June's a Circus

Hello, world. Would you look at that, we're halfway through 2014. Whew. Just a few updates for today!

1. My 3rd-year students' writing portion of their final exam includes a post on our class blog. They will get a few extra credit points if their post gets a lot of views, likes, and comments! So please take some time to look at the nine most recent entries (all made in June) and comment on anything that interests you. Thanks in advance! Here's the blog.

2. I submitted my Castleberry project report on Jeju-eo yesterday. At nearly eight thousand words, I'm actually kind of impressed with my work, especially since this is the first paper I've written in two years (since I graduated from college, reeling from Honors exams). It's far from perfect, and in fact, my research isn't even finished yet, but I'm definitely glad to have finally crossed that hurdle. I'll post a more substantial update on my research soon.

3. This week, as I predicted about a month ago, is the week from hell. It began when I listened to thirty three-minute speeches in my classes today. Only 130 left to go in the next four days! But that's not all: my hardworking students took my offer to correct extra drafts of their speeches seriously, and as a result, the door to my office opened countless times today as students came in shyly, holding out papers and hopes for last-minute favors: "Teacher, can you please check this draft until [sic] tomorrow?" Even though I already corrected 160 drafts -- twice -- in the beginning of June, well... I relish a challenge. Bring it.

4. In one week, I will take my blackbelt test for taekgyeon. Another source of stress, I suppose.

Basically, the month of June has been very, very busy so far, and the end is just coming into view. After next week, it'll be downhill coasting all the way to the end. I'm a bit excited and a bit nervous. In addition, it seems as if grad school stuff is picking up, too. The other day, I received an email that included the names of Cal Linguistics' entering class of 2014: my six soon-to-be classmates! Although I resisted the urge to Facebook stalk them all, I did Google myself really quick, just to see what would come up. And, well, you don't have to scroll for very long to find this blog.

I of course welcome friends and strangers alike to read about my life on my little corner of the Internet, but it sure is strange to think that people I am going to work very closely with for the next five years could know a lot more about me than I know about them before we even meet.

And now, apropos nothing, here is a photo I took at my favorite local bakery the other day.

Profound and mysterious bread. The best part is that this isn't even a mistranslation. 오묘하다 means profound and mysterious. I should have bought this to find out what exactly makes it so!

P.S. Happy Father's Day (back in the States) to my one and only Babi! I think he reads this.

The Future, according to my students

Drafts! As tedious as it can be to correct my students' essays, I enjoy reading them and getting a glimpse of their creative thought processes. Also, these drafts are hilarious. So here are some gems from my first-years' predictions of the future. The prompt was to talk about how the world will change or where they will be in 10, 50, or 100 years. Most of them chose to make omens about global warming and world war, share their dreams of becoming the world's best scientist, or pontificate about developments in technology.

(Keep in mind that these are first drafts, so there are plenty of funny errors; of course, these will be fixed up by the final draft!)

#1 Throwing Fire
So we can forecast our country will be changed, But how? We know that the rock will be move if we put TNT underneath the rock and throw the fire on it, but we can't forcast where will it move exactly.

These are wise words on the unpredictability of change in Korea following a disaster like Sewol-ho.

#2 ALL THE NUTRIENTS
Second, we will eat medicine instead of rice, bread. Our mothers are good at cooking, but maybe they don't like cooking. So, food stores will make medicine that has all the nutrients.

#3 Tubalroo
Don't forget our global issues like submarging Tubalroo, two times of World War and great men who did available works for us.

My friends and I have been debating the veracity of the idea that island nations like Tuvalu or the Maldives are sinking due to global warming. But this issue aside, her spelling is just adorable.

#4 Angry Mammoths
Second, Global warming increases. so the world is as angry as angry mammoths.

NB: I'm requiring them to use similes in their essays. Oh, those poor dead mammoths - avenge yourselves!

#5 Exploitation
But unified Korea we can use North Korea workers for cheap bills.

More students than I'm comfortable with cited the availability of North Koreans to do "3D jobs" (dirty, difficult, and dangerous) instead of South Koreans or Southeast Asian immigrants as a benefit of imminent reunification. Um... Not so hilarious, I guess.

