Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Do you have any Curry Powder?

In my beginning adult class, we have been learning how to go shopping. I was originally going to do this in one lesson, but I realized that shopping is a pretty big deal, and the vocabulary changes depending on where you are (e.g. aisle : supermarket :: floor : department store). For each lesson, I've been having the students perform the following dialogue (simplified for your reading brevity):



A: Do you have any ______?
B: Yes, ______ is on aisle 5.
A: Thank you.
B: Anything else?
A: Do you have any ______?
B: I'm sorry. We don't have any.
Etc.


I for the blanks, I have the students generate their own vocabulary to use, which I then write on the board and they talk about in Korean for a while to make sure that everyone understands it. When we went shopping in the supermarket for instance, the first two vocabulary items they generated were Curry Powder and Cabbage, thus the dialogue read:


A: Do you have any curry powder?
B: Yes, curry powder is on aisle 5.
A: Thank you.
B: Anything else?
A: Do you have any cabbage?
B: I'm sorry. We don't have any.


This led me to a curious question:

In what dimension does an American supermarket carry curry powder but not cabbage?!

To my knowledge, the above metaphysical quandry did not phase the ajuma in my class in the slightest.

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