Will you take my apples??

So, the other day (as in way back in December), I had a weird experience. I was teaching the 5th graders by myself as my co-teacher, 혀나 (Hyuna), was speaking exams in the hallway.

To review, we were playing a game. ESL in korea is mostly powerpoint games, no matter where you are. Me and Garrett try to do more exciting things, but sometimes you are specifically asked to play a stupid, waste-of-everytime's-time PPT game.
So, that is what I did.

Blah, blah, blah, we play this game, and at the end of class, the winning group comes to collect their candy (another requirement in Korean ESL. I, again, was required to hand out candy no matter how poorly they behave, or any other stipulation.)

Candy, candy, candy. Then, one particularly annoying student decides to stick his hand in the jar and pull out as many as he can. Now, I really do love my job, but this is one of my 5 or so students that are absolute terrors. He has a habit of sticking his hand in the candy jar and running away. Needless to say, I was not impressed. As I'm explaining to him that his behaviour is unacceptable, and there's no way he's getting candy after that, I see this poor girl who had been waiting patiently for a good 3 minutes I handed her a piece of victory candy.

Loud kid isn't paying attention, knocks her; she knocks over 혀나's coffee mug and annihilates every paper on the desk.
Annoying kid sulks away; girl freaks out and helps clean the mess up.





Here's the weird part. Next day, I come in to find an apple on my desk with a note (in korean). I think, oh, sweet, I have a brown-noser. 혀나 explains that the apple is from the girl the day before. In korean, the words "apology" and "apple" are the same, so by asking "내 사과를 받아 줄래?" you are asking for someone to accept both your apology and apple. It's a pretty nifty symbol that not only gets the point across but gets you a snack.
sweet!