#6 First Penguin
The importance of education is creative mind, character, Leadership, how much do they try, not a result, not a university, not how smart are they, how much do they know. Future, made by us, I hope everyone could be "first penguin" to fix wrong mind.

Great thoughts, great thoughts, great thoughts, and... wait, what?

~ ~ ~ Intermission ~ ~ ~

Class 1-2, the class that never speaks up and never exhibits any shred of enthusiasm, surprised me by writing the most amusing or thought-provoking essays by far:

#7 Candor
There are many scientists in the world. However, they don't think about the environment. I hate them.

#8 Incurable Illnesses
Doctors will make something like panacea and incurable illness like Albinism will be removed from Earth.

Of all disorders to choose for your example...

#9 The True Meaning of Peace
Many Koreans suffered how terrible the division of a tribe is. So only Koreans would understand the importance of peace. Peace does not mean the situation of no war. This is just a narow definition of peace. The true meaning of peace is that all countries coexist and make harmony.

Preach, sister!

#10 The Google Translate Essay
International CEO is also one of my dreams. I will study hard for my dream and Natural systems, as well as humanities disciplines is substantial as it will foster literacy. Through basic science such as physics, chemistry, biology, earh science and so on Further study and will deepen the Engineering Departmant. I am not purely based on mathematical Sciences, engineering, humanities, business, and financial basis of the complex to become a mathematician wants to study at POSTECH. My dream is for the essay is here.

Man! Even after I specifically told this student not to use Google Translate... he went and did it. This one's going to be a struggle.

#11 The Dinosaur of Dreams
On 5/18, the biggest Dinosaur was discovered. Then, I felt that I have many dreams, so I can't choose my real dream yet.

This is either the best non sequitur or a simple mistranslation of "그때".

#12 The Understatements of the Century
First, many separated families will be able to meet again! They will be as happy as a student who gets A grade in test because of this meeting. In now, separated families' number approach in 600~700 thousands. So unification is very very important thing like go to restroom.

This student also stated that nuclear weapons are as scary as a tiger. He must love figurative language!

#13 The Rant
Do you really think that our future life that we just imagined is really good? Can future people have affection for each other? Just look at us! A long time ago, before scientific technology developed, or the computer system was expanded, people connected to each other just face-to-face. And people cared for each other and helped as friendly as a real family. How about these days? When people get together, they start to talk only for 3 minutes. Soon, they just look at smartphone, or tablet PC! What a strange situation.

I was so impressed by this. Girl knows what's up.

"Teacher, you look tired."

Several students and my co-teacher have repeatedly told me this past week that I look tired. I don't take offense to this (1), but it's happened often enough that I'm really curious now if I actually appear physically worse than normal. I feel fine, to be honest. But it's true that I've had a lot of work to do.

Speaking tests for my students are just around the corner. Like a true 일벌레 (workaholic), I've committed to having my students write an outline and multiple drafts of their speeches before giving them in class so that they can present polished work. Yes, my students groaned when I told them how much I was going to require of them. Their second drafts are due on the same day as their big math exam. But I didn't suffer their complaints. A quick apology for the unfortunate timing and then I set them loose for an in-class work day. Like the little angels they are, they (mostly) all proved their diligence.

But my work begins once class is over. My inbox has been like a canyon prone to flash foods this past week. First, I got eighty outlines from the first-years, followed by eighty first drafts from the second-years. When I finished the first-years' outlines, there was a five-day reprieve before I received their first drafts. Eighty of them. And today, just before I left the office, I was inundated with my second years' second drafts. Hello, three-day Memorial Weekend, meet my blue pen of correction.

On Monday, when I return the second-years' second drafts, the first-years will turn in their second drafts. It never ends.

I've done this for my speaking tests for the past three semesters, but it's never felt so hard before. I think it has partly to do with wonky scheduling this semester that is forcing me to administer 160 speech tests in five days (2). But another part of it is that I'm just... tired!

And I can feel my teaching persona slowly going to seed. Since my latest classes have all been free working periods, I prepare next to nothing for them. It's just show up, tell the students to be quiet, show them all the major mistakes everyone made and how to fix them, pass back drafts, then put on some working music and meander the rows to monitor students for the last half hour. Yet this is still exhausting. I've found myself getting annoyed when students keep asking to use the computer to look up translations. I find them too loud when they are simply figuring out tricky syntax with their peers. And I've begun to lose my grip on both my slow teacher's speech rate and my penchant for sarcasm.

