SARS And Swine Flu Ain't Got Nothin' On This

I was checking the backlogs of the Jungang Daily in English and found a very interesting letter to the paper talking about one of Korea's number one killers. Is it some disease? Is it a virus? Is it due to smoking? No, no, and a big fat no! It's caused by one of my pet peeves poor driving!

Yes, poor driving, drunk driving, distracted driving, and various other methods of being dangerous while on the road are all serious problems, but I've never seen a public poster about about any of them (except at my primary school). After nearly being run over while walking or riding my bike numerous times I feel this issue needs some consideration or I just might not make it back to Canada in one piece. If people took this issue as seriously as yellow dust maybe our roads would be a little safer.

See the letter here.

A Little Japanese For You

Recently two of my students have brought up some Japanese words in class, or rather a Japanese word in class. I had never heard this word before, but I was told it is used in Korea and Japan. The word is otaku, a person who specializes in something and generally does it so much they don't go out. I thought this word must only be well known in Asia but dictionary.com has a reference for otaku here.

Dictionary.com cites the japanese word for house as the origin of this derogatory word. This makes sense since the general connotation is that the person never leaves their home. Knowing that it's in the English dictionary I think I'll start using it more often. "Hey man, stop being such an otaku and come out to the 노래방 with us."

Read The News In Korean and English

I've recommended this site to many of my students. It has English translations of many Korean articles, especially from the Chosun Ilbo. Have a look and practice reading the news in Korean and English:

Korea Beat

Have a look and let me know what you think. 

Naps Could Be Good For Your Performance

Considering the number of people I have noticed taking naps during working hours in Canada and Korea; during subway rides, and lunch breaks, and various other times and  places I've noticed lots of nappers doing their thing. I thought this NPR article was quite relevant. You can listen to a short audio clip, and read about it here:

Naps May Improve Performance Later In The Day

Let me know what you think.

Welcome

Hey everyone, welcome to my blog for my Direct English students. Here I hope to post websites, fun links, and videos that will be useful to my current Direct English students. This time I'm going to post and blog about a favourite website of mine, http://www.cbc.ca . Here you can see, listen to, and read, lots of interesting news, culture and science information. I'm a big radio listener, so here are some of my favourite radio shows from the CBC:

Quirks and Quarks - a science podcast

The Age of Persuasion - a marketing podcast

Spark - a technology podcast

White Coat Black Art - a medical podcast

These aren't for everyone but give them a try! Later I'll be posting more links to some of my favourite websites for English learning, or places where you can find useful tips. Here I'll also post some assignments you can try to practice your English for class or on your own. I hope to see you all here on the blog. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.