MOVIE TRAILERS

So my original plan for the English camp was to get the students into groups, have them write scripts, make story boards, give them different roles (director / cameraman) and then have them make their movie and see which is the best. BUT.
Only about 10 kids showed up, and many of them weren't consistent. And they struggled with the creative tasks I gave them, especially story / script writing. SO.
I decided that we would just make a movie trailer. and I would film / edit it.

To be honest I'm not sure the kids knew exactly what was going on until I showed them the finished film today haha. It's really nice for the kids to have something to take away and have fun learning english, but the downside was that it was a lot a lot of work for me! I spent the whole weekend working, sleeping for only a very few hours in total. and we had some wedding planning to do, as well as I still had to make lessons. Anyway it was pretty intense. but now here I am, sleep deprived but satisfied with a small sense of achievement.
I think Eun-mi is beginning to worry about what life living with a perfectionist will be like though...

Here are the finished movie trailers:

Mr Korea

Gyeongnam Dangerous

NEW APARTMENT

Hurray! we bought a flat!
There were some apartments closer to where we work... but we liked this place a lot more. It's brand new (december 2012) so I'm hoping that's a good thing. It's also right next to 'Home Plus' which is actually 'Tesco' but they changed the name in Korea. It's also got a kind of mezzanine floor so our living / sleeping space is somewhat separated.

I will officially move in first on the 26th of January.

CREATIVE LESSON

English camp is going well, but it's tricky planning several lessons for each day. Normally I see one class once a week, but here I see the same class 3 times every day.
We did the classic 'Egg drop' challenge as an activity (where you have to design a contraption using simple materials to protect an egg falling from a 3rd story window).

Korean kids struggle quite a lot with any kind of free brief activity like this, they want me to tell them how to design it, and it took them a while to get into it. But it all went well in the end, only one egg failed to survive the drop.

INVITATIONS

Ok so we took a long long time to get our act together but we have finally sent out our wedding invites!
Actually the fault is mine since I kept redesigning it... but we had a lot of fun once we got everything together.

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END OF TERM

So school has officially closed, but I still have to teach a two week english camp. Actually it's very surprising how many students and teachers are still at school despite it being the holidays.
But we had a great meal with all the teachers, we ate lots and lots of meat (including raw meat!)

Also I managed to slice a small chunk of my finger off as I was rushing to prepare materials for my first lesson of English camp. Way to start.
Anyway I had to go to the hospital because it was quite bad.

CHRISTMAS COOKIES!

So as a christmas present to each other me and Eunmi bought a small electric oven! I should probably mention that people in korea don't normally use or own an oven. It's quite small and cheap so I was worried, but it performs excellently.

So we made christmas cookies as gifts for our work colleagues!

CHRISTMAS LESSONS

I've really enjoyed teaching a lesson about christmas this week. I talk about the traditions we have in Britain, and also ask them about the traditions in Korea. We read some christmas cracker jokes together... simple ones they can understand:

Which athlete is warmest in the winter?

A LONG JUMPER

What kind of paper likes music?

WRAPPING PAPER

What did the sea say to santa?

NOTHING. IT JUST WAVED

Then I show pictures of me and my family in England celebrating christmas together. Then I explain about St Nicholas, and how that is loosely linked to Santa Clause. Then I show a presentation that I made explaining who Jesus is, again it's very simple - enough for students to understand and remain interested, but i've been pleasantly surprised at how well they have listened to that part... though it might be something to do with me giving them all a sweets as a christmas present just before.

And to top it all off we watch some of the MR BEAN - CHRISTMAS SPECIAL. Good fun.