"English only in my classroom," I warned two chatterbox students today, before the starting bell had rung. They looked at me blankly. I fixed them with my teacher stare.

"Did you know," I shot at them, "that if you try to speak in English, then you will improve your English skill? It's true!" And without waiting for a reply, I turned my attention back to my classroom setup.

- - -

I've come to understand myself a bit better over the past few months, in that I can now tell what my general mood is by how I feel after taekgyeon practice. During the months of March and April, when I was very stressed out about graduate school decisions, I found myself acting very irritable after evening practice. Our weekly indoor soccer games were like torture. My mental disposition was clearly affecting my physical condition (3). In May, the malaise almost magically dissipated. Well, not magic: correlation. Once my graduate school decision was made and a few other issues were resolved, I had fewer mental burdens in my life. Nothing about the weekly routine at taekgyeon changed, but I found that I was cheerful, swimming in endorphins after each practice.

Having managed to notice with my own, usually blindered eyes how pronounced a change I had undergone, it makes me a bit embarrassed to realize that my students and colleagues have undoubtedly been observing me and can tell when I'm not my usual self.

Well, when my students finally work up the guts to actually tell me I look tired (and also proclaim their awe at how I can manage to correct eighty pages of shoddy English every few days), I'm torn between affection because they demonstrate their care, annoyance because I shouldn't be so noticeably tired, and self-consciousness because, well, to be noticed is to be seen.

Anyway, what I want to say is, I'm extremely busy, and the month of June is probably going to be a complete circus, but through it all, I've just got to stay focused and committed to my job. I have to serve my students and help them as much as I can. They care about me, after all, and I in return have so much affection for them. I don't know how to begin telling the students that I won't be here for much longer, but some have already found out. Sigh...

And the Sisyphean task of correcting drafts begins (once again) tomorrow!

- - -

(1) Should I though? Is the taboo against telling people they look tired a Western thing?)

(2) I am already calling June 16-20 the week from 헐.

(3) Can anyone explain how the Konglish word 컨디션 ("condition") gained its notorious present-day status as the umbrella for all ills and the go-to buzzword for hypochondriacs? If someone is feeling under the weather, dizzy, hungry, tired, achey, stuffy, bored, sad, or desperate for sympathy, they'll tell you, "Oh, my condition is not good today." I'm almost used to it by now. But not yet. I want to tell everyone to simply say, "I'm not well", or even "I'm not in good shape", but Konglish will do what Konglish will do.

Ready, Set, Spring!

Spring break at my alma mater begins today, but for me, this TGIF marked the end of my first week of the spring semester. True to form for a Korean school, the class schedules have not yet been finalized, and I've spent a good chunk of time attending opening ceremonies and sitting in on faculty meetings where I understand nothing. One thing that did surprise me, though, was that I ended up spending fewer hours this week actually teaching classes than I did proofreading posters and scripts for my second-years' upcoming presentations at various science competitions.

The semester has just begun, but already the second-years are in high gear as they prepare everything they can for their university applications this fall. A prize from a national or international science fair would be a huge boon. So, eight students are currently working on five different research projects in physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and environmental science, and all of them approached me in the middle of the week with just one request: "Teacher, please check my draft?"

At times I'd simply get an email from a student with an enormous file attached, subject: "Here is our poster" and nothing in the email body. I've really got to teach them how to properly ask favors of people. This will not fly in college.

Smoothing out the grammar and adjusting the layouts of five scripts and five posters takes a heck of a long time, I soon found out, but on the other hand, I really enjoyed doing it. Like I always say, my students are geniuses, and the advanced work they produce never fails to impress me, even if at times I can't make sense of their English. (I always wonder if my failure to understand is a result of my poor grasp of science, their poor grasp of English, or actually an error in the data, or perhaps even all of the above. In fact, I caught a calculation error in a student's report today, and she was slightly embarrassed, as all of my students are aware that I suck at math.)

