SOSing

Monday's Frustrations:
The 5th graders started Lesson 14: Is Peter There? this week. It's all about phone numbers and phone conversations so, of course, I played "867-5309/Jenny" and told the kids to listen for the phone number and write it down. While the students enjoyed the song, the activity was a complete failure. I showed a live performance of the song from YouTube, and the sound quality was less than steller. Even I was having trouble making out the lyrics, and I already knew what they were. After the first two classes, I scrapped the idea and spent the last five minutes of class reviewing Step & Jump.

Monday's Konglish:
Cheating (or as it's called in Konglish, cunning) is rampant in Korean classrooms, far more than I remember from when I was in school, and it's not uncommon to see half the class blatantly cheating during textbook activities. During the "Let's Write" textbook activity today, I saw a boy leaning over for a look at his friend's textbook.

"No cunning," I told them.

"'Teacher," the first boy protested. "I'm no cunning. I'm ... SOSing."

It's a touch depressing that he couldn't think of help, which is basic vocabulary, but I am amused that he substitued it for the Morse code signal for help.