Students doing the work, and sometimes having fun. Example, one student drew a picture of me while I had them write down classroom rules! I guess the joke’s on me.

Lining up for morning assembly.

Hilarious students

My students had no problems showing me their personalities, beginning at first period with the student who drew me during an introductory lesson. Throughout various topics, they let me know how they feel, let me know their opinions, and found ways to include me and tease me within the lessons. I loved that my students were creative, feisty, and forthright in revealing their personalities. It was an honor getting to know them.

Student’s FB profile says, “I’m studying English with Teacher Ayoung” <3 <3

Below: The assignment was to give an opinion with reason. 

Note: This student wrote that the worst place to live was school because “some teachers are noisy (T. Ayoung i love you”)—huh?  This from a student who talks non-stop during my class? (ps: i love you too.)

Advice column

Students paired up to provide advice in response to different problems. Teams wrote their advice on the whiteboard.

Problem: My friends don’t like my boyfriend, what should I do? Team “2 Baddies 1 Porsche” advised to break up with your boyfriend, while Team “EIEI” advised to invite the boyfriend to outings with friends.

Problem: My roommate is messy and won’t clean up. Team “WA” advised to kill the roommate when you can’t stand it (yikes!).

Other teams were a bit more pragmatic and did not recommend fatal solutions.

Polite requests

We learned about modal verbs related to permission and requests. I demonstrated with the help of Son Heung Min and Neymar. Including popular footballers in my lessons guaranteed maximum participation from my male students.

More practice using modal verbs: Whiteboard game loaded with Snickers prizes! Using chocolate guaranteed maximum participation from all of my students.

Students teasing the teacher

I used Kahoot as a warm-up at the beginning of some classes. As students logged on, I would announce their names by saying, “Roy has entered the game,” to encourage others to log on quickly. However, some classes caught me off guard my entering my name instead of their own!

Below: An online Kahoot game. One of my students punked me by entering his or her name under “T. Ayoung”—gamesmanship!

One student used their login name, “T.Ayoung hi” as an opportunity to say hi to me…

I laughed so hard announcing these names!

Poetry slam!

My students spent a couple of weeks studying different forms of poetry, culminating in a poetry writing lesson. They astonished me with their rhyming skills and sophisticated emotional expressions.

Tell me about your day

Students drew pictures alongside written descriptions of a day in their life. These two students did not hold back in their frank assessments or in their graphic illustrations.

Love the saucer-sized eyes, and is that his mother waking him up?

Love the dapper suit (which this student did not wear to school), his honest reaction, and death-by-shower illustration. Maybe other teachers would not have displayed these student works on the wall, but not me! I placed these works front and center!