::A Geek in Korea::

Two weeks ago, during my last class with my high level students, I promised them a game of Petals around the Rose. It must have made a bit of an impression with them, as they remembered it after their “Noodle Apple Tests“. They asked me to show them the game after we had completed their studies for the day.

I had been carrying some dice for the past two weeks for this express purpose, but had forgotten completely about the promise. I got the dice out of my bag and did my “Petals around the Rose” warm up activities. I wrote the words on the board, made sure the students understood the translation, then got down to throwing the dice.

One of the girls in the class is extremely sharp. She cracked another thought puzzle of similar difficulty in a manner of minutes. She was the first to figure out the game. Another boy followed quickly after. The slowest boy only took ten minutes, which is extremely remarkable. Previous years, students would take over a hour spread out over multiple classes. These kids are very smart.

My foreign coworker had never played the game before, so I introduced him to it as well. My students all circled around the box where we rolled dice. Every time he made a wild guess, they grinned and told him the correct answer. I didn’t let them reveal how to solve the problem, and they relished the opportunity to have one up on a fellow teacher.

I told my director I was extremely impressed with how bright the students in the class were. I might do the game in a few of my other upper level classes to see how well they fare. Some of the students in the class told me they’d find an excellent puzzle for me to solve our next class. If that gets them thinking and speaking English, I’m fine with any spare minutes it takes.