TEAM: The English Advanced Masters
Also it’s that time of the week for me to brag about my advanced English boys. My 3rd grade all stars. They came up with the name “TEAM” – The English Advanced Masters – and meet every Monday morning to speak English during their first period class. I have that period free on Mondays so it’s reserved for their club class of sorts. The first week we talked about “what comes to mind when you hear ‘America’” and “what comes to mind when you hear ‘Korea’” to get a basis of misconceptions, stereotypes, beliefs, common themes, differences, and interests. Guns and hitchhiking definitely came up in our topic of America. Studying and culture were mentioned during our talk about Korea. We decided that we’d talk more about the two countries later this semester and each student could choose a topic to present on. We also started cursive writing. This has something that all five of these boys have been interested in. I found some cursive writing worksheets online and we went over them very slowly. Later this year, I think we’ll go back to this. I think the last time I studied cursive was maybe fifth grade, so this was a funny experience for all of us together!
The next week, we met and talked about Chuseok. I was blown away by the out of class commitment that these boys have. They all took photos and videos and made PowerPoint presentations about their break, what they did, what they ate, and where they visited. It was nothing short of amazing. This isn’t a class. It’s not for credit. They’re not required to do anything. These are five 14 year old boys, who come to school early to meet with me before class, and to practice speaking English.
I don’t know if they’re frequently told that they’re brilliant – but I feel like I definitely pour on the praise when we meet every Monday morning. Not necessarily telling them “oh you’re so smart, you’re so brilliant, you’re the best” – but “wow, look at how hard you’ve worked, look at how well you prepared, you spoke so clearly during your presentation, you didn’t need to look at the screen – that’s impressive.” I think that these compliments (observations) stick a little better anyway. So they all presented on Chuseok, or the (I cringe as I water this down) Korean version of Thanksgiving. Again, I’m not Korean and I’ve only had one Chuseok experience, and I know that I can’t call Chuseok “Thanksgiving” without acknowledging that this does not do the culture and the holiday itself justice. But their Chuseok presentations were great and when it came time to discuss what the next topic would be, I think they were a little surprised that they had some leeway. They all presented for a total of 3 to 5 minutes each this week, and I assumed the same would be the case the next week.
They asked what topics would be acceptable, and I said that I wanted them to speak English and present on something that they wanted to talk about. So we started brainstorming. They all mentioned talking about Korean culture, American culture, middle school life, what exams are like, but the boys looked like they weren’t really interested in presenting any of these topic ideas, even though they were the ones who suggested them. I don’t blame them. They’re middle school boys.
“I have an idea,” I said. They all gave me looks of minor concern. If they came up with “middle school life and exams” for topic presentations, I think they were secretly dreading what presentation idea their teacher could possibly come up with.
“I don’t really know a lot about Korean culture,” I start. They nod tentatively.
“And I don’t really know a lot about middle school daily life.” The boys look a little wary.
“And I’m teaching at an all boys middle school.” They chuckle.
“I think that it’s important for me to understand middle school boy culture. What do you do on the weekends?” The look around at each other and answer matter-of-factly.
“We study! We go to academy… we go to… we study,” they answer obviously. “On Saturdays and Sundays, we study at our academies.”
“That’s all you do?” I ask jokingly – they laugh because it’s no secret that they all work extremely hard, and it very easily could be all that they do! But I keep digging a little deeper here.
“What do you do after you study?” I ask. I know that they can’t possibly be studying all the time. I’ve been throwing up photos of Ronaldo and soccer gifs and League of Legends characters on my PowerPoint slides in class like there’s no tomorrow, and I know that they catch every single video game reference I can scrape together. I know that they play video games. FIFA and LOL rule their lives outside of school and hagwon. They can’t fool me.
“PC bang!” someone says excitedly. “Yes, PC bang!” someone else says. “How could we forget. Video games! We play video games!”
“Huh,” I say. “It seems like playing video games might be an important part of middle school boy culture on this TEAM.”
The gears start to turn and suddenly the boys start cheering. “Wait, teacher. Does this mean we can present on video games next week?”
We discuss how the presentations will go next week and everyone – including me! – starts to get excited. The boys will quiz me on video games – I have to guess which video game name matches the video game. Then they’ll present on the characters, plot, gaming system, where they play the game and who they play with, an explanation of the goals and tasks in the game, and recent updates (for example, FIFA 15 is super sweet because the characters have emotional intelligence! So when one player consistently scores, the other players experience positive affect and play harder. They want to work with this player. When one player lets the team down unexpectedly, the other players feel anxious and may not perform as well. They may become frustrated with this player or other players on the field. These players have memories, people. They react to missed shots, bad tackles, awesome goals. I seriously can’t stand how high tech this is – where have I been all this time that FIFA has been a video game? Why did I wait so long to learn about this?!).
I assumed – big mistake – that these presentations would last 3 to 5 minutes, like the last presentations on Chuseok. Wow, was I wrong! I had five boys present on five different video games, and we only got through 3 presentations last Monday! This week, we finally finished up with the last two presentations – they had a lot to say!
I learned about Elder Scroll – Skyrim, FIFA 15, and Sword Art Online the first Monday, and School Idol Festival and Sleeping Dogs the next Monday. We had a blast. I think the most rewarding part of this experience has been seeing how passionate they were in explaining the games and teaching me how to play. I easily could have told them that we would be debating school uniforms or the use of grades in the school system, or to research and compare and contrast American middle schools and Korean middle schools. But why?
These boys spoke English the entire time, had a chance to talk about something they were interested in, and they were able to teach me about what they like to do when they’re not busy studying their pants off! I’d call our TEAM meeting a success.
My boys have midterms next Monday so we won’t be meeting, but I’m looking forward to seeing what they can accomplish and think of next!