Today, the other English teachers, the students' advisers, and I attended their mock presentations and coached them on pronunciation and presentation technique. Some of them will go to Seoul this weekend to compete; I wish them the best of luck!

As for the new first-year students... Yay, freshmen! They are so adorable, there's no denying that. They still bow very low to all the teachers, they usually look lost and confused when they walk into my classroom, and they're also quite friendly so far.

My traditional first class always includes a short Q&A session with my new students, and when I tell them they can ask me any question they like, the first one is almost always, "Do you have a girlfriend?" Sigh... Having been in Korea for so long now, the question doesn't faze me anymore, but -- Americans! If you were asked that by your students, wouldn't you think it rather unexpected, or even rude? It's so hard for me to take that question as a natural part of the getting-to-know-you-process; to be honest, I tend to attribute it to an apparent Korean obsession with relationships that I'll never understand.

Here are some other gems from the grill sessions!

• A girl stood up and stuttered for a minute, embarrassed, before choking out, "Do you think that you are handsome?" I told her I thought I was maybe average.
• Her friend later asked, "Do you think that you look like 휘성?" (Google "Wheesung".) I looked him up in class and said, "Um... no. Next!"
• "Where did you get your hairstyle?" When I told him I went to Hongdae, the whole class went, "우~~~! (Oooh!)"
• One shy student asked, "When will you go back to your country?" The entire class shushed him, but I quickly said that it was fine! Any question is okay. I told him (honestly) that I'm not 100% sure yet. But I feel bad; I don't think he asked because he wants to know how soon I'll be gone, but rather because he knows that foreign English teachers rarely stay for long.
• On that note, one of my second-years, who knows that I plan to go to graduate school, asked me this evening when I was planning to return to the United States. I gave him a more complete answer: I've been accepted to a graduate school, but I have not committed yet. And to be frank, I don't want to leave Korea! I don't even want to be talking about it yet, least of all with my students...
• Another second-year student, whom I called MJ last year: "Teacher, can you call me (by my nickname,) YM? All of my friends call me that." I replied with a smile, "Ooh, does that mean I'm your friend?" Her response: "Um..."
• Lastly, I've discovered a teacher's pet! Ha. Or rather, he discovered me: on Wednesday, a first-year student I hadn't taught yet came by in the afternoon, as nervous and awkward as any new student has ever been. He greeted me in well-rehearsed English, informing me that his name was Dave and that he had come by just to introduce himself. I shook his hand; he bowed when he took it. As soon as he left the classroom, he turned to his friends and let out a loud sigh that clearly meant, "Ughhh I finally did it! That was nerve-wracking as hell." Made me smile. The next day, after class, he asked me if I liked Dr. Who and Supernatural, which are his two favorite TV shows. Unfortunately, I don't. But I invited him to tell me all about the shows so that I could find out!

Cheating

Okay, not gonna lie, it's been a tough week. The good news is that I'm not sick anymore, and my body is getting used to the cold that's settled in for this early winter. On the other hand, taekgyeon has been kind of a drag, because an ahjussi who is in my class turns into this vicious beast whenever we spar, and I'm close to losing my temper at him. I've been too busy to get groceries or work on my grad school apps since Sunday, because school. My schedule was changed (for hopefully the last time!) on Monday, and my class load increased so that I would see the third-years four times a week instead of zero. I was excited about this, until I (foolishly? brilliantly?) decided to create a documentary film project out of thin air to keep them occupied for the last four weeks of school. That took some time.

The real 고민 (trouble), though, is coming from my first-years. Next week, they have their speech tests, so this week and last, they've had to turn in drafts of their work. It's now the time of the semester when I normally post funny tidbits and excerpts from my students' writing, because it's comedy gold. This week I'm posting nothing funny, only something that made me angry and upset.

Two students' second drafts. The pink sentences are the same in both papers. There is some delicious irony here, given the subject of these students' research project.

Cheating. 컨닝. 기만. These two students are in the same research group, so their speech topics are the same. Yet what makes them think they can submit drafts that are over 50% identical? Last night, I went through the first student's draft in its entirety and made notes. Later, when I read the second student's draft, I was shocked to find myself reading the exact same sentences. I highlighted every one that was the same.

