My Clever Kids!

I've been teaching an English summer camp for the past week. Yesterday, I made my 5th and 6th graders do an exercise where I had them pretend that they were going shopping. They had to greet the salesperson and ask for an item they wanted to purchase. Most of the boys wanted nintendos. One of the boys in my class forgot how to say one hundred thousand won -- so when asked by the customer how much the nintendo was, he blurted out it was FREE! Everyone burst out laughing. I have to say some of my kids are pretty clever, but they're so shy and don't realize it.

The girl on the right side, who's name I do not know, because I call her Harvard girl, is my brightest student. She's extremely smart and wants to move to Boston so she can go to Harvard.

I have a set of 5th and 6th graders in the mornings and a set of 3rd graders in the afternoons. The 3rd graders are . . . well like any 3rd grade children, no matter what country they live in. They have short attention spans, they're extremely energetic, and it's hard to discipline them because they're so cute. But, luckily that's what I have a co-teacher for, she gets to be the bad cop.

My 5th and 6th graders on the other hand are extremely curious, they love asking me questions about America, and they like to have fun. A lot of our communication occurs through drawing pictures and then figuring out the Korean and English words for what we are trying to say to each other, and there is always a lot of hand gesturing going on -- yes the charades are quite helpful.
I love this duo. They sit right up front. The boy on the right reminds of of a little cute Asian Harry Potter. They always partner up with each other and they're always doing there best to help me out in the classroom, but don't let their cute faces fool you. They can be extremely mischevious.

I gave out my e-mail address to my older students and told them they should write to me -- I thought it would be good practice for them and it's a good way to get to know them and some of their names. Which is still nearly impossible for me. They all have generic English names, like Julie, Samantha, Joey, Jack so on and so forth. But I really want to learn they're real Korean names -- at least the names of some of the kids who have quickly become my favorites. I'd feel like it was a cop out if I didn't.

I wanted to share some of the e-mails with you because they're funny to read. Below are two of my favoirte e-mails I've received so far.

정혁진 <*********@hanmail.net> Jul 31 (14 hours ago)
to ********@gmail.com
date Jul 31, 2008 5:57 PM

subject : Trishna~~~~

Hello Trishna My name is Felix ^^Do you memorise me?
____________________________________________________________

from ☆레니☆ <********@naver.com>
hide details
9:11 pm (11 hours ago)
reply-to

☆레니☆ <********@naver.com>

to ********@gmail.com

date
Jul 31, 2008 9:11 PM

subject : teacher

teacher hi
my name is sim min joo
i am teacher's student.
english letter is fun.
you are english is good.
expressions dictionnary find is write.
may i be honest with you?
teaher is very very very very beautiful.
and you have beautiful eyes.
well, see you later. good bye.
p.s answer please★answer easy

So remember, next time you are replying to an e-mail, answer easy!