Teaching English in Korea - ESL blog

Lesbian discrimination or religious persecution?

Interesting story here that might be used in discussion classes. Seems a religious B&B owner was uncomfortable letting a lesbian couple sleep in her establishment and told them she didn't want them as customers.

The debate is fairly evenly mixed in the US:

The lesbian couple has a right not to be discriminated against but the B&B owner has the right to practice her religion. And it's not like the B&B is a big hotel chain - we're talking about someone's house. But then again, the law says if you run a B&B or a hotel you can't discriminate based on sexual orientation.

Should the religious B&B owner be forced to shut down? Should she be forced to accommodate gays and lesbians even though she thinks it's immoral? Should she be forced to pay damages to the lesbian couple (they want money for the humiliation they say they felt)?

Or is this religious persecution? Does the government really have the right to tell this woman that she must allow gays and lesbians into her B&B?

Advertising in school?

Discussion question: Should schools sell ad space inside the school building and/or on report cards and/or in the school buses?

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, a public school district in Colorado is selling ads on report cards and Utah has a new law allowing ads on school buses.

Arrest a couple with a young child for shoplifting?

Big news in America at the moment that could be an interesting discussion topic:

A pregnant woman, her husband, and their 3-year-old go grocery shopping. While shopping they grab two sandwiches that together cost $5. She openly munched on one while they shopped, saving the wrapper to be scanned at the register later.

But they forgot to pay for the sandwiches as they checked out with about $50 worth of groceries. The security guard caught them and instead of allowing the parents to pay, Safeway management called the police. The couple was arrested for shoplifting (apparently it took four hours for the police to respond so I presume the family was detained by Safeway employees during that time) and with both parents in police custody, the 3-year-old had to go to a state facility.

Did Safeway do evil here? Or did the couple just get what they deserved for breaking the law? Do we say, 'OK if you have kids and shoplift you don't get in any trouble, but if you shoplift without kids, you get arrested' ? Do we treat everyone the same? If we treat everyone equally, does that mean every shoplifter gets arrested or every shoplifter pays for what they stole and avoids trouble entirely?

Stutterer told not to speak in class

Interesting story here from the New York Times. A professor told one of her students not to speak in class because he stutters and his questions take too much class time. While you want to treat everyone equally, what happens when a stutter or some other disability leads to a student monopolizing class time?

An example of a world schools government whip speech

I've seen many whip speakers struggle with the format of their speech. What does it mean to summarize the clashes?

This one starts at about 6:45

and then continues:

We start off the introduction. Then we get the three actors in the debate, also how he organizes his speech:

governments
companies
individuals

He summarizes Team England's arguments and gives his team's rebuttal (some new rebuttal and some summary like "we've already shown you that..."). Then we end with a summary. The speaker does a good job of summarizing the debate in his favor and explaining why his team won each argument or that some arguments were avoided by the other team.

Unfortunately, the 9th video (containing I presume the last few seconds of the government whip and the beginning 5 minutes or so of the opposition whip) seems to be missing.

NYU and Columbia are going global

Interesting New York Times article here on the new international campuses that have or soon will be opened by two of New York's most famous schools.

Tell me about yourself

Here's one suggestion on how to answer one of the most common job interview questions, "Tell me about yourself."

As one commenter rightly points out, however, the job candidate doesn't come across as very interesting or likable. You need to have a bit of personality to have a chance at building a rapport with the interviewer.

Here, the advice is to tell the interviewer what's in it for them, which should sound familiar to my students:

Here's some more advice. The correct version starting at around 2:00 has the same issue, it's focused on the job but it's not real interesting or personal. She does at least say she's excited about getting back to an educational setting so we learn something about her. She could be more personable though.

They suggest: relevant to the job, 1-2 rehearsed minutes, job objective, experience and skills.

I suggest, practiced but not memorized or rehearsed. Relevant to the job and personalized.

Note that tell me about yourself comes in many flavors, even why are you applying for this job is pretty similar. If you get several questions that mean "tell me about yourself," you need to be careful not to get repetitive.