Today, I handed back edited second drafts and gave my students time to work on their final drafts. But I took these two students aside, showed them their papers just as you see them, and said, "Can you explain this?" The first student immediately went into a stammering ramble of an explanation. First, it was that they were in the same project group. Second, they had the same information. "We have the same chart," she kept saying, but I didn't understand what she meant. The second student didn't say a word. I told them that it was not and never okay to copy homework, that I wanted them to rewrite their drafts, that I would take away ten points (wildly lenient, but that's my department's policy), and that their main English teacher already knew what they had done. The first student began to try to explain that it was her fault, that she had asked him for help translating hers. The second student was still completely silent; it was actually unnerving.

(Another student in the class was eavesdropping, but when I saw him, I said, "DH. You did not even give me an outline. You did not give me a Draft 1. You did not give me a Draft 2. You must turn around and work. NOW.")

This wasn't the first time I caught students cheating, and it also wasn't even the last time today. Last week, one of my highest-level students wrote the first draft for a lower-level student. I knew it couldn't have been his, since it was written in impeccable English with a neat blue pen. He always uses a pencil; he confessed right away, but she tried to excuse her way out of it.

"Did you write this?"
"No!"
"Really?"
"... I helped him write it, but I didn't write it!"
"This isn't even his handwriting."
"..."

When I realized that a student had just lied to me -- directly to my face, and with complete conviction -- I was floored. Both of those students also got ten points taken away and a severe scolding from my co-teacher. She made them write apology letters.

The policy is that I take away ten points (out of one hundred) from a student if I catch them cheating. So far, I have taken away over 100 points from the first-year students collectively. I have 82 first-year students. That means over 10% of my students have cheated on their homework! For the only assignment I give them that counts toward their grade! What the heck is the problem?

Seven students copied each other's work. Three swiped entire paragraphs from articles online (one of them used an image-to-text program to copy text from a PDF, but the result was dozens of computer-generated typos that she didn't even bother to fix). After I called these three students into my office today, lectured them, and sent them away, I slumped down in my chair and nearly felt like crying. I honestly never expected to have a cheating problem this insidious. Has anyone ever told these students that plagiarism is a serious offense? Especially for students who are going to go to prestigious research universities -- many of them will become scientists. If they think they can get away with copying other people's work now, they need to be taught otherwise, and taught in a way they won't forget.

Indeed, I'll admit I was sorely tempted to advocate automatic zeroes to my co-teacher. But this speech test is worth 10% of their grade, and it's the only grade I give each semester. 10% zilched would be a serious blow. But 10% of 10%? It's a slap on the wrist and a lukewarm, I'm-trying-to-sound-tough-but-really-I'm-just-severely-disappointed lecture that they'll forget when the door closes behind them.

Although I still smile and fist-bump my students when I pass them in the halls, I feel like they've broken my trust. The very fact that I broke my rule against taking work home yesterday and stayed up past midnight to check all eighty drafts for evidence of cheating says something. I still have two classes' worth of drafts to actually edit, but I don't even want to look at them right now. A lot of it is shoddy work; even the students who didn't cheat seem not to have worked much on improving their initial rough drafts. "Advanced students", right...

I'm going to sleep, and I'll get to the drafts tomorrow before my afternoon classes. Lest I go to bed angry, though, I think it's important that I try to look at the other side of the story. My students have been extremely busy the past few weeks in preparation for the annual science fair. In fact, they had to present their research projects (in Korean) in front of their peers, teachers, and some judges, so it's reasonable that their little English test got pushed to the side. I stopped by the science fair briefly yesterday, and it was just as impressive as last year. Word is that the first-years' projects are less "successful" overall (whatever that means) than last year's, but who cares? I was content just to see their posters and awesome displays.

JH explains his project on testing a plant's resistance to various pollutants.

YM explains the algorithm he worked out that can solve any 2x2 or 3x3 Korean "Hexagonal Tortoise Puzzle".

And besides simply making up excuses for my students, I should also remember that everyone makes mistakes. Maybe a lot of students happened to make their mistakes at the same unfortunate time this semester, but that doesn't actually make it worse (or better). So, just as I would quickly forgive one student for a misstep, I can forgive ten, twenty, maybe even more. How many times in my life have I been forgiven for doing terrible things and trying to get away with them? More than I care to remember.

