March 8th was our first workshop of the year. Natalie Thibault kicked things off with suggestions on how to use pop music beyond filling in the gaps. She brought some music to help us, with the Beatles’ “Penny Lane” and Taylor Swift’s video “You Belong with Me”. Some of the suggestions were vocabulary building, listening comprehension, pronunciation, multiple learning styles, cultural understanding, critical thinking and more, plus my favorite, singing along.
After the break, we had three presenters talk about International Women’s Day in their countries. One common theme is that all women get flowers on that day. Any male readers out there, remember flowers are more than just a Western culture idea.
Aida Ulukbekova began with a history of women in Kyrgyzstan and how their lives changed with their county’s independence in 1991. Lilian M. Tintin from Ecuador and then Maria Vasquez from Costa Rica spoke on how women started with suffrage and gained power over the years. Women’s influence and power are not the same in each country but all have risen in power, not all in the same way or time, but wives and mothers are honored now and earned their rights and respect. Each country had a distinct story and interesting heroines to compare.
Join us on April 8th as we welcome back Aaron Snowberger and his most recent presentation “Smarter, Faster, Better: Chat GPT for Fun and Profit” and “Keeping Your Lesson on Track: Managing Behavior for Effective Lesson Time” by Eve Kim. Starting time is 2:45 at the I Can Academy in Jeonju.
