100 people crammed into a hot, sweaty room for 50 people. When asked about it later, the coordinators said there was nothing they could do.

I digress.

Why was this lecture the best one? Well, first, let me tell you the topic. The presenter was speaking about theories of education and how to not just teach your students but to educate them, in the purest sense of the word. I thought the lecturer was inspiring, engaging, right on the money, and passionate. She really taught me a lot and inspired me to be the best teacher I can be. During the lecture though, I thought, "wow, I bet some people will find this really boring."

Sure enough, when I got on the elevator to go back to my room after the lecture, the person next to me said, "Wasn't that the most boring lecture ever?" To which I replied, "That was the best lecture ever!"

I had asked the instructor if she was teaching at Cheonnam National University, so I could take one of her classes, but she said she was teaching at a graduate school in Seoul. Oh well. However, she told me I should look up the works of... get this... Stephen Krashen! Apparently, he was her PhD chair! (Stephen Krashen is a big name in the world of ESL Education and linguistics) She said I should read things by him and people that he's cited, since there's "a lot of misinformation out there." Not sure what that means, but I'll take her words to heart. Benkyo narimasu. 

After lectures, I went into town to visit the bank (eunheng) and get some money for this weekend. I still get scared crossing the street here, so I try to cross with a native Korean if at all possible.

After dinner, I went to Korean class, then went to HomePlus with some people afterwards. HomePlus is owned by Tesco, the British retailer. I bought an IU (she's a Korean singer) CD and some chicken strips lol. Here's an embarrassing picture:

Chicken strips and K-pop. The evenings of a TaLK scholar....

That's it for tonight!