Katherine-TS#7

Today I met with Boram Kang again. We had a really fun session this time! She really wants to learn more about American culture and American slang, so as discussed in our last tutoring session, we were going to look up some culturally-relevant clips and watch/discuss them. She had watched some SNL clips online and had written down some questions about them. Some of them were about mannerisms (which I explained were helpful in developing a character's personality -ie effeminate speech, hand motions, etc), and some of them were about specific words (most notably, "ain't"). We also talked about some of the beauty trends across our cultures (this was brought on by clip discussion). In America, many white women are pressured to be thin and get plastic surgery. Plastic surgery is also a large social issue in Korean culture at the moment as well. I showed her a clip from Parks and Recreation (a popular American TV show), that mocks Hollywood/California culture, features sarcasm, and a lot of stereotypes in jest. There was ample room to talk about "taboo" subjects in American culture and examine "slang of slang/slang slang." These are words like "totes" for "totally," and "crazemazing" for "crazy amazing." A funny thing we talked about was the tendency for close groups of girls to call each other by not-so-nice names (like hey, b****, wassup) much like men will call each other "dude" or "bro/brah." I had to be really careful to explain that this was only used between young people, and only with certain groups of friends. Not all people are okay with this, but it is often seen in real life, movies, etc. She said she had noticed it before and wondered why friends were being mean to one another. Next session, we will be going over a mixture of both sudden fiction/short stories to discuss writing techniques, comprehension, and any words/cutural references as needed. I will also be selecting clips to watch and discuss like today.