Here's to my first-years, wishing them the best of luck on their speech tests next week! 화이팅!

PSAs (Even More Drafts)

It's that time again! My students' only grade in my class is based on a speech they must prepare and give before their classmates. Just like last semester, I had them write a first draft to get started. And just like last semester's first drafts, these were wild and wonderful and highly amusing. The topic this time was a Public Service Announcement on behalf of any societal or global issue. Interestingly enough, at least a quarter of my students wrote about stopping suicide and/or school bullying. Either it was the easiest topic to research and write about, or it was the most important to them personally... maybe both. Anyway, here are some funny excerpts from the first drafts. I promise that all of these improved dramatically by the third or fourth draft!

On Korean students' gaming addiction:
I'm not saying that the game is bad so you shouldn't play games. Game can be good harby [hobby] to kick the stress.

On stopping the organ black market:

Before to speech, I'll tell you a horrible story in US. A man went to the bar, and he met a woman whom he haven't met ever. She said to him, "Do you wanna drink? Here." She gave a drink to him for free. He drank and felt asleep. When he was awake, his stomach is strange. His kidneys are gone. It's fairly frightful, isn't it?

On sending aid to Africa:
There are no development in Africa because of leadership in Africa. Africa's nations are earn money by farming. However leadership of Africa using tax on have their own profit. Therefore civil war breaks out.

(For the record, I made sure the student who wrote this realized that Africa is very diverse, and not every country is in the same politico-economic situation.)

On preventing suicide:

- Therefore, if Family and friends feel very tired, you must help them to provide suicide.

- Therefore, we should be interested in [people who show suicidal tendencies] and hear their stories. You can small effort of one human group as the word "Many a little makes a mickle", to create a society without suicide.

- If you suicide, your family will be very sad and society lose various life. An archaic world, the best dawn is to die before parent's die.

- So just get closer to other, and talk with laughter. Show your neighbors some good side of our world, and the infinite brightness to shine their lives. Show them their life is worthy to live, and our world is bright. Raise the fallen hope with bright smile.

On bees:
'If Bees disappear, Ever human gonna die.' - Albert Einstein - and, Bees are disappearing.

More Drafts

I had to deal with a case of cheating today. Fortunately, it went as smoothly as I could have hoped for! Here's what went down:

My students are writing reports on their scientific research (Research and Education project, or R&E) that they must present in an oral exam styled after speech-giving. We've been working on this for the past five weeks, actually: the result of my seeing each class only once a week, plus the massive amounts of free work time I gave them, because I wanted these speeches to be as perfect as possible. Well, I shouldn't have been surprised that some students still had very little to work with after a month, and accordingly, some of the speeches have been horrendous. Others have been absolutely perfect, which brings me joy.

But one student in particular, who will remain anonymous, showed essentially no effort. He handed in a first draft that was just a few sentences, and didn't bother to hand in a second draft. Two weeks later, he had his speech test, and stumbled through it, not really having memorized whatever was on his paper. And it was when he turned in this paper, the third and final draft, that I noticed something was up.

The final draft the student handed me was written in nearly impeccable English and I instantly suspected (more like knew) that the student had not written it. Or if he had, then he had to have written it in Korean and had someone else translate it. What I read simply could not have been produced by this student, a hunch I confirmed when I asked my co-teacher, and she said that this student normally had extremely low scores in her class.

We briefly discussed what we should do, and we knew we had to confront this directly. My co-teacher said, "You know, if this makes you uncomfortable, just know that it makes me uncomfortable, too." There are two things I'm sure you all know by now: grades in the Korean education system are the Most Important Thing, and parents can be insane. In extreme cases, the opprobrium a student caught cheating for good grades faces is nothing compared to the scandal churned up by the parents against the school, as if teachers are somehow responsible for students who have to resort to such measures.

In any case, we called in the suspected student, and I asked him to sit down and tried to deal with the problem as professionally as possible. I showed him his paper and asked him, "Is this your final draft?"

He knew what was up immediately. He said, "Yes, but... someone helped me to write it. But, I-"

I interrupted him. "Who helped you write it?" I asked, fearing that it might have been another student.

