Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Qinella]

Whenever I've heard complaints about game monkey foreign teachers from Korean students, one that always comes up is too many spelling mistakes. You know that serious Korean students do not makes spelling mistakes as a generality, since they memorize the word as letters rather than the way native speakers memorize the sound and then try to write it out with letters. So when they see us make spelling mistakes, it has an impact on their opinion and ability to trust their teacher.

For that reason, I've tried to be very careful with my spelling. I've independently studied some English spelling-- mostly words that give me trouble, such as Fahrenheit and parallel--to make sure I don't make a mistake if it comes up in class. But, of course.. we are human, and who of us has a 100% accuracy rate at anything?

So, there are exactly two times I can think of that I made spelling mistakes in class.

- elaborate. I wrote 'ellaborate', and a student tried to find it in her dictionary. Lo and behold.. ellaborate is not a word!!

- subconscious - I wrote 'sub-concious', because the S made me nervois.

The first time, a student caught my error and my face turned bright red with embarrassment. The second time, though, I realized it after class, but thankfully no student was paying attention, anyway.

So, it's time for you to come clean. What words have you mispelted in class?

Q.

[Voyeur]

are you teaching uni?

I can't see it mattering in any other forum.

[antoniothegreat]

for some reason i always get thousend and thousand mixed up.

i made a few mistakes in class once, like for some reason i wrote stomache instead of stomach. the coteacher corrected me and of course i was emberrassed. ( i think i spelled that wrong too) i joked after class and asked her to give me private english lessons. she asked why i spelled it wrong and i said many americans spell a few english words wrong because so many words are not written and spoken the same. i told her that is one great thing about korean that words are usually written as how they are spoken. the compliment to korea made her happy.

as a rule, if i am not sure how to write a word, i dont write it. like if i dont know if it is misspell or mispell, i will write spell wrong.

i usually ignore it when students think bad things like that. i have gone off a few times, like when they laughed because i said Harry Potter funny.

if it really bothers you, then just put them in their place and make sure they know who is the english expert. i think this is a bit immature, but it did make me feel better.

for example, on harry potter, i went off about how it was written and made into a movie in the west, i was born and lived 25 years in a country speaking english, they have never gone to an english speaking country, then i explained the phonetics (right word?) of the word, it is not potter with a hard o, it is a soft o, that is what double consonents do, and added the R, they change it to 포터 where in english it is 파텔 or american 파델.
hope that helps...

oh, and then i asked them how to say thanks in korea, they said 간삼니다. i laughed hysterically and told them they were all wrong and it is 감사합니다. then again, i asked them who speaks better korean, and who speaks better english.

[sock]

[Qinella]

[sock]

No point, really, just thought it was ironic that I don't remember ever, ever seeing a spelling error in one of your posts ... until you posted about spelling errors.

I would've never guessed you felt you "had to feel careful" about your spelling because your posts always seem to be well-written and error-free, from my recollection.

Guess the way I pointed it out with no explanation was kind of tacky. Sorry. I tend to lack many of the social graces like that.

[Qinella]

[sock]

[Ya-ta Boy]

When I make a spelling error on the board and a student catches it, I just say, 'Thanks', correct it and go on with the lesson. While I do think spelling is important when writing on the board, the fact that I'm also thinking about the next thing I'm going to say or do, wondering what the student in the back row is doing and maybe about the next example of the point I'm trying to make, it isn't surprising that sometimes a word gets spelled wrong. I sometimes even leave a word out of a sentence.

One of the first truly new words my students learn from me is, "Oops".

[jinks]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[tiger fancini]

I've been told by my students that I've made spelling mistakes when I've written "colour" on the board. Now however, my students are aware of the small differences between American English and rea... oops, I mean British English.

[ChuckECheese]

I ask the class "How do you spell XXXXXXXX?"

They say "X", "X", "X", "X", "X", "X", "X".

Then I write the word on the board and ask the class "Is this right?"

If the majority of them says "Yes, teacher!" Then I know I'm good to go.

In response I say, "Very good!"

[diablo3]

People thought I made a spelling mistake because I used the English spelling, not the American spelling. It wasn't a problem because I always told them the difference.

[English_Ocean]

I do all the time. I misspell the months of the year, put the wrong date up, the wrong year, just to see who's paying attention.

When I have a word list on the board I ask the students if they are correct?
Whichever student finds the "mistake" gets to take a bow!

Same with sentencees....