Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

My wife has recently begun teaching again, part-time. One of the chants I've been mercilessly forced to endure listening to goes:

"climb up the tree, climb up the tree/ tickle you under there!"

Who writes these double-entendre lyrics, and shouldn't they be held accountable? My first year here, the Wake Up series of books had a mittens cut-out activity, and the bloody things were festooned with pot leaves!

Sparkles*_*

[Zenpickle]

Oh, you know these textbook writers are just as freaked up as the rest of us (I got contacted for a job as one this week, in fact).

In the next few weeks, I'll be featuring a segment on my web site about the Surreal World of Smart Phonics 2, with caffeine addicted dogs, scary clowns with pens in their hair, and gun totin' rams.

Actual quote from the Hip Hip Hooray series:

"How many balls does he have?"

"He has two balls."

[the eye]

i have a theory that these textbooks sound freaky for our (esl teachers) benefit.
much in the same way that current animated movies contain adult humor, i think the authors add certain questionable sentences just to keep a smile on our faces.

[canadian_in_korea]

[JacktheCat]

My favorite is the one in English Time 4

"I want to see Mars, let me look."

"I want to see Saturn, let me look."

"I want to see see Uranus, let me look."

[mithridates]

I've got a book called Mr. Pot the painter. Mr. Pot doesn't like his down so he goes to meet Leslie Longladder, borrows his ladder and then Mr. Pot paints the sky a new colour. Cute...

[Pyongshin Sangja]

I once had a book about Noddy and Big Ears. They used to sleep together until they discovered that it was more fun to chase Gollywog around and throw stones at him. Anyone else have the same book? It's a classic.

[endofthewor1d]

[Merlyn]

I forget the name of this book, you may have seen it. Actually, I've only seen and used it in my first job in Korea three years ago. It was meant for advanced children but the material was really quite amusing. Probably better suited for adults and even then questionable. The characters are all foreigners from a variety of countries and they are trying to learn English. There is some French guy movie star or something like that, some pretty got girls and on and on. The lesson where they teach countable and uncountable nouns has the arrogant French character looking into his fridge and pretty much all he has inside are beers and bottles of hard liquor and a few bottles of milk. One of the later lessons has the same character getting pulled over by a police officer for drunk driving and has quite a funny dialog with the officer and himself where he takes no responsibility for his actions. Again, a later chapter has him in court and again another funny discussion with the judge. Well, you probably have to read it for yourself. I wish I could remember better. Anyone else read this book?

[Merlyn]

I forget the name of this book, you may have seen it. Actually, I've only seen and used it in my first job in Korea three years ago. It was meant for advanced children but the material was really quite amusing. Probably better suited for adults and even then questionable. The characters are all foreigners from a variety of countries and they are trying to learn English. There is some French guy movie star or something like that, some pretty got girls and on and on. The lesson where they teach countable and uncountable nouns has the arrogant French character looking into his fridge and pretty much all he has inside are beers and bottles of hard liquor and a few bottles of milk. One of the later lessons has the same character getting pulled over by a police officer for drunk driving and has quite a funny dialog with the officer and himself where he takes no responsibility for his actions. Again, a later chapter has him in court and again another funny discussion with the judge. Well, you probably have to read it for yourself. I wish I could remember better. Anyone else read this book?

[Grotto]

Yup there are some real winners out there. My personal Favorite was when I was working with REI last year

The 3 little pigs. On the test for the story they had a question that made me laugh my ass off.

What did the three little pigs do to the wolf?

1. Tie him up
2. Call their mother
3. Blow him
4. Say go away wolf

I thought it was funny.

[Dispatched]

Not sure what the series of books are called but they are basically beginner kids books and stories like 3 little pigs, gulliver's travels etc. Each page has 4 pictures, comic book style with easy to say phrases and alot of repetition... one such book my director is teaching the beginner class is based on the 80s? movie 'Love Story', the book has pictures from the movie and easy dialogue. I was flicking through the book on my break and noticed towards the end there was a fight scene on an ice hockey rink, as one guy was getting punched the phrase beneath was, 'you Canadian fa--ot!' and on another page the phrase was 'you son of a b-----!'. When I bought this to the attention of my director he said, 'mmm, yes, some parts we skip through very quickly'

[Zenpickle]

[Zenpickle]

I'll try to track down this other simple phonics book that notoriously uses questionable clip art. One piece of clip art used repeatedly are these creepy looking pigs hunched over wearing wigs with their tails sticking out and their eyes closed.

"Okay," I thought, "A little strange."

Then we got to a page where they pasted two clip art pigs next to each other so close that they were doing something that I think is forbidden in Leviticus or Romans for humans to do.

If I find it, I'll scan it for you.

[Zenpickle]

Here they are. I haven't had time to get to an editing program to decrease their sizes. This is from EFL Phonics 2.


Here's the standard pig:


And here are two paired a little too close together (I certainly hope that's a tail I see):