Pictures of Snow in Chuncheon, South Korea--if it's like this in December I can't wait to see January and February!

These are shots of the snow Chuncheon got last week . . . I woke up to see this,

A lot of Koreans are always saying to me that Canada has more snow and that it's colder there. This is TRUE for the northern parts of the country, and some other places, but Canada is a huge country with a varied climate . . . to me, the pics I took here look like they could be taken from my parent's place back in London, Ontario.

I didn't get a chance to see how Koreans clean the snow off their cars . . . I wonder if they use the kind of brush with scraper tools that we do back in Canada.

I seriously hope the guy who owns this bike didn't ride it that day.

Path I walk every day on the way to work.

Stopping by the Family Mart variety store to get some breakfast I saw these cigarettes--wow, seasonal packaging . . . lol.

The roads were in poor condition. I was glad to see for the most part that the drivers were slowing down a little.

The guys putting down the new sidewalk weren't out today . . . too much snow.

Little kids making snowballs . . .

On campus, some of the statues I see every day on the way to my office.

The last of the roses . . .

I want to get a macro lens . . . but for now the lens I have does a pretty decent job.

The security ajeosshis (middle-age married men) shoveling snow . . . I don't think I've seen any snow blowers in Korea . . . hmmmm, might have to keep an eye out to see if there are any around.

I was seriously wondering if any students would try to ride their bikes in the snow . . .

Outside my office I put up the 'puppets' with teaching English mini-scripts students made in the Classroom English course. It's a pretty good tool to use at ANY level of student. Whether it's elementary, middle, high school or university students you can use this to help them develop their writing and speaking skills.

The students are allowed to refer to the 2 pages of classroom English expressions we study each week. In pairs they are assigned a section (based on a teaching situation, like "Assigning Homework") and they must write a mini-script with the parts of a teacher and students. They can refer to the list of expressions in English with Korean translations when they make their scripts.

On one side of the page is a Care Bear picture that I give them five minutes to draw details and color to make their own personalized character. I then have them make their scripts on the other side of the page on the blank lines (about 20 minutes, sometimes 25).

The idea is that after finishing the picture, and the script, students can fold the page in half, staple it along two sides (top, and side) leaving the bottom OPEN. This can then serve as a 'puppet' to be used for role-plays and speaking English.

Lower level grades, ages, and ability can be given a previously made script that has varying degrees of fill in the blanks on a script almost completely made by the teacher (the students fill in vocabulary from the lesson, or whatever the language goal is--it doesn't matter that the script is already 90% done as long as some writing is taking place, and then later some speaking). You can also try using a gap-fill dialogue in which they must write in phrases/expressions, and so on and so forth.

One of the great things about this lesson is that after students are done and the class is over you can put the pics and scripts up on the walls. Choose a busy area where a lot of students and teachers walk by and watch how many stop to look at the pictures--and then READ and SAY the English . . . it's very cool to see English being used OUTSIDE the classroom (although it's still within the school/university space).

And most important of all--they're cute.

And the names students create for bears can be . . . 'interesting.' Some of my personal favorites made by the high school girls I taught in 2006 are: Love Bear, Sexy Bear, Kidnap Bear, and Kiss Bear. I took pictures of the bears the girls made . . . I'll have to find them later and post some of them.

Outside my office walking across campus . . .

On the way home I pass a couple of flower shops every day . . .

I like the smoke . . .

Juliane and I went out in search of a place to eat and we saw the typical impromptu traveling merchants' tents set up on the sidewalk . . . you'll see this kind of thing in Korea fairly often. Other times you'll see dozens of yellow baskets sitting on the sidewalk with portable lights sitting on the ground behind them with anything and everything you can imagine for a few dollars . . . they're kind of like portable outdoor dollar stores.

Inside the restaurant I took a picture of Julianne . . . and then looked at the screen to check it--oh!

I really like to each chicken dakgalbi . . . but Julianne is on a whole other level of love with this spicy Korean meal. She would eat it every day for dinner if I didn't say, "Uhm . . . how about we eat something else tonight?"

I have, uhm, 'issues' with keeping my eyes open when a flash is being used.

Walking home after eating we saw these . . . cool.

And then I saw the ULTIMATE DELIVERY BIKE in Korea!

The guy who drives this wicked piece of technology saw me taking pics of it and we laughed and exchanged a few words . . . I wish I could have gotten some video of this being driven on the snowy roads!

J

One of my next posts will be about the Medical/Health Check I just had to go for today . . . I guarantee it will be an 'interesting' blog.