[take me out to the ball game]

For those of you who weren't informed by 32 very excited sixth graders, the final for the World Baseball Classic was today. It's Korea vs. Japan, and since it was held in America, it was on during the day in Asia. My last class started during the bottom of the 7th, with Japan leading by one. Japan and Korea are long standing rivals in EVERYTHING (the number of people, of STUDENTS, who have talked to me about Dokdo and how it belongs to Korea is astounding) and Koreans are just patriotic period, so this game is a BIG DAMN DEAL.

Of course, this meant that my students felt that we should watch baseball instead of study English. They felt VERY strongly about this and spent forty minutes working baseball into every aspect of class. I have NEVER gotten them to speak this much English before. Even students who normally refuse to speak had an opinion on the game. They started by telling me about the game and how Japan was ahead by one point, but the Korean team was awesome. They expressed their condolences on results of the US vs. Japan game. They told me how the Japanese team was a bunch of dirty cheats. They made sure that I was rooting for Korea. They asked, repeatedly, if we could watch the game instead of studying prepositions. They told me one of the boys was very sick (he had a cold) and before he died, he wanted to watch some baseball. In conclusion, BASEBALL.

Even the answers to all the questions came up baseball.

Me: *points to a sentence that says My school is behind the post office.* What does this say?
Some Students: My school is behind the post office where we play baseball. BASEBALL!!
Other Students: My baseball is behind the baseball! BASEBALL!!
Yet More Students: Teacher, I love baseball. BASEBAL!!
Me: This is going to be a long class.

Alas, the game is now over and Japan won, but it made for a cute class. And can I just say that I'm so very relieved that America lost to Japan in the semi-finals. Class would have been a thousand times crazier if it had been America vs. Korea. I don't know who I would have cheered for.