Roles reversed

This week, memory took me back to my time in South Korea.

One of my students, Annie, was super shy and would barely speak a word in Korean, let alone English.

So she became ‘Annie Teacher‘. I found that if she took the role of teacher she was more likely to speak, even if only a few words (Next, Let’s go, Finished).

But the real problem was the native teacher’s British English accent.

The British English pronunciation of Annie means ‘no‘ in Korean (아니).

So course every time I called on Annie (아니) the kids would laugh and tell me “no teacher, it’s: Annie” correcting my pronunciation so that I wasn’t repeatedly telling the kid: no, no, no!

So much learning happens in a classroom and these kids taught me a lot as well as helping me make a few great memories!