In my intermediate class, we're still talking about occupations. They're learning words like veterinarian, doctor, lawyer, teacher, pastor, businessman (and woman!), shopkeeper, biologist, architect . . . I had all the kids list different family members and what occupation they have. Some of them had trouble coming up with a name for their family member's occupation. One girl's dad is a florist, but that was easy enough to explain. The one that really threw me was the girl who said, "My father. Goat kill. Apples make juice. Grapes make juice. Headache. Black. Drink." Then she drew a picture of something that looked like a person with hair sticking straight up and used her hand like a butcher's knife to show cutting the hair off. I was totally confused, so she went in the office and explained it to one of the Korean staff members at the school. She came back and said, "Chinese medicine." So I wrote "Chinese medicine practitioner" on the chalkboard, but she didn't like it. "My father Chinese, no!" she said. "My father Korean!" I tried to explain that "Chinese" was describing the medicine, not her father, but it didn't work, so I just crossed "Chinese" out and wrote "Eastern." That was okay with her, just as long as it didn't say "Chinese."

Here are some photos of another one of my classes. The girls are just about the sweetest kids in the whole school. The four boys give me more trouble than anyone else! There are three more kids who didn't make it into the picture: a boy who is the fifth troublemaker in the group, a boy who is just as sweet as can be and can spell and read anything, and a girl who understands nothing at all and was getting some special one-on-one help when I took the picture.