Making that connection

People at home often ask me how it is I communicate with the students when I speak no Korean, and they speak very little English. Well, it's a lot of gesturing, a lot of simplifying and slowing down my speaking, and a lot of drawing pictures on the board. I think I'm getting quite good at drawing pictures on the board to get my point across. Some things are really hard, though. Like how do you draw a marble?

Today I had a class of generally exhausted, disruptive, cantankerous teens, that actually went pretty well. It didn't hurt that the unit I was teaching was on the Korean's love for online gaming. We spoke about video games, I asked which ones they like and stuff like that. I said I like GTA and they were like, 'Ohhh, bad game.' I was like 'Yeah but that's what makes it awesome.' I was vexed trying to get my point across about GTA, so I drew a helicopter chasing a stickman and lopping off his head with the rotor blade. They were very appreciative.

I wasn't able to save that drawing, but here's my Chevy Caprice chalk art that was also a hit today: