Category: Other Stories

  • 3 Language Decisions Behind My Bilingual ESL Worksheets

    In my previous post How I Design My Worksheets in 10 Steps, I briefly spoke about how I translate between Korean and English to make bilingual teaching materials. Every worksheet contains dozens of tiny language decisions that students never notice.

    Modern tools are great to help with translation, but the decision-making part comes into play with localization, which is the process of adapting content for a specific audience.

    A famous example is the scene in Toy Story 2 (1999) where Buzz Lightyear gives a heroic speech in front of a waving American flag as the U.S. national anthem plays. As an American, I find this hilarious. For international releases, Pixar replaced the flag and music with a spinning globe and generic anthem.

    Teachers do this all the time, especially EFL teachers. Whenever a teacher adjusts an activity for their students’ age, culture, or language level, they apply the same localization principles. Now that I’m an EFL teacher too, I’m getting the hang of this.

    Here are three examples of small choices I had to make while creating my own worksheets in Korea.

    1. Working around wordplay

    The first is a classic problem: wordplay cannot be directly translated.

    In my Rooms In A House Worksheet, there is a riddle:

    Original:

    What kind of room has no doors and no windows?

    Answer:

    a mushroom

    The answer is a cute pun that plays on the English word “room.” The challenge was that when translated into Korean…

    “room” = 방 (bang)

    “mushroom” = 버섯 (beoseot)

    …the pun completely disappears.

    The English wordplay itself is part of the the learning goal, so translating every word defeats the purpose and ruins the fun.

    So the final translation was:

    문도 없고 창문도 없는 room은 어떤 room일까요?

    Leaving room untranslated helps signal that students should be thinking about an English word rather than a Korean one. Many of my upper elementary students already know mushroom, so I expected at least some of them to solve it.

    Even if they don’t solve the riddle, the answer reveal creates a memorable moment that helps reinforce the vocabulary.

    2. Preserving tone

    This issue was really all about keeping the same feeling intact across languages.

    In my Secret Cipher Spy Worksheet, the initial instructions read:

    You are a spy! Mission: find the mystery person.

    If I ask ChatGPT to translate this into Korean for an elementary school EFL worksheet, it gives me:

    당신은 스파이입니다! 임무: 미스터리 인물을 찾으세요.

    And this is so not the vibe.

    There’s nothing grammatically wrong with this translation, but it doesn’t have the playful and exciting energy I wanted.

    The formal written style (-습니다/-ㅂ니다) is natural for worksheets, but I wanted the activity to feel like an immersive game, not just another classroom activity.

    So I made my case and the AI countered with “너는 스파이야! 비밀 인물을 찾아!” But this version sounds overly friendly, happy and casual with less of the drama of a spy mission. I wanted the instructions to walk the line between being fun and professional.

    So the final translation became:

    스파이 미션: 비밀 인물을 찾아라!

    This version uses the plain imperative form. Rather than sounding conversational or overly formal, it evokes the style of a game objective or dramatic mission briefing.

    I chose the English transliterated word 미션 (“mission”) instead of the direct translation 임무 because many Korean children might have encountered the English word “mission” before in games and TV, whereas 임무 might sound too formal or almost militant. On the other hand, I preferred ​비밀 인물 over the transliterated loanword 미스터리 (“mystery”), which I felt would be clearer for my young elementary learners.

    I also avoided translating “You are a spy!” altogether by starting directly with “Spy Mission!” instead. There are several Korean words for “you” that don’t fit well in this context, but luckily Korean also often omits explicit subjects, which allows me to avoid the problem (and we all love avoiding our problems).

    What this process taught me is that while ChatGPT is really useful for translating, ultimately there is still a lot of human decision making going into the final choices.

    3. Rewriting for clarity

    In my Food Vocabulary Word Maze, I created a custom word-search-style puzzle where students find hidden words, but the words can snake horizontally or vertically instead of the letters just being in a straight line. Then students use the remaining unused letters to reveal a hidden message.

    This is a case where I wrote the Korean instructions first instead of the English. Since I’m always designing for Korean speakers, there’s often no need to write English instructions unless I purposely want the students to be more immersed in the English language.

    The space limitation made writing instructions a challenge from the start. I tried my best to keep it short in both Korean and English.

