Singing her heart out in the 'key of O' -- nore bang singing in front of M department store, Chuncheon, South Korea

Seeing Koreans give 1 BILLION percent effort for activities that have group approval reinforces my belief that it's 'easy' to get Korean students to speak English if you can find the right 'access codes' to a class' "collective mind" . . .

Case in point this girl singing her heart out in the 'key of O' with a large group of people watching proves this (I'd use the word "strangers" but in Korea the concept of 'everybody is part of one big social family' doesn't allow for the meaning to apply correctly).

She could be one of those American Idol people who think their singing is amazing, but if she isn't and is still willing to get up and sing when she knows she's missing a lot of the notes . . . well, then there's hope for getting Korean students to speak English in front of their peers . . . and miss a lot of grammar and pronunciation points, etc, but still do it anyways.

I know it's not as simple as just getting the entire class to think it's a good idea to speak in English, and for their friends to speak in English too . . . but even with the best lesson plan, lesson content, and teaching method it can be an enormous challenge to get students thinking it's a good idea to speak in English if they think the class is going to laugh at them, or give a large collective "HORRRRRR" if they speak English well . . . I seriously want to get that collective HORR sound on video . . . it's something that unless you've taught English in Korea just can't be understood.

Anyways, just some random thoughts about the cultural phenomenon about how individual behavior can be off the charts as long as the group approves . . .

J