Random Quote
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
it's probably not a good idea to underestimate my ability to make an ass out of myself—just when I seem to have it under control, I'll turn around and surprise you.
---- Tenser said the Tensor
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
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---- Sam Levenson
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
---- John Ciardi
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
I was robbed by two men
This is just wrong on so many levels. This video is so disturbing that I am speechless. Even though it is Japanese I can so see it being done here in Korea as well. Hat tip to Dan.
Some googling found another episode (in the extended entry) And it is even funnier what with the middle aged guys joining in and the line Don’t make fun of me!
The next episode was found on TV in Japan.





Iceberg wrote 88 words on Wednesday Jun 7, 2006 at 03:00 PM
Hmm. Let’s see. Where to start? There is just so much to choose from, I’m suffering from wisecrack overload. At first I thought it was a video for Japanese aerobic instructors preparing to ply their trade overseas, specifically in the States (“Spare me my life!). But then the second video seems like they are learning English and martial arts simultaneously to use when the relationship with the gaijin just doesn’t work out. “It’s your fault that this happened.” (Slap)
They couldn’t be funnier if they tried. Excellent find.
Kevin Kim wrote 62 words on Wednesday Jun 7, 2006 at 04:53 PM
Words cannot capture the horror. And yet… the videos are strangely alluring.
The hell of it is this: I was in the office at Smoo, watching these videos, when the Chinese food delivery guy barged into the office unannounced to collect the dishes (탕볶밥, if you must know). Guess that’s one more person in Seoul who thinks I’m a fookin’ perv.
Kevin
David (TEFL Smiler) wrote 101 words on Wednesday Jun 7, 2006 at 06:10 PM
Like the others, I’m dumbfounded. At first they seemed funny (I especially cracked up at ‘Spare me my life!’, as that was when I realised what was going on), but by the end I’m in shock. You wonder how they decided on which phrases to use. It all reminds me of the old Berlitz phrase books. My favourite was in the hairdresser’s section of the Danish phrase book: ‘I’d like a blue rinse, please’. None of it’s all that useful for language learning, in my opinion, although I suppose the odd phrase might stick. And I really mean the ‘odd’ phrase!
David (TEFL Smiler) wrote 22 words on Wednesday Jun 7, 2006 at 06:13 PM
Oh, and your flag system seems to be placing me in Finland. I can assure you I’m still very much in Denmark!
Sean. wrote 202 words on Wednesday Jun 7, 2006 at 06:38 PM
Iceberb,
Thanks for dropping by. I visited your blog and it’s amusing. From your blog it looks like you are in Korea, but according to the flag on your comment you are in Finland. Are you using a proxy or in Europe?
Kevin,
Strangely alluring - I keep finding myself watching and mesmerized by the spandex and music kind of like a sailor being lured to the bottom of the sea by a siren. Those Japanese vixens have stolen my soul.
David,
The flags are not 100% accurate, I probably need to update the database to reflect ip changes in the internet. Any chance your ISP is based in finland or sharing resources with Finland?
Okay girls - Take anything you want
Take anything you want
Take anything you want
Take anything you want
kind of reminds of of the styx and Mr. Roboto
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo…domo
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo…domo
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo…domo
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For doing the jobs that nobody wants to
And thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For helping me escape just when I needed to
Thank you-thank you, thank you
I want to thank you, please, thank you
Iceberg wrote 63 words on Wednesday Jun 7, 2006 at 10:09 PM
Thank you for thanking me. I am indeed in Korea and the Korean flag shows up on other blogs. As an earlier commenter mentioned, I think there’s something messed up with the flag system.
Take anything you want
Take anything you want
Take anything you want
Pure speculation, but methinks that perv Kevin keeps playing that section over and over and over again.
Forapurpose wrote 10 words on Thursday Jun 8, 2006 at 02:44 PM
I have seen this video before. It is really strange.
Sean. wrote 8 words on Thursday Jun 8, 2006 at 06:57 PM
I believe I havwe fixed the flags problem.
mesmark wrote 19 words on Thursday Jun 8, 2006 at 10:58 PM
Awesome!
Sarcasm overload_ _ _Can’t_ _ _process_ _ _all_ _ _the_ _ _information_ _ _Left_ _ _in_ _ _stiches
Remort wrote 9 words on Friday Jun 9, 2006 at 01:47 AM
Horrible!! I hope this doesn’t catch on elsewhere.
—Remort
Mark wrote 72 words on Saturday Jun 10, 2006 at 03:49 AM
I, for one, have a soft spot in my heart for Japanese pop culture. Fortunately, here in Taiwan, I can always find notebooks with cute little animals on them and sage inscriptions such as “Friend notebook- even you forget, I will always be your friend. Be kind to each other’s dream.” As long as everybody accepts that there’s no way they’ll ever learn much English from those videos, there’s no harm done.
Glen Raphael wrote 70 words on Wednesday Jun 28, 2006 at 03:59 PM
Yeah, the content is wacky, but as for the format, my guess is that somebody out there must have a language-learning theory that says new phrases and sounds stick better in the brain if you tie them to body movement. Hmm. Google/wikipedia bears this out. The field of “educational kinesiology” apparently starts out with the claim that “Developmental experts have known for more than eighty years that movement enhances learning.”
Thor May wrote 111 words on Thursday Jul 13, 2006 at 11:56 PM
If it’s funny, it’s good for language learning. If it’s memorable for whatever reason, it’s good for language learning. Boredom and indifference are death to language learning. Chants are excellent for language learning - they have repetition without the boredom of drills. Body movement? It keeps you alert and generally stimulates the brain. I learn best when I’m riding a bike. I make my own students stand to learn, and it works. You don’t like the phrases? That’s your cultural preference, not theirs. For that matter, there are plenty of women in most cultures who’d find the phrases anything but irrelevant. So why is it all “wrong on so many levels?”.
Sean. wrote 140 words on Friday Jul 14, 2006 at 08:50 AM
Thor,
I agree that humor and physical activity can aid in learning English as can chants. However these videos have zero authentic language the phrases used are not particularly useful. Honestly how many people need to use the phrase please spare me my life - is that even something a NS would use? \
Instead, This type of teaching is contrary to all modern teaching theory. In small doses sure, maybe once in a month but regularly? I dont’ think so. Chants would be great for children but I hardly think that you’ll find too many adults who really enjoy chanting in the classroom. If you know of any I’d love to see a video or testimony as I know that if a teacher asked me to chant in Korean class, I’d quit and so would any of my friends.
fencerider wrote 60 words on Tuesday Jan 23, 2007 at 06:44 PM
Is this TPR? Whatever it is (or is pretending to be) it does have its appeal…better that than a lot of other programs I can think of. I just get visions of housewives at home in their aprons walking around the house singing “spare me my life.” And the husbands….well…we can’t talk about what the husbands are doing can we?:)