Journal week 9: Heroism - what are your thoughts?

This week, we talked about several peace activists who are widely thought of as heroes. You also told me who you think of as a hero in Korea. Now, I'd like to hear you tell me about who your personal heroes are, if you have any. Who do you admire? Why do you admire them? What did they say or do? Use your vocabulary (p. 80/85) and practice this week's grammar point (p. 83/88) to tell me about your heroes.

Do you need some inspiration? You can check out my slideshow from class below. You can also watch Byron Garcia's Prison Dances on Youtube if you click here.

Heroes

View more OpenOffice presentations from BeckaB.

Journal week 8: Your Dreams and Goals After University

Get a job.
Start your career.
Find love.
Start your family.
Move to a new city.
Discover your passion.

These are all common life goals, and your university years are a good time to think about them. What kinds of things do you want for yourself? This week, talk about your own life goals. What would you like to do when you graduate from Soon Chun Hyang? What will you do to reach your goals?

John Lennon (from The Beatles) sang a song about his young son, Sean, called "Beautiful Boy." In the song, John sings,"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." What do you think this statement means?

Journal week 7: What's your best friend like?

This is my friend, Jung-ah. We met while we were both teaching English at an academy in Ulsan, in 2006. She likes to knit. Her mother has a little shop where we spent hours knitting together and talking. I think she is an inspiring, generous, and creative person. She's very active and likes to work out, but she's not very competitive.



In our class this week, we talked about favorite activities (sports) and personality/character traits. How does your personality come through in your actions? Think about this question as you describe your best friend. What is s/he like? What does s/he like to do? Tell us about this person in 50 words, or more.

Midterm Reflection

Hi everyone,

Now you should know your grade in this class so far. Last week, I asked you to write a journal entry thinking about what you should do to improve your English, and your English grade. I am eager to hear your thoughts! Please feel free to comment below.

Thanks and see you in class!

Becka

INFORMATION ABOUT THE MEDIA PROJECT TEST ALTERNATIVE

As I mentioned in the first week of class, you may choose to create a media project instead of having a traditional midterm test. If you decide to do a media project, you MUST follow the guidelines below.


1) All presentations must be given during class between April 27 and May 1.

You may work alone or in a small group:
1 student = at least 4 minutes or at least 250 words
2 students = at least 8 minutes or at least 500 words
3 students = at least 12 minutes or at least 750 words
4 students = at least 16 minutes or at least 1000 words

no groups bigger than 4 students!

2) I expect you to use a variety of media in your project, including ORIGINAL photos, video, music, and artwork.

3) Please choose one of the following TOPICS for your project:

Make a Tourism Advertisement for Your City!
Research and present a project discussing the reasons why people should live in or visit your city. What makes your city attractive?

Do a Mini Cooking “Show”
Choose a recipe you know well. Research information about the ingredients or the cultural history of that recipe. Then, using video, live presentation, or a photo essay/blog, tell us about this special dish and show us how to make it.

Introduce Us to Your Family
Using personal photos, tell us the story of your family’s history. Interview your oldest living relative and tell us what life was like for that person when he/she was your age. Be sure to give descriptions of what his/her hometown was like back then. Look for old pictures online and include them with descriptions in your presentation.

A different topic of your choice
MUST be approved by Becka before April 17th, 5pm!

4) Grading your Media Project

40% Your overall communicative use of English.
YOU must use only English in your project. If you want to use a video interview
of someone speaking in Korean, or a photo with Korean writing on it, you MUST
subtitle it in English.

15% Vocabulary – use as much of this vocabulary as possible:
Unit 1: basic physical descriptions
Unit 2: feelings and gestures
Unit 3: food
Unit 4: places in the neighbourhood/information about cities
Unit 5: weather/vacation activities

25% Grammar – be sure you understand how to use:
simple present (She goes…) vs. present continuous verbs (She is going…)
Subject (I) and object (me) pronouns
Countable (many) vs. uncountable (much) nouns
prepositions of place (next to, between, behind, etc.)
basic conjunctions (but, or, so)

10% Pronunciation
rising/falling intonation, “wh-“ questions
syllables and stress (banana, vitamin, etc.)
stress of important words

10% References
A complete list of where your information, photos, and media came from
(book titles, web addresses, etc.)

ANY QUESTIONS? Please post them here in the "comments". Thanks and see you in class!

Becka

Week 5: Is your city a good place to live?

This week, we learned about cities such as Los Angeles (USA), Juneau (USA), San Jose (Costa Rica) and Hong Kong (China). Each of these cities have features that make them interesting places to live. They each also have their "minuses," or bad points.


Busan!


Seoul!


Daejon!

Think about the city where you live. What's the cost of living like? Are there any interesting cultural landmarks, architecture, or food? How much pollution is there? How many kinds of public transportation does your city have?

Please write at least 50 words telling me more about your city.

Week 4: $hopping!

Of course it is necessary to buy things. Food, clothes, services are all part of everyday life. But do you shop as a hobby? What kind of shopping do you like to do? Some people shop for fun. Some people like shopping so much, they become addicted to it ("shopaholics"). Some people really don't enjoy it.


(image courtesy of Jim, used with permission under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License )

What's your story? How do you feel about shopping? Did you ever find a really good deal, or regret spending your money? The economic crisis is affecting lots of people across the globe right now. How does it affect you?




(images courtesy of João Felipe C.S, used with permission under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License)