#pocketball

December comes, and with it, life starts to slow down.  The Korean winter doesn’t play around, and excursions are fewer and further between.  Of note:

School computers have pushed me to the brink of frustration.  At my second school, I don’t have a computer in the office, so I’m restricted to using the computer in the English room.  This would be fine if I could do things like save documents.  Or make the clearance request go away.  Since I can do neither, my patience is routinely tested.  (And this says nothing of the daily ‘not responding’ message my computer at my first school hits me with.)  But I those are just part of the territory, I guess.

...and a brutal territory is it.  This popup hits the screen a few times a class and requires some kind of password to remove.  On top of where, no saves can be made on this computer.  At.  All.

What really keeps me going is the teaching.  During the second week of December, my favorite topic of all the topics I’ve hit so far works its way back around.  The Christmas of the lessons!  The fun lesson!  I get to talk about Konglish!  With a bit of practicing with “How do you say _____ in English?” I turn them loose with some drawing time, to reinforce some of the differences in English between Korea and the U.S.

Their mission: write a Konglish word, draw a picture, and write the English word on the bottom.  Since they’re middle school boys, most of them wind up going for something that was an aside in my previous lesson: vomit.  The Korean word, roughly spelled ‘oh-bite’, is a bastardization of “overeat.”  And it’s used pretty widely.  So, nevermind the lesson material and all the things they could be choosing from.  The choice is pretty much made by the time they get the paper.

To their credit, there winds up being a good selection of drawings; however, the artistic few go straight for ‘oh-bite.’  And just because I’m interested in this stuff, a few of the words are:

Konglish   -   English

Ball pen   -   Ball point pen

Sign pen   -   Felt tip marker (or anything that you’d sign a credit card receipt with)

Autobi~   -   Motorcycle

Hip   -   Butt (This wasn’t in the PowerPoint.  I teach in a middle school.)

Pocketball   -   Pool/Billiards

Bond   -   Glue/super glue

I'm afraid to think of what this artist's hobbies might include.

Band   -   Band-Aid

Hotchkiss   -   Stapler

One Piece   -   Dress

Y Shirt   -   Dress shirt/long sleeve collared shirt

Cunning   -   Cheating

Even the bird...

I'm guessing this one is too much chicken, and I sympathize.

One more?  You got it!

***

A final note: I make absolutely sure that when I’m teaching this lesson that I avoid saying that Konglish words are wrong.  The emphasis here, as I really think it should be, is to explain that there are other words used by native English speakers.  Regional differences are going to happen as Korea (slowly) develops as an English-speaking country.

Like I said, Konglish is everywhere...