Go to the hell

The other day I was offered a chance at a little extra cash. The Korean woman used to work at my school, but has left to pursue other options. She's working at a highschool now, and they're doing a play in English. She wanted me to help them with their pronounciation and such.

I agreed. She picked me up yesterday, and on the way there, told me, "It's not really a highschool ... it's a juvenile prison". Um ... maybe it's just me, but I think that's key information that I should've had before agreeing to work with these students... As we were walking into the place, she told me that they were all boys. Again, crucial information.

Thankfully, it turned out alright. They were good students, and eager to learn (she said some of them started learning from ABC's since they've gotten there). They were better behaved than the students in any of my regular classes - very respectful.

So my excoworker had written the play. I felt bad about all the corrections that had to be made .... I didn't want to make her feel bad (as she was an English Teacher, by profession). The play is loosely based on the Hanzel and Gretel story. At the end, when the children push the witch into the stew, they say, "Go to the hell". I changed it for her, to "Go to hell", but I told her it wasn't a very nice thing to say.

Only as I was leaving did I find out that the students would be performing this play for a competition in Seoul. See, I thought they were just doing it for their parents, so I wasn't that critical about a lot of things (not wanting to offend my coworker with all her mistakes). I told her on the way home that she should really change that Go to hell line... that the judges might not be too fond of that. Depends on the judges, I guess.
LOL, that's a fine thing to be teaching those young offenders though ....

I'll go back again next week, so I'll get a chance to do some more corrections.