Korean Job Discussion Forums

[iggyb]

Here is something I came up with to get adult students to come up with a free talk topic when they wanted a free talk sessions and to get them to keep a discussion going rather than being passive:

When they stall or won't get going or come up with a topic they are interested in: take out a 1,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 Won bill and ask them who the person on it is.

The 1,000 and 5,000 are best, because they have two of the most famous Korean confucian scholar/philsophers.

---Of course, you have to google and find out about these guys beforehand...

Don't let the students know you know what is what until they stumble and can't tell you who it is or much about him.

Then, throw in a few notes you had learned as if you have known them forever.

Only use 1 or 2 info items at a time. Do it then ask them to continue the conversation, because you will usually jog memories.

Keep doing this until you are pretty much having to give the items by yourself -- or -- the conversation keep going well without you.

--- You can do this with a Korean history textbook as well...

I would read one (Lee Ki-Baek's New History of Korea - very dry but informative reading) --- during breaks between classes.

One day it dawned on me to use it like I used the Korean Won bills. When students would want free talking but would just sit and listen to me talk --- I'd take out the history book and write the name of a famous person or event or item in Korean history ----- then tell them to teach me about it.

When they falter, I'd tell them an item I knew - and in two methods - either like I had known it since a child -- or as an inquirying expat dying to learn about Korean society and history...

Either way - you play on the Korean adult desire to show off Korean society and history and hope that the expat will like Korea...

....They see your interest and then become embarrassed that - as Koreans - they can't teach you a whole lot about history and/or that you SEEM to know more than they do at that moment (because they had memoriesed and forgotten tons of history in Korean public schools).

In adult hakwons, where students came and went each month - this almost always worked for me....

[cdninkorea]

That's actually a really good idea: those sorts of things are what pretty much every Korean knows, and they sure like to talk about it too! I'm really interested in the Korean War, and I've read several semi-academic books about it (not textbooks, but not casual reading either), but sadly few of my students, especially the young ones, know a damn thing about it.

[Bearach]

Sounds like a good plan, at first I thought you were taking out your money to offer as a prize!
The best discussions I have with my high school students are about pop music, singers, and other celebrities. When there's a new 'Hot Issue' and I ask about it, they fall over each other trying to explain the situation to me.

[buildbyflying]

Iggy, so you're working already? Glad to see it.

At first I was going to be a bit critical about embarrasing students, tsk tsk.
(then i realized that you weren't suggesting that.)
I dig the suggestion for getting them to teach you about the culture.

[richardlang]

I find it disappointing students are taught to trump up Korean history rather than talk about their own individual interests. The media and newspapers here teach us every day how this country is Numero Uno, dispensing on the supposed world-changing Korean Wave, kimchi's powerful healing powers, and the spearheaded approach to spread and make Hangul internationally known.

[waynehead]

And that would make Korea different from every other country how?