K-Pop Slam 2

Hello,

Wintermute here with a PPT game. I made a game called K-Pop Slam, its been rather successful and many Korean teachers have asked for the file as well as Foreign teachers. Figured I'd share it on here with you all along with some preview images.

The basic gist of the game is I give them the English words found in K-Pop songs and they must guess what the K-Pop song is. Starts off easy then gets progressively more difficult. The students love it and has them speaking and signing in English so all the better.

And a link to the Download file: http://tinyurl.com/c3pzon7

Scavenger Hunt

Hello,

Wintermute here. Long time no see. Last week I gave my students a list of things to do or find. They had one week to complete as many as they could. Which ever team had the most won a pizza party. Most of the classes were doing really well until they found out that one class in particular had finished almost the entire list. Afterwards almost everyone gave up.

I figured I showed some pictures of my favorites:

All students had to be turned opposite of the board with a teacher in the room. 

Every member wearing tin foil hats. 

3 students in an elevator, sitting on chairs, with a stranger.

one student shaving another. 

There was a total of 100 items on the list.

Your Teacher,

Wintermute

Videos

Hello,

Wintermute here. In my last post I forgot to mention I filmed one of my classes. We were playing a game. Basically I play a snippit of a song and they have to guess what it is. No pictures or words, just an audio clip.

This particular class did very very well and I had many of them singing and dancing. Quite amusing if however rather long. It does start off on its side but eventually flips up right. BTW: My students did not know they were being filmed most of the hour. Some caught on in the front I think.

enjoy.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Speaking Test

Hello,

Wintermute here with some desk warming goodness. So for the next two weeks I have to give a speaking test to the students. This is really quite ridiculous. It's a waste of a perfectly good two weeks that could be spent teaching and learning. On the plus side it does make my job easier, but trust me when I say this job can get a bit too easy and boring. Hopefully I can get through it.

On a much brighter side, Skyrim comes out this week!. Sadly Korea has no release date, so I had to preorder it, have it shipped to my ma, who will then send it to me. Nevertheless it will be mine, and I couldn't be more excited.

Your fanboy,
Wintermute

Nanta

Hello,

Miss me yet? I was gone for a week in Seoul. It was a fun trip, good food, good people. Didn't do a whole lot. First I went to some castle like thing. Basically its where the King and Queen would live. Apparently they lived in separate buildings  and were not allowed to visit each other. Which is why Korea has not had many emperors in succession. Also the Queen is not allowed to leave her house, ever. So long story short, it would suck to be the Queen of Korea.

I also went through a secret garden where they boasted a 750 year old tree. I was expecting this huge thick trunk landmark, but instead I got what looked like a 750 year old tree. It was sad and droopy, split down the center, branches laying on the ground. Most of it was held together with ropes.

Also went to a show called Nanta, which was pretty impressive. Nanta is performed in 41 countries. Basically its a comedy show. There are 4 people chefs who are given a task to make a certain sum of food for a wedding. The two to be betrothed are selected from the audience. While cooking the dishes they discover that music and rhythm can be made from their utensils. Thus starts a whole Orchestra of slamming of knifes and plates. While impressive most music was performed from an audio track and not a lot of actual live performance. It was meant to be a comedy play and not so much a musical. 

And it was very funny, the audience was all English speakers so there was not much Korean spoken and a lot of intentionally bad English used. If like me you can go for free, I'd recommend it.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

100

Hello,

Wintermute here for what may be the last DUMBR. We made it to 100 post and I finished off with a grand total of almost 2 readers. Thats 2 more than zero, so I'm happy. We laughed, we cried, we stopped reading half way. I'll still be on blogger guessing Shutterbugs pictures, and wanting Shonas food, and climbing Mt. Aenos ever increasing my vocab.

