Korean Job Discussion Forums

[spyro25]

sometimes in adult conversation classes or when doing privates your students tell you stuff that they would never ever say out of the classroom. intimate details of their private lives often come out during free-talking sessions and i often feel like a counsellor first, teacher second. i'd love to do a study one day into the therapeutic effects of joining an english class to see if expressing yourself in another language has a sort of truth serum effect.

anyway - i thought i would share some of the stuff that my students just seem to talk freely about in class and i hope you might join in......

off the top of my head:

i've had a number of students tell me they hate their spouses
i've had a number of students tell me they have had / are having affairs on loved ones
i've had students confess suicide attempts
i've had students break down in tears when talking about loved ones who have passed on
i've had students contemplating murder
i've had students tell how they have broken the law, usually by stealing or fraud
i've had students tell me intimate sexual details about their weekends (unprovoked)

best one ever - i had a student tell me she was walking in geyongju when she came to a grave of some old korean general. suddenly she was trapped in an invisible wall, and her friend told her she must bow three times to this general out of respect. refusing to bow, she ran away and spent the next 3 days fast asleep at home. when she awoke, she could see the 'aura' of certain trees. some trees didnt have an aura, and other trees either had white or black auras. if she touched a tree with a black aura, she blacked out and woke up a day later. this lasted for three years until she could see the auras no more. the only other person she has mentioned this to was the friend who was with her at the time.

can anyone top this awesome in-class confession?

[laogaiguk]

It's actually quite normal to lose a lot of inhibition while speaking in a foreign language. It's not the same. Think of swearing in a foreign language. Saying *beep* in another language isn't the same.

[spyro25]

[skdragon]

[spyro25]

not sure what the white aura trees were. only older trees had an aura. i guess the white aura trees erased her memories......

i swear i'm not making it up - this happened last week. the topic was superstitions - and i asked her if she believed in ghosts, and she just came out with this! it took 20 mins for her to explain the whole story.

[Khenan]

Should have shown some respect... could have gotten mad xp out of it!

[jay-shi]

[Fishead soup]

Had lots of married men admit to sleeping with prostitutes. I was even offered to go with a male(married) middle school teacher to a red light district in Pyeoungteck. I've had them quote prices and talk about the quality of services provided. This was all done in a teacher training center in the presence of female teachers.

[Horangi Munshin]

Not a confession but a strange association in teacher's class. There was only the core of about 7 students (all female teachers as usual)

I did a lesson on Konglish. First I used a multi-choice quiz on the internet. The first question was "What is Konglish for exchange?" The options were swap-swap, switch-ee, change-ee and trade-ee.

Before they answered one of the teachers said "Oh swap has a bad meaning on the internet, do you know Horangi teacher?" I didn't twig to what she was on about. So she explained about internet searches turning up wife swapping. Another teacher then asked me "Horangi teacher do you know about wife swapping?"

Maybe my lessons are a bit dull for them!

In a previous lesson a teacher admitted she didn't love her husband it was an arranged one.

[Fishead soup]

[Boodleheimer]

an adult student in China confessed she'd had an abortion because she and her husband couldn't afford to have a kid at that time. the kicker (for them) was that it was a boy.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

The other week questions about when I lost my virginity suddenly arose when one of my (grade 3 high school) students proudly announced 'Teachah, I know all things bedroom! ... all things!' she reiterated, making a big circle in the air with her hands.

[Carlyles Ghost]

Was doing verb tense drills once. A student wrote "My father slept with another woman....my father is sleeping with another woman....my father is going to sleep with another woman." I thought hopefully, "okay, maybe she's just being creative?"

A week later, we moved onto adjectives/adverbs and the same student wrote...."My father slept with another woman....My father is sleeping with another woman...my father is going to sleep with another woman."

For three weeks, all she wrote about was her father sleeping with another woman. I did not choose her for the question and answer portion of the class.

[Horangi Munshin]