That was the case for only a few kids. I am at the point where I know which of the 250 Grade 6 students speak at a low level but they're usually able to tell me their favorite subject, foods, and how many brothers and sisters they have and other simple questions. For higher level students I ask them things like their hobbies, where they'd like to travel, what music, books and movies they like, and questions that build off of simpler questions too. Sometimes when I was sick of hearing, " I have a younger brother," and "I like Pija" I'd tell them to ask me a question. After the first week of this activity my co-teacher and I collectively decided that the higher level students should think of questions to ask me. In the end we decided it would be better to give them a choice whether to ask or be asked.
Here's the top 5
5. One kid on the baseball team at my school was born in Korea, then lived on Long Island for eight years, and came back the same time I arrived. His English is significantly better than his Korean but now that's changing according to my CTs. However, we talked about the differences in between New York and Korea in terms of baseball and he finds that Baseball is more important here than in America. The baseball team's youngest players are in Grade 3 and the team practices from 3 to 6 almost everyday. I don't think that would ever happen in Canada (unless it was hockey) but I won't say the same about our neighbors to south.
4. I'm pretty close with one of the Grade 6 teachers and she told me one of her students (who doesn't look Korean at all) went to the Philippines to study English over the winter vacation. In class he's still a statue but with the interview he was a little more talkative. Despite the praise I have for this student he didn't exactly pick my favorite question:
"Do you have a girlfriend?:
"No,"
"Why?"
"I'm too busy. I travel on weekends, I play lots of sports and I'm a teacher too."
"I'm too busy too to have a girlfriend."
We both laughed, awkwardly, and ended it there.
3. I asked a girl how here weekend was and she had just started learning Chinese. I asked if she wanted to go to China and she shook her head. She knew the country wasn't very clean and, we didn't get into specifics here, she didn't agree with some of their customs and values. She reads and listens to the news frequently with her parents which was something I never had the patience to do. Big ups to her!
2. Another student chose to ask me some questions. The first two were "How old are you?" and "What's your favorite Korean food?" but his third question was really unique: "What is your heaven?" I took me awhile to answer him but eventually it came down to being able to see everyone in my family who had passed away and getting to see the ancestors I never got to meet... and get completely wasted with them.
1. I asked a lot of students what their favorite bands and musicians were. Most of them said K-Pop people I'd never heard of, no one was a huge fan of Psy but they don't hate him either. One girl told me she likes Justin Bieber and THE BEATLES! That was probably the coolest moment of all the interviews, hence the power ranking. Knowing that kids can and do listen to music from my parents era makes me think anything is possible and the internet is an amazing time capsule.
As a teacher I really want to be able to continue this routine with my students even when I'm finished with ESL and I recommend this as a space filler or warm-up for speeches.
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