"Please...today...you are teaching...308."
Excuse me?
"Today...no here. You go...(pointing)."
Not that I'm completely insensitive to the difficulties of communicating in a foreign language--hell, if my Chinese sounds half that good I'll be rather impressed with myself. But wouldn't you think that if you spent that amount of time in an English school, some of it would rub off?
On the other hand, I understand if they've given up on learning anything at this school--it's a mess, quite frankly. In my class this morning, one of the students didn't know what "vote" meant, while another one used the term "presidential campaign" unprompted. Trying to teach something to the higher-level students without confusing the hell out of the lower-level ones is a unique challenge, and I hope I'm getting better.
Before and after class is much more fun. There are so many brilliantly-named shops in the neighborhood, they never fail to put a smile on my face. Even if I just spent the last forty-five minutes rehashing the present perfect progressive with a grab bag of adult learners.
For those who've never visited, K-town in Manhattan is absolutely brimming with five types of product:
1. Korean food and groceries
2. Spa services (both legitimate and questionable)
3. Cheap accessories
4. Perfume
5. Cell phones
I'd guess that 90% of the businesses in K-town fall into one of the above categories. Nothing surprising there. The fun part is reading the names of the stores as you wander around. For starters, I'll share one of my favorites:
I guess I can sort of understand "cherry fashion." But tomato? Trying to imagine how they came up with that one leaves me as confused as an ESL student tackling third conditionals--but much more pleasantly so, I'm sure.
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