Job Discussion Forums

[Guy Courchesne]

I just picked up a tutoring class, 1 to 1, one with a 10 year old girl, working around high-intermediate level, the other a 16 year old whiz kid who has already aced the computer based TOEFL (not the IBT however). We'll be working on GMAT prep, but not the math component.

My questions...I haven't worked with Koreans before. Any tips on culture I should be aware of, speaking very generally? Typcial Korean-speaker errors when working in Engrish? I know how the Mexican mind works and that makes it fairly easy to teach here, but Koreans I'm unfamiliar with.

Any tips are greatly appreciated.

[some waygug-in]

A very difficult question to answer without meeting the students.

Pronunciation problems: F - V are usually substituted by P or B.

Adding of a final ee or eugh sound at the end of words

Ex: Beach - beachy

bridge - bridgey English - Englishee


hand - handeugh

card - cardeugh

Confusion of L and R sounds.

Sometimes confusion of S and Sh sounds.


Difficulty hearing and pronouncing short vowel sounds in English

Your student is probably past this level though, I can't say.

Grammar problems:

Mixing up of he/she his/her your/my

Dropping the 3rd person "s" on simple present verbs.

ex: She walk to school everyday.

Generally just mixing up verb tenses.

ex: I'm have been studied English during 3 years.

Difficulties with sentence structure and word order.

ex: What do you want vegetables?

Failure to use the past tense, especially with go.


ex: Yesterday, I downtown go.


I could make a list about 20 pages long of all the problems students in Korea have with English, as I said earlier, it's hard to say without knowing the student.

One thing I've noticed is that Koreans tend to say things that sound quite rude to our ears and I don't think they intend to be rude, they just don't know how to say things more politely.

Oh yeah, I just remembered. Negative questions.

The way of answering negative questions is backwards from English, so it may lead to some confusion if you're not used to the student.

Ex: English - Didn't you do your homework? No, I didn't.
or
Yes, I did.

Korean - Didn't you do your homework? Yes. (I didn't do it)
or
No. (I did it)

If you are asking negative questions, it's best to have them give a long answer rather than just yes/no. Then you can be sure what they are answering.

More advanced students tend to have problems with articles, prepositions, and mixing up of adverbs with adjectives or noun forms of words.


Anyway, I hope this is some help.

[Guy Courchesne]

Lots of help, thank you.

[Celeste]

Depending on how much experience they have with foreign teachers, you may have a hard time getting them to make eye contact or to give you more than a one word answer. Rather than guess an answer they don't know, many Korean kids will look at their shoes withgreat intensity for prolonged periods of time. Teaching writing can be a real challenge, because it is not something that is stressed at school (or wasn't 5 years ago when I taught there). Trying to explain that just changing a few words for synonyms and then handing in a copied chunk of text is still plagiarism was a real problem when I taught high school there. Many of the teachers also didn't understand this at the time. The structure of Korean writing is very roundabout. No clear introduction, body, and conclusion. More like stumbling into a series of thesis statments and facts in no particular order and ending abruptly. (kind of like this little paragraph!)

[Guy Courchesne]

[Spinoza]

[Guy Courchesne]

Well, here's my report after the first class with both the girls. They might not fit your regular mold...

Both are incredibly bright. Both studying at quite the exclusive school in Mexico City. Both take classes in English, Korean, Spanish, French, and the elder daughter takes Japanese classes as well.

Anyway, there were zero obvious pronunciation erros, other than being not as fluid as a native speaker (but not too far off). The only consistent error that came up was with adding -s to uncountable nouns luggage, pollution, crime Something I think many non-English speakers would do.

The 10 year old girl is using Cambridge Passages, clearly below her level of proficiency. The 16 year old is now working on GMAT prep, which was sufficiently challenging. She had already done an SAT prep course, but didn't do so well she says.

So thank you for your input, all. But, I gotta raise the bar a bit. Any further suggestions on areas in which Koreans might typically struggle?

Hanyeo HI ke se yeo! and arigato!

[schwa]

They sound like they'll be fun to teach. Two suggestions:

Debate might be a challenging problem for them. Their culture teaches them to acquiesce to an elder's opinion. They might find it useful to learn how to politely interrupt or contradict a speaker or how to redirect a discussion.

Creative thinking -- not stressed in Korea. Exercises to help them stretch their imaginations might be helpful.

[Guy Courchesne]

[isabel]

I teach in an academic department (American Studies) at a Korean university. I find that my best students still have a good deal of trouble with writing skills. I don't mean sentence level so much, though all have problems there, but with organizing and writing paragraphs and short essays.

These girls you are teaching are most likely from a well to do family, and are expected to go to an excellent university. I would check out their writing skills, and get a good "paragraph to essay" book. I'm not in my office now, or I would give you some suggestions, but I am sure you can suss out the various options.

I am currently editing an essay for a graduate student from Seoul National University (reputedly the best school in Korea) who already has an M.A. in Anthropology. He has excellent spoken English, but he still struggles with the classic sentence level problems Koreans have, such as articles, countable nouns and plurals, and prepositions. These are the areas of huge difference between the Korean language and English, and Spanish for that matter. Anyway, he is applying to the best schools in the U.S., but his essay writing still needs a lot of work.

By the way, a lot of the problems that are chronic for Korean natives with Western languages are epistemological- that is, they come from a very different world view and view of the self, and this is, of course, reflected in language usage. This, I believe, is the basis of the major blocks for Koreans learning the finer points of English- they get stuck in places where their native language and especially culture simply don't go on a deep subconscious level. It's like the early structuring of the brain, especially in regards to language, has little or no plasticity when it comes to some very basic assumptions.

I apologize for the 50 cent, poorly stated philosophizing, but I hope that is a bit comprehensible and may be of a little help.

[Guy Courchesne]

Completely comprehensible and very appreciated. Ever written a paper on your experience? Sounds like you should...

The girl is still only 16...I'm not going to work her too hard, but good to know as I'm in this for the long haul.

[desultude]

[Guy Courchesne]

Sorry to be treating this like a blog, but I'm getting a lot of help and great insights here.

[guangho]

The most difficult thing for me was trying to get students to think for themselves- there is a real "follow the leader" culture in S.K and individualism is shunned there.

The trick is to get something she can relate to so that she would have something tangible to grasp and can take off from there. Try looking up Korean sciencists/inventions and using that as an example. Have her write something about the Korean sciencists who just perfected cloning or the effect kimchi has on SARS or something similar. Once she is on solid ground culture-wise, she will probably feel 'safe' enough to venture past that.

[Justin Trullinger]

I've recently read a great article on how logical structure is very different from culture to culture, and how this affects writing. Don't remember where, though. When I find it, I'll post it. (Tease!)

Not to change the subject, or hijack the thread, but this gave me pause.