Job Discussion Forums

[robinnn]

Hi, maybe this is abit boring but I`ll ask anyway.

Once a week I have the pleasure of teaching a couple of grumpy Korean teenagers at my school in Tokyo. I recently hit upon (or sub-conciously stole) the idea of setting them a translation task, wherein they translate an advanced sentence from English and teach me to say the sentence in Korean. They were rolling around on the floor in tears of laughter by the time I had finished reading the translated sentence, I`d never even seen either of them smile before that. So I guess they learnt alot of new grammar and vocab, and they really enjoyed the activity, but I wonder if this kind of approach to teaching is really ethical or effective in the long run? Maybe it could get me into trouble. Should I never use the students native language in any way when teaching English?

[markle]

Well it's hardly the cardinal sin and given that you might have broken through to the kids it might be well worth it.

The danger with using the native language is that it can become a crutch for both the teacher and student. It looks like it worked this time but you should follow up with the new words and structures they have learn and move on from there.

BTW How do you know that the translated passage you read in Korean wasn't something like " I'm a dopey gaijin that smells like old socks" or something?? (still it was probably worth the breakthrough)