Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Axl Rose]

Update!

Well, I've been teaching the lesson plan I posted above all week and whilst many kids have no problem with the locations and spellings, their knowledge of population and population density is absolutely pathetic. Even the brightest kids have no clue. Only Korea's and China's populations have they been able to guess closely. It's a revelation to them that Canada and Australia have only 30/20 million respectively. Because they're so big, they must have huge populations, right?

I have also this week taken a look at 2nd grade middle schoolers' 사회 ('Society') textbooks. There's plenty of stuff on foreign countries in there - mostly Europe - so they should (and IMO usually do) have some grasp of basic geography.

[Alyallen]

I had an afterschool class today and I asked the students to split into 2 groups and then write as many countries as they could. They lost points for incorrect spelling or for using incorrect capitalization so for example, one group lost a point for writing Saudi arabia. I guess I'm mean like that.

I talked to my co-teacher while the groups were working and I told him that I bet one of the groups would write Hawaii. Sure enough, I was right.

I was annoyed since they had a lesson 2 weeks ago about countries and I explained that Hong Kong, Hawaii and Alaska are not countries...One day they will learn...

[idonojacs]

wo buxihuan hanguoren:

[whatever]

[whatever]

[beachbumNC]

i was told by a korean that many koreans don't know much about history or geography because the science and math kids study science and math, and the langugage and history kids study language and history. and, just like everywhere else in the world, there's a lot more money in science and math than in language and history.

would you rather your child grow up to design plasma tvs or jets or buildings, or grow up to teach geography in middle school?

but it is kind of weird when you talk to grown up engineers about the roman empire and they've never heard of it.

but all the koreans i've met so far know where north carolina is (of all places). two words...michael jordan.

GO TARHEELS!

[whatever]

[beachbumNC]

well check out this straight-up-awesomeness:

http://perso.orange.fr/michael.jordan/carolina/carolina2.jpg

[monkinwonderland]

One of my students described to me how North and South Korea would reunify and together smash Japan. I asked him to show me Japan on the map. He pointed to Alaska.

Another kid told me that Paris was a country in America.

Another told me that kangaroos live in Japan and the Irish speak French.

My favorite though was the one who when asked to point to Korea, showed me Liberia.

[JZer]

[monkinwonderland]

[JZer]

[JZer]

Since I cannot find the other thread that talked about the lack of intelligence of Koreans. I was laughing today when my class came in and all opened their books when I had already told them twice this week that we were going to have a discussion based on a handout about Studying Abroad.