upon my return...

I didn't realize how ill-effected I'd be by the weather shift from the warm Caribbean tropics back to icy windshields and frosty lungs each time I take a breath.  The result was a three-day headache, excessively chapped lips, and a stiff boredom with returning to my predominantly monolingual lifestyle.  Yes, this is starting to sound like Diary of the Wimpy Grown-up since I live in California, where the winters are as mild as can be.  

Or so I thought. 

But this my friends, is a picture of winter heaven in the Yucatan.

I did however return to an exciting pile of letters written by students learning English in South Korea where a friend of ours has been teaching kids for the past few years.  A while back, we started an international pen-pal writing project between some of our students, but instead of focusing solely on the traditional letter writing style, we decided to offer some story starter prompts that both our American and South Korean students wrote from.  It has been hilarious to read what they write, knowing the are writing for an audience of foreign kids.  It has also opened up some great classroom discussion around cultural differences and similarities, and the structural writing patterns we are noticing that are frequently used by language learners.   

Here are a couple samples from both countries following the broad theme: Falling

"We  are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find  someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them  and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love." ~ Dr. Seuss

This teacher guy, whom his kids refer to as "luck teacher" (his name is Luke) recently made an appearance on Korean television because one of his students is a professional golfer.  This window into his teaching life is not to be missed.