This year’s national conference has been gamified. The games being played are more than just a way to bring fun and delight to the conference. They are a way to get attendees more involved with our online conference, which will hopefully bring about more interactions with each other and contribute to participants feeling more connected despite being online and not collected in a traditional conference space. Additionally, the games serve the purpose of putting educators in their students’ shoes. One of the biggest things teachers seem to be looking for when it comes to their classes, whether its online or offline, are ways to engage students with the lessons learned in class. By playing through the games being put on by the conference you can experience fun new ways of learning and engaging with materials. You will learn about the games in play at the conference and you will also learn how to put together something for your own students using Discord, Flipgrid, and Google Workspace applications such as Forms, Sites, and Slides. EASTER EGG 1

ABOUT THE TOUR:

Squid Game, Parasite, and now My Name. Chances are excellent that know about the first two of these, and by the time of the Reel to Real conference rolls around you will probably have heard of the latest hit as well. Korean cinema, on both the large and small screen, has been front and centre on the global stage for the last while.

It’s quite possible that you’ve run into other English-language films by Korean directors and production companies (Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and Park Chan-wook’s Stoker immediately come to mind). Or perhaps you encountered Korean cinema via one of the many remakes: Spike Lee’s version of Old Boy or the American version of Kim Jee-woon’s absolutely awesome-sauce A Tale of Two Sisters (which gets a different title: The Uninvited).

On the other hand, you might not know any of the above and are just beginning your journey into the world of Korean cinema. If that’s the case — don’t worry!

Whether you’re a newbie to Korean cinema or not, you’re cordially invited to join your host, Michael Free, who will take you on an interactive tour of the last 60 years of Korean cinema. Going decade by decade, and letting attendees ask questions along the way — which very well might take us off course, but in a hopefully delightful and informative manner!) — Michael will show you what Korean cinema has to offer beyond these recent hits. From Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid (1960) to Park Kim Do-young’s rendering of Choi Nam-joo’s novel Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 (2019), this quick romp through Korean cinema’s history will give those interested places to look for Korean films and suggestions for what to watch according to their tastes and interests.

ABOUT YOUR HOST:

Michael has been teaching English in Korea for over 15 years now, with an extremely wide range of students (public and private, academic and casual, as well teacher training). The courses he has taught are, for the most part, the usual: conversation English, speaking, academic writing and so forth. In addition to those, he has developed content-based courses in film: general film appreciation, the horror film, as well as courses dedicated to the vampire and zombie genres. Living in Korea and teaching mainly Korean students, a natural part of the growth of these courses (and his own knowledge of Korean language and culture) was the not-quite-casual study of Korean films. Recently, this study has become more intensive with his most recent course assignment: teaching international students about Korean language and culture via film and TV dramas.