Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Fishead soup]

I found this kind of question on an Exam for middle school students.

Which is more correct.


Paper is made of wood.
Paper is made from wood.

[Julius]

Koreans are too socially self-conscious and calculated when speaking. Too afraid of loss of face, too afraid to be wrong, too afraid to offend the group, too afraid to be seen as a traitor by being to keen to learn the foreign language. too afraid to be publicly corrected.

Just too afraid.
This does not lend itself to easy and spontaneous acquisition of language or speaking skills.

[rocklee]

My Japanese students were the shyest of the lot, some even cried for suddenly becoming the centre of attention. That was an incredible learning experience for them and myself.

The Japanese and Koreans are treating English as just another subject. Drilling it into them might make them good students but that may be as far as they are willing to go. I bet you weren't crazy about the polar form of complex numbers or talk math all day long did you?

If anything, English is considered a friendly exchange and should no way be considered a "second" language to them like what it may be to Singaporeans, Malaysians, South Africans and Filipinos.

Pop culture goes a long way in the classroom, unfortunately some teachers have none.

[wylies99]

They're just going through the motions while in class and not practicing while outside of class.

[marlow]

[mikeyboy122]

Julius wise.

[rocklee]

I don't think it is the students that are showing inadequacy.

It may well be the teachers themselves, but of course it can't be any of you right?

[some waygug-in]

It's a whole host of things together, but the biggest that I see is trying to force people to learn something that they have no real interest in learning.

Imagine if someone told you that you had to learn Swahili or Mongolian, and then tried to convince you that you will get a better job if you do.


Koreans spend way too many hours in classrooms and it is little wonder that they have no real zest for learning.

How many friggin' hours a day do these kids sit in a desk anyway?

10, 12,14?

I had to laugh at the recent article telling about how South Koreans are the hardest working people in the world...because they spend the most hours/ day at work. It would be interesting to see a counter study that rated productivity levels during those hours. I'd bet Korea would be somewhere near last in productivity.

It's the same thing with the students, they spend far to much time putting in time and far too little time doing anything useful.

Blame the teachers if you want to, but if the gov't would back off a bit and allow us to all teach privates legally, I'd bet you'd see a vast improvement
over the next couple years. (won't happen, but....you know)

As Julius so nicely pointed out, the system won't allow us to really teach much, mostly we are putting in time as well.

[Adventurer]

[Young FRANKenstein]

[Adventurer]

[Young FRANKenstein]

[rsmm0224]

[wylies99]

[Adventurer]

We should remember when discussing this that so many Canadians who have had years of French cannot speak French well. How many millions of Americans have taken Spanish, but cannot speak it? However, I would suspect that more of our teachers of French and Spanish can speak those languages better than the Koreans can speak English. Of course, those languages are all European languages like English. The Korean teachers need to have their English improved. Why doesn't the government force them to have English lessons from the native speakers and take so many hours of English from a native speaker? That is cheaper than trying to get more and more foreigners. It is a no brainer of an idea.