Your neighborhood

Today in class we described the inside of our homes. In this post, I would like to ask you to describe your neighborhood. What's next to your apartment? What's across the street? Who lives above you and below you?  (Do you know your upstairs neighbors? How about your downstairs neighbors or your next-door neighbors?) Are there any good restaurants, coffee shops, or stores nearby? Tell us about your neighborhood.

Obama's Speech in Seoul

As you know, President Obama recently gave a speech at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. Some students expressed interest in reading the speech. You may read the full text here.

In one part of the speech, Obama expressed the idea that "Koreans are one people," and that reunification between North and South Korea will happen someday. What do you think about that? Do you agree that reunification is inevitable? Why do you think so?

What are you doing these days?

In today's class we talked about things we are doing these days. Are you reading a good book, learning another language, saving money for something special, learning a new skill? Tell us about something you're doing these days.

What is everybody doing this weekend? 

Right now I'm reading, studying, and surfing the internet a little. As you may know, I'm taking graduate school courses these days, so I'm reading and writing a lot every day.

This evening I'm meeting my wife for dinner. I don't know where we're going. Maybe some place near Kyungsung or Haeundae.

Tomorrow, I'm recording a song for my friend's radio show on Busan e-fm 90.5. (I'll tell you more about that on Monday). Tomorrow night, I'm having dinner with some friends and going to a show near Kyungsung university. A lot of local bands are playing a special show to say farewell to two popular performers who have lived in Busan for a few years. Click here for information about them if you are interested.

What are you doing this weekend?

Where would you rather go?

On Monday, I didn't have a chance to talk to everyone about question #8. The question was:

You can take a vacation in Hawaii, Greece, Iceland, Nepal, or Chile. Which of these five countries would you rather go to? Why?

I'm curious about that. Where would you rather go?

Have you been to any of those places?

T.G.I.F.

These days, I'm a little busy during the week, so on the weekend, I would rather just relax than go out. If I go out, these days I prefer going to a quiet restaurant with my wife than going to a noisy bar with a lot of people. We both enjoy chatting, eating good food, and drinking beer.

On the weekend, our kids would usually rather stay home and watch TV than play outside. When I was a kid, I was the exact opposite: I would always rather play outside with my friends. Maybe kids are different these days. What do you think? Did you prefer to play inside or outside when you were a child? How about your kids - what would they rather do? Why do they prefer to do that?

Would you rather relax on the weekend, or go out and do something?

Likes and Dislikes

In Monday's class, we talked about our likes and dislikes. For our first activity here, tell us about yourself. What do you love? What are you crazy about? What are you not crazy about? What do you enjoy? What do you hate? Click on "add comment" and tell us a few things about you.

Hello everybody, and welcome to our class blog! (Read this first)

This is my first time using a blog with my students. Actually, this is my first time making any kind of blog. These days, I'm learning about blogs, and I was very impressed by some blogs that students and teachers are making together, so I thought I would like to try it with my class. This blog is our learning experiment (실험). Let's learn together.

Please don't be shy about writing comments here. I hope everyone will participate and share ideas. Please remember: language is about communication, and you don't need perfect English to communicate. Let's have fun sharing our thoughts here, and let's not worry about making mistakes.

I will post on this blog at least once a week, so please bookmark this page and visit here often. One reason I made this blog is to give you a chance to use your English outside of the classroom. To do that, teachers usually give homework, but nobody likes homework, right? I hope this blog will be an enjoyable way for you to use English and improve your communication skills.

Have fun! See you soon.