Naming Convention

Posted by Your mom / at 7:46 PM / /

Light posts in front of the LACMA

Of the many things I have my ESL students do is write essays, at most three per week, but always at least one a week. A few weeks back one of my quieter Korean students (adding such a comparative adjective to Eastern Asian students is not always easy; by nature, they're usually all pretty quiet), whom I'll refer to as JH began to come to life as it were. What I thought was some shy, nerdy kid who ate plain, dry, homemade sandwiches in the student lounge was writing ever more thoughtful and complex essays.

For the essay, "Tips on Travel to My Country", the class was supposed to have pretended to write a letter to a friend advising the friend on various things regarding a visit to their home country: What to bring, what to do when they get there, where to go, what not to do, and so on. Usually I read over the essays, correct them and return them to the students in class while the students are working on other assignments.

JH began his essay much like the other students had begun theirs with salutations to friends, some advice as to current weather conditions, best ways to get around, etc.. What, however, made JH's essay stand out was his section of advice on "adult drinking rooms" and that when his friend goes into one of these supposed dens of inequity (apparently JH wanted nothing to do with these shady establishments as he made no mention of being alongside his "friend" should such an encounter actually occur) the most important thing to be wary of was "the vicious entrepreneur" who would attempt to steal his friend's money by the age-old surfeit "frauding your receipt."

I was literally banging on my portable lectern. And that's when I decided that I needed to write these kinds of things down. Like the time one Japanese student, one French and one German student flagged me down after work one night and asked for my advice on traveling to Mexico. For Spring Break. Specifically Tijuana. Or when another Japanese student informed the class that her toilet was actually in her living room.

Not to be outdone, however, my girlfriend, who's Swedish, comes up with some pretty interesting turns of English. Like the time she complained about her hips because she had been sitting, "You know, in an L shape all day." I looked at her and asked, "As opposed to sitting in a Q or an R shape?"

As well, I commute five days a week, taking combinations of subways and buses to get from our house in North Hollywood to my jobs in Westwood. Each way averages about an hour, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. All that time on public transportation and you are bound to see and hear interesting things. Like the time I was coming home on the Red Line subway. It was late as I had been working on student papers online until around 8PM. By the time I got onto the subway it was close to 9PM. Sitting at the head of the car in which I was riding was a man dressed as Captain America. Sitting next to him was I assumed was dressed as Indiana Jones. There was another man filming the whole thing and a woman looking patiently on. Indiana, turns out, was the director/interviewer. I was too far away to hear what was being asked of Captain America so I can only guess, but what really struck me was that nobody, and I mean no one in that subway car, seemed to notice at all. They were all very blase about the whole thing, playing video games, reading newspapers and books, sleeping. But not a single person was even watching the events unfold between Indiana and Captain. I took out my camera and recorded a bit.

So this will serve as my dairy of experiences as I travel to and fro, as I interact with students from all over the world and as I attempt to find solid, full-time work as an English teacher in Los Angeles, California.