Here’s a cool explanation. http://www.xamuel.com/spaced-repetition-systems/

The following bit caught my attention. The guy is experimenting with SRS and listening to music.
“Basically, if you listen to the same song over and over, it gets tiresome. And if you haven’t listened to a song in awhile, it sounds better. Hmmm, this sounds analogous to something, doesn’t it…”

The last sentence also snagged my attention. “…SRS’s are so cutting edge and elite, they haven’t made their way into the classroom yet.”

-I am about to change that.

A few weeks ago I was sitting in the staff  office checking my email when my co-teacher opened a package. She pulled out three books. One was a English classroom activities book, a TOIC (Test Of English for International Communication) study guide, and then this one, Classroom English Expression Dictionary. I looked at all three, but this one stood out. I skimmed through it and knew i had to have it. My co-teacher said I could borrow if  i wanted to. So I did. Then a couple days later she said, “It’s yours Matt”. A gift. Cool!

The content found in this book is great for SRS sentences. On one side of the page are Korean expressions and on the other are English expressions. I can pick and choose the expressions I like or maybe add a whole section of expressions about reviewing tests, passing out homework, or finding the last place we left off.  There are more than 7000 expressions divided up into five sections. Classroom Management, Teaching English Skills, Teaching Activities, Communication and Interaction, and an appendix that has classroom English for students and useful time based expressions. It’s all in there or just about all in there.

Looking at the English, everything that I can remember the teacher or students saying in the classroom is in this book. And, I verified with my Korean co-teacher, the Korean in this book is genuine classroom talk as well.

This book is perfect timing for me. I’ve  gone through two beginner seasons and an intermediate season of Korean Class 101, and the grammar used in those lessons is also found in this book. There are some new bits but for the most part this is a great book to pull sentences from at this time.

If you are a English teacher in Korea and learning Korean, I highly recommend this. I love it. There are MANY examples using the same words in different ways. It’s real classroom Korean, and I will also note, it’s more than classroom Korean. There’s stuff to be used outside the classroom. ie. “It’s too cold in here!” or “I didn’t catch that.”

This will be a nice source for sentences for a while. Skimming through it, I can see myself adding 90% or more of its content to Anki.

Make a 6 page narrative. You simply need a sheet of A4 paper, a pair of scissors, and some creativity to fill the pages. Students can make the book in less 3 than minutes. For the younger students, I’ve found it helpful to use the PDF template with page numbers, handwriting guidelines, and cut markings.

/////// /// /// /// / ////// /// // /////////

The Century Gothic typeface wasn’t working for me as a handwriting example for my lessons. I recently found a few alternatives that were perfect. More  can be obtained by going to about.com, but the ones below are the most accurate handwriting typefaces. Download the opentype and truetype versions in one nice little zip package. More awesome typefaces are available for download at www.bvfonts.com.

This Puzzle Zone totally needs to be adopted by some creative department somewhere.

Ah, for me? “bIkE” is the important word here.

It wasn’t me who was having the stupendous Monday.

God is in my 5th grade class.

-Proof that the six graders are learning English. Although, I can’t take the credit for this.