    The Korean instruction was:

    가로와 세로로 이어지는 글자를 연결해 단어를 찾아보세요. (대각선 X)

    The phrase 이어지는 글자 efficiently communicates the idea of letters forming a continuous path. Compact and intuitive. But crafting a concise English translation was not so straightforward.

    The problem is that Korean and English describe spatial relationships differently in this context. In Korean:

    이어지다 = connect/continue/be linked

    This is a key word that can naturally be used to describe adjacent letters in a puzzle. But in English, directly translating to “connected letters” sounds like the letters are physically joined. How can I rephrase this? There are a couple ways to say it, but they are either awkward or repetitive:

    “Connect letters that continue horizontally and vertically”

    “Connect letters that are connected horizontally and vertically”

    “Find words by connecting letters that are next to each other horizontally or vertically”

    I consulted with the AI wizards and landed on:

    Find the hidden words by connecting letters horizontally or vertically. (No diagonals!)

    This is interesting because it completely restructures the sentence. The solution was not to attempt to translate 이어지다 literally, but to rewrite the sentence completely in a way that would explain the same idea.

    These are all small decisions but all part of the process. I use AI as a translation tool, but designing to optimize for the student experience is a different thing. I’ve gotten better at quickly recognizing exactly what information is necessary and what wording will reduce confusion.

    Personally, I find these tiny differences across languages really interesting and exciting. Maybe I’m just a nerd.

    Love,

    B.

  • Why Sidewalk English?

    Sidewalk English started as a very specific collection of materials that I created myself to solve very specific problems that kept coming up for me as a public school teacher in Korea.

    It takes way too much time to sift through thousands of worksheets online to find something that is engaging and fun for students, is designed well, and perfectly matches the lesson I’m teaching.

    The public school curriculum is very specific and it’s important that students master the topics in their textbooks first. I want to emphasize the key expressions and vocabulary from the school lessons first and foremost, but many ESL resources are bit too generic for that.

    Even if I manage to find a good resource, there are often paywalls. If I have to pay even just a few dollars for simple lesson material, that’s already too high a barrier for me, especially when I actually enjoy designing teaching materials myself. I don’t want to pay out of pocket for materials just to do my below-average paying job.

    So I began making my own content for each lesson because I enjoyed being able to curate exactly what and how my students study the material.

    I love creating word puzzles and thinking of fresh ways to challenge students that are more interesting than the basic presentation of textbook activities or some ESL resources online. I found my students enjoy the puzzles and it helps them remember spelling for their tests.

    Since I make the games and worksheets anyway and I didn’t want them just sitting in a drive to only be used once in a year, I decided to create a website to display everything I’ve created at once. After realizing that other people find this content useful, I became inspired to keep creating more!

    So why did I name the site Sidewalk English?

    I was inspired by a beloved children’s book author and poet, Shel Silverstein, author of famous poetry collection Where The Sidewalk Ends. Every page is a simple white space with a few black-and white line drawings next to witty and playful poetry for children. Clean, punchy, and memorable.

    I remember memorizing one poem titled “Invention” with my dad when I was young. The first few lines read:

    I've done it, I've done it!
    Guess what I've done! 
    Invented a light that plugs into the sun.

    I memorized it because it was my dad’s favorite Silverstein poem and we would recite it together sometimes, so it quickly became my favorite as well.

    When I was thinking about making a website, the name Sidewalk English came to mind very naturally and immediately. The thought came suddenly and then that was the name. No hesitation.

    I believe Where The Sidewalk Ends has taught young children and adults everywhere a love for reading and an appreciation for curiosity, youth, whimsy, and wordplay. With this book, you can discover the silliness and joy that can be found in a language. I want the same for students around the world learning English.

    I also like the idea of casually meandering through language learning on a “sidewalk” instead of focusing strictly on a set structure of grammar or memorization, and the idea of language as a pathway to new opportunities and ways of thinking.

    I’m reminded of my middle school principal gifting me with a copy of Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss when I graduated. I could’ve have never imagined I’d end up teaching in Korea and creating Sidewalk English. In two words, there’s a language, a childhood memory, and a path toward places yet to be discovered.

    Love,

    B.