Thursday and Friday my school will host two "festivals", first sports day, and then some kind of school festival. So no teaching for me. My kids are super pumped and excited making teaching very difficult. I'll be in Seoul for a week. I have plans to go get Dark Souls tonight, I hope I can find a copy here. I also have to preorder Skyrim, ship it to the US, and then have them ship it here, as Korea will not be getting Skyrim :(

That's it for my life, if anything big or important comes up, you'll be the first to know.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Kpop Slam / Pokemon

Hello,

Wintermute here with some Dumbr. I have not posted in a really long time, not due to laziness, just lack of desire. Figured while I'm here I'll talk about what I'm doing this week.

With the boys:
We are talking about Pokemon. You might think, "wow, what a terrible teacher". But you'd be surprised the amount of new English words I am able to teach from this lesson. First I go over what an element is. Then go over what elements the Pokemon world has. The students can usually describe them but do not know the words for them. Then I go over a bunch of Pokemon, what element they are, what animal / item they are, and then how they got their English name. They really enjoy the snivy (snake-ivy), servine (serpent-vine) collection. I'm surprised they know what Chandelure is supposed to be. I make a Pokemon with them on the board, they really enjoy that part even though its very kindergarten. Then I have them make their own Pokemon at their desk.

With the Girls:
My girls love Pokemon too, but I don't think it will hold as many students attention and for as long as with the boys. So I play K-POP Slam. Again it might sound like a bad idea, but it gets them talking in a lot of English. Basically each Korean song uses a lot of English words. I give them those English words and they have to figure out what song it goes to. There's also 2ne1 surprise buttons, they can be either good or bad if you choose to take them. There's a whole PPT to go with the game complete with videos, .GIFs, and so on.

It has gotten to the point where I no longer teach anything substantial and instead my lessons have reached a point of obscurity. My students know this and expect this, when I walk in they ask what game we are playing today. Truth be told I feel like I'm doing a wonderful job as I make my students speak English all hour and they don't even know it. I don't have to  force them and they seem to enjoy for the most part. You do get those super brainy kids with their nose in their book looking at the students with disgust, but oh well.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Witch Hunt

Hello,

Wintermute here with some DUMBR. Last time we talked about a game for the boys called Zombie Attack. The correct answer was Scientist because he might be able to cure the disease. The Hunter because he has a gun. And the Teacher because he is smart and resourceful. Someone asked how old my kids are, they are mostly 15.

For the girls I will play a different game, its called witch hunt. Sadly its hard to explain and a bit complicated. First You get everyone in a circle. They are all the townspeople. You tell the town to go to sleep. You select two (or more) to be the witch by tapping their head. You say witches wake up, the two witches wake up and have to select one student to kill. No matter how many witches their are, they all have to agree to kill only one towns person.

Then everyone wakes up. It's a brand new day and they find that one towns person is now dead. It is up to the other towns people to talk among them and decide who they think is the witch. They must select two people, then those two people each give a statement as to why they are NOT the witch. After each statement the town picks only one person to execute. If they are wrong then another towns person died. If they are right there is one less witch.

Someone made an good point. In this game you can add other characters such as Police officers and Judges. I may or may not experiment with this. I think it would be a good idea as it would keep more people involved.

Your Teacher,
Witnermute

Zombie Attack

Hello,

Wintermute here with some daily DUMBR. Every kid in America loves zombies and apparently so do Korean kids. This week with the boys I am doing a zombie attack survival scenario. 

Basically I tell them there is a zombie virus outbreak and now there are zombies everywhere. There is a safe shelter about 5 miles away but only enough room for you and 3 other people. Of the 6 with you, you have to decide on which 3 would be the best to take and help you make it to safety. 

There is; The Doctor, The Teacher, The Cheerleader, The Scientist, The Fireman, and The Hunter. 

The student must weigh the Pros and Cons of each individual and then pick their three. Each person comes with a bio and information about them to help the kids, which I wont post them all but, which team do you think stands the best chance of making it to the shelter?

EDIT: My kids have given me some new ideas and some really good pros to choosing the cheerleader. (Haha) so the point system has changed. and I added two new classes. The Priest and Football player. The priest is immune to the zombies, but that's about it. 

Your Teacher,

Wintermute