Author Archives: Danielle Harms

About Danielle Harms

I've caught the travel bug and tried to cure it teaching English in South Korea, but that didn't work, so here I am teaching English for one more year near Kaposvar, Hungary. I also try to record and reflect on my experiences with photos and words along the way.

Dispatch from the Classroom: First Grade

Don’t Pick the Flowers “Don’t pick flowers,” was the immediate response when my first grade students were asked recently to imagine that our class had been whisked away from our room in Ilsan, South Korea and plopped down on an … Continue reading

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Perhaps The Grammar Lesson Could Wait: “Teacher he ate too many soju.”

Hearing amusing thoughts in the classroom is standard practice when you spend each day hanging out with kids. There’s rarely a week that goes by without hearing something that makes me scramble for a pen so I can recount it … Continue reading

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Snow Day in Ilsan

After a week spent in the crunchy snow and shiver-inducing temperatures of the Midwest, my winter boots got plenty of use. When it came to packing them for my trip back to Goyang, South Korea, I nearly left them behind, … Continue reading

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Happy Thanksgiving from South Korea

All the students at school would like to wish you a Very Merry…Thanksgiving! I admit I’m a bit late with this sentiment, as that day of family feasting is likely fading in some people’s memories as Christmas approaches, but the … Continue reading

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Closer Than We Think

Do you ever wake up in the morning, pour some milk into a bowl of cereal, and think, “Hmm, I wonder what on Earth children in South Korea eat for breakfast?” Find the responses to this query and plenty of other questions about the daily life of a student in South Korea in this video. Continue reading

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If You Thought You Had Heard the Last of Jagalchi, Think Again

Undoubtedly alive upon delivery, the shrimp we ordered for lunch retained their capacity to move, and move they did. I could list every synonym in the thesaurus for jump, wriggle, scurry, writhe, and twitch in the dictionary, but this is a moment best watched. Continue reading

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Shots Fired in Contested Waters

As Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to Seoul approaches, and bilateral talks between North Korea and the U.S. are in the works, it would seem the winds are shifting towards increased diplomacy. An incident today between North and South Korean naval … Continue reading

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More poetry from the classroom

After some brainstorming about sensory details and exploration in the exciting world of similes, a refreshingly fun concept to teach, my 2nd grade class created these haikus together.

Let’s move with the rain,
God is showering at sky,*
Tok tok, it’s like beans. Continue reading

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No Doubt About It: Something is Definitely Fishy in Busan

Saturday Morning Sights and Oh-My-Goodness Smells of Busan There is something surreal about emerging from the underground isolation of a subway station into the open air of a new place. Our first Saturday morning steps out of the station and … Continue reading

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