Korean Job Discussion Forums

[winterfall]

I'm putting together a lesson for a tech school. Contrary to popular belief , they can do high level advanced vocabulary. But the lesson's have to be framed around hands on stuff. It takes a ton of prep work to pull all the stuff together. Anyway I'm prepping a touching game to teach 2nd 1000 adjectives.

Please suggest samples that are: small, cheap, easily obtainable, and safe.

I need:

1. Firm (Won't conflict with other adjectives like: smooth, rough, etc)

2. Brittle

3. Greasy

[thegadfly]

Are you teaching that adjectives are comparative, or are they absolute values? For example, if you teach tall, do you teach that tall is situational? For example, a 2nd grader that is 160cm is very tall, but still short when standing next to most adults, and quite short next to Choi Hong Man....

If you teach them as comparatives, I would use tofu (dooboo) for firm, by contrasting the "firm" tofu with the "silky" tofu that comes in the tube -- the firm tofu holds its shape and stands up to gravity, whereas the other will droop and puddle....

Uncooked angel-hair pasta, or just regular spaghetti for brittle, since it often breaks into many pieces when it snaps...or just regular potato chips....

If you can find mini-marshmallows, you can do an activity where you have students try to make the tallest free-standing structure with only the spaghetti and marshmallows (sort of like tinker-toys -- the marshmallows form the joints/anchor points). I would imagine it might be a hands-on activity chock-full of adjectorial opportunity

You could get greasy from butter, or you could buy a bag of street food -- fried whatever (I am partial to the squid or shrimp). The place I buy it puts it in a white paper bag, then drop that in a plastic bag -- the greasy white paper could be used for the adjective greasy....

If you want to differentiate greasy from oily, perhaps cook some bacon and save the grease, cooled to room temperature, and contrast that with some kind of cooking oil....

[winterfall]

Woo hoo!! thanks. Pasta, I would've never thought of that. I started thinking of lead but the damn thing's too small. With pasta, I can still all small handful in each sample.

Tofu is a great idea but, that's only for looking. It would be hard to use in a touching game. I need something a little more durable. I was thinking of pill cases but 18 of those is gonna wreck havoc on my wallet.

For greasy, I might be able to pour some oil or Vaseline onto napkins but its iffy. It's gonna be hard to keep it separate for a touching game when everything's mixed together. I'm worried about rub off.

[thegadfly]

Not sure how you are running the game, but if there are points involved, could you allow some materials to have multiple answers, so long as all answers are correct (a glass cup is smooth AND firm is worth two points, just smooth OR firm is worth one)? Then you could have some items that overlap, so firm would not be so hard to differentiate from smooth or rough....

Greasy seems to be at odds with keeping things clean, or with things to hand students, but I think those little stickyhands toys (like gummi worms) felt kind of slick and greasy, but that would also open up other problems....

[matthews_world]

Do the magic bag activity where they stick their hand in to feel the object or give them the adjectives and they brainstorm items which fit.

Give them a point if they give any answer which would fit.

Start with an easy game and write an adjective on the board. In 2 min. they brainstorm and write down as many items they can think of in English that would correspond.

Example: something yellow: canary, U.S. taxi cab, U.S. school bus, urine, etc.

I usually do this as some sort of warmup at the beginning of class with older or higher level students.

[winterfall]

The game is for them to practice the vocab words I taught in english and Korean. They split into pairs and each pair gets a cup filled with different samples. 1 sample for each vocab word. They play rock, paper, scissor. The winner puts a blindfold on and reaches into the cup. Plays with the sample and says the vocab word in english and Korean. His or her partner would know if they got it right or not

If they get it right they get to keep the sample in their small little pile. The winner of each pair is whoever has more samples.

Any less structured activity that has them using words they already know or multiple words runs into a lot of problems. If you let them use their own words, they're keep saying "Big" for everything all class. If you let them use multiple words they're only using the words they know and won't try to learn anything new no matter how many extra points you give. That and mixing stuff like more than 1 adjective or just using the word "And" in general is too hard for them. Requires too much brainpower

In other words, they're "Special"

Need to keep it as simple as possible, otherwise they won't do it

PS

I found some styrofoam balls for brittle. A pack of 100, 12mm sized cost 1,000 won, not bad at all. And firm is gonna be small cut up chunks of chopsticks. I took out greasy and stuck in nylon / tough. Gotta go dumpster diving for broken umbrellas