"My father," he replied. His face was completely expressionless, but there must have been a lot going on behind it. "He is a teacher at hagwon."

"Well, your father has very good English," I said, relieved, "but this is not good. I want you to write another speech, by yourself. And you will give your speech again, next week. Do you understand?"

He understood. In fact, he told me that he had already begun to write another speech. I let him go, and when the door closed behind him, my co-teacher (who had been in the room, watching and listening) chuckled. She said he looked so cute when he confessed. We were both glad that it didn't turn into anything uglier. I mean, part of me really wants to call up the student's father and chew him out for what he did, but I'm going to let it slide. He's going to be punished enough by the points deduction; in fact, both of them are being punished by this, in a sense. And this way, I was able to give him a second chance.

- - -

So, just because they fit thematically, and because I'll never get around to posting them otherwise, here are some choice excerpts from my students' first drafts. They're funny. (And they've all improved dramatically since.) Enjoy.

#1: First, make a box
There are so many surface structures such as honey comb, lotus leaf, etc... and it's very useful in many ways. In order to research about this, we made some surface structure by chemical experiment. We'll test many things. Materials: Many types of polymers, water. Method: First, make a box in which we will do experiment [...]

#2: We meet propessal (professor)
Title: "beams go down and Tables go down with Glass" -- we start our R&E since September. We already study force's blance. I will explain go down, beams, go down is [Korean] beams is [Korean] our R&E which search go down table with glass we studied material physics to reaseach and we meet propessal. We don't finish experiment. so we don't have data. Our R&E find out Glass and table is go down when our R&E finish, the table which have glass on elastic is not important

#3: We've released a lot of chlorine when junior tied the goat (The Google Translate Essay)
Title: "English Speech Drart1" -- The angle at which the subject of my math R&E traces of the endpoint of the segment under study for a change. In this study, we've released a lot of chlorine when junior tied the goat comes from the problem of saving the trace to move. Moons of the planets also orbiting around the planet and at the same time orbiting around the Sun when I was wondering about what draws the traces. Research first, computer programs to obtain a graph satisfies the condition. [...] Three ways to save a relationship with us through trillion, depending on the ratio of the segments of the expression cos values yielded different anchor points increases, the coefficient in front of the cos value has changed.

#4: Last but not least, the one that was handed in to me entirely in Korean.

I don't know, A for Affort, I guess?

Draft

[in a Western accent] In these here parts, a good way to git students to care about English is to threaten 'em with a grade. Now, I weren't the one doing the threatenin', but Co-teach decided that I'd probably be a good person to judge the students' speakin' ability. Long story short, they've got ta give a three-minute speech in front of the class, in English and memorized, and whatever they git on it becomes ten percent of their grade in the grammar class. It goes without sayin' that they're takin' it seriously, most of them, leastways. Most of 'em are takin' advantage of the fact that I'm allowin' them to hand in as many drafts as they like, as I'd said on my honor that I'd correct 'em. That said, I won't go acceptin' no drafts without the student askin' me properly, first! In English! So here's what happened yesterday...

Four students mob me in the hallway, puttin' pieces of paper under my nose.

"Teacher! My draft!"

I crack a smile, thinkin', well, I'm not lettin' this go that easily. And I smile, jus' waitin'.

"Teacher, my draft... uh... [in Korean] How do you say 'check' in English?"

They know what I'm thinkin'. And I know they know what I'm thinkin'. "Yes?"

And they try so many darn times!

"I want... my draft."
"My draft, examine? Exam?"
"Please, you, my draft."
"I want to... check my draft."

This game's pretty fun, I'm thinkin'. "Who do you want to check your draft?"

"I want to check my draft... to you!"
"I want to examine my draft to you?"

Passin' period's almost up, so I give in. I say it to 'em, real slow. "I would like you to check my draft."

They repeat, and one of 'em counts the individual words on his fingers as he sounds 'em out. "I would like you to check my draft. [in Korean] Oh, this is so hard."

And I make all four of 'em say it back to me before I go takin' their papers. Then, a fifth student saunters up to the crowd. "What's up?" I say.

"Please check my draft." Hands me his paper. Walks away.

Folks are impressed. In a manner of speakin'... what a boss.