SOS

One of my 3rd graders is far from being a good buddy of the English language.  She is very against "listen and repeat" drills or even tracing the alaphabet and/or simple words.  In fact, the only words she speaks to me are, "Teachaahhhh  movie" or "Teachaaaahhh game".  Her contribution to English class.   She basically speaks English like I speak Korean---purely on a "need to know" basis.  For example:  I need to know how to order coffee & food, along with asking a taxi driver to take me somewhere (Tae-young needs to know that English class will be fun for her).  Beyond that, I am admittedly a lazy, lazy Korean speaker and somewhere in between being barrelled down by scary, old ajumas and hacked on--I've lost interest in trying.    Not the point of the story though:  In class Tae-young was having a really, really hard time learning "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".  I saw her slumping shoulders and frantic look, wondering how she will ever, ever memorize this much English all at one time.    She calls me over and points to what she wrote on her paper which were to my surprise, 2 whole letters, I didn't even think she knew.  Her words to me were, "SOS".   She then spoke her third sentence, "Teachaaah SOS".  It struck me so funny.   I then sat down with her so she could phonetically write out the lyrics to Rudolph in her own language.  Her message was taken loud and clear.   Apparently I was doing a bad teacher thing, by assuming they knew more than they did.  As it turns out, with this particular class, there were many, many messages of SOS.  Hint taken.  Rudoloph is a VERY complex song when it is not in your own language!  I sometimes forget these things.  I have gotten so used to these guys, there are times that I completely space out we speak very different languages.  If someone stuck this song in front of me, printed in Korean, it would take an eternity for me to sound out...so in many ways they are much further ahead in their English than I am in my Korean.  Smart kids.

Another thing my kids love to say to me is, "Very, very good job".  They only say this when I have an easy class that involves coloring or a game/movie day.  However, when they say it to me, they speak it very fast and prounounce it like it is all one word: "belrybelrygudjob".  B's & V's are confusing for them at this juncture.  They also roll the r sound into a combination of an r/l (in Korean 'r' and 'l' are interchangeable).  And they pronounce "good" like the 'o' sound in "goofy".   It's actually pretty dang cute.  It never fails to bring a smile to my face.  BelryBelryGudJob!

TidBits:

Korean Motorcycle Police drive Harley Davidsons!

Commericals for Ramen noodles gross me out a little.  I know it is just one of many cultural differences, but the sound of people slurping their food is completely icky to me.  Anyway, I saw my first (and only) commercial for ramen today, and was really impressed with the 'in stereo' sound effects of people slurping the noodles in enjoyment.  I don't know why I was surprised to see and hear this on the TV.  Very realistic commercial though.   In case you wanted to know:  Ramen is pronounced "Ramyan" in Korean.