Monday, June 28, 2010

Konglish in Class

My 6th graders have a huge government test in July, on everything they've learned in elementary school. The month of June has had identical lesson plans: dictation, practice test, go over practice test, give key sentences or flashcard making for homework. The only issue (for me) is that the government test is completely bilingual and very Korean heavy so it's very difficult for me to help teach. Basically, instead of our usual 50-50 balance, my co-teacher directs the class while I mark the homework and dictations, help keep students on task or help the low level/special needs students. Anyways, so I was grading today's dictations and I ran across some rather comical mistakes. It was necessary to suppress my giggles...

Actual Sentence: Does your mother work?
Student wrote: Does your mother wank?

Actual Sentence: I like red and blue.
Student wrote: I like rad and bar.

Actual sentence: Do you like fall?
Student wrote: Do you like fool?

Is it sad that they can't spell basic color words, of course. Is it hilarious at times? Absolutely.

On second thought, the mistakes aren't really laugh worthy but whatever. I get my kicks where I can.

Also, if you have time to kill, go check out my article over at Busan Haps, the Busan expat/tourist magazine. 

3 comments:

Alex said...

I know. PRICELESS!!!

Rachel S said...

Loved the article, AND you got top billing on their web site. Brought back memories of going to Harrod's department store. I tried to do the whole thing (ha ha), and Dana went off to a history (or natural history) museum nearby.

Alex said...

Aww thanks. Actually it's just featured this week, most of the magazine articles get a turn at the top but it does look cool for now. :-D

(Lucky Dana...I didn't try to make anyone go with me, aside from my lattes.)