Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tomato]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/pentatonika/vygotsky.gif[/img]

Meet Lev Semenovich Vygotsky. This eminent Russian theorist believed that learning should take place in the zone of proximal development. In this zone, a learner attempts a task only a little more difficult than can easily be accomplished on his or her present level.

In foreign language study, the student sees a few hitherto unknown words and phrases, but only a few. The student sees a few hitherto unknown grammatical points, but only a few.

For persons studying Korean in Korea, this wonderful athenian paradise may be difficult to find. Sure, there are many Koreans who want to practice their English with you, but that is far from ideal. Since their object is to keep the conversation in English, they will speak only enough Korean with you to keep the deal operating.

Sure, there are many books and periodicals printed in Korean, but that is also far from ideal. If you're like me, you will have to look up so many words that you will remember very few of them.

Where, then, can we hit the happy medium? Here are a few places in Korea where I have found ZPD's:

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It is easy to look up "����,�� which means "children's songs," in the library computer. It is rewarding, too. Children's songs are short, so it does not take long to look up all the unknown words. See how well you can understand these songs:

���� ����, ���� ����, �� �� �� �� �� ��.
���� ����, ���� ����, �� �� �� �� �� ��.

���� �� ����, ���� �� ����, ���� �� ������ ���ư��ϴ�.
���� �� ����, ���� �� ����, ���� �� ������ ���ƿɴϴ�.

�����մϴ�, �����մϴ�,
Thank you for the snack, thank you for the snack.

�� �׸�å

In the kiddy room at the library, you can find many picture books with few or no unknown words. Furthermore, they will be easy for your English students after you translate them.

While you're in the kiddy room, hang around for a while. Preschoolers will want you to read to them in Korean. Elementary school children will be impressed if you can read a book in Korean while translating it into English. Parents and librarians will probably appreciate your presence, too. You won't be suspected, as you would back home in Anglophonia.

For an example of an easy book, here is My Family, translated from �츮 ���� by Montessori Korea:

mother
father
sister
brother
little sister
grandmother
grandfather
aunt

Really tough, huh!

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/pentatonika/chomsky.jpg[/img]

�� �ֱ⸻

Meet Noam Chomsky. He has performed outstanding research on American infant and toddler speech. Subsequent researchers have found his findings to be valid in other cultures as well.

When his name was mentioned on another thread, that got me interested in Korean baby talk. So I went to the library to learn about early speech development in Korean children.

It is easy to collect examples. When a writer offers an example, that writer skips a line before the example, indents, and then skips another line after the example. Just flip through the pages and look for white space.

Here are some good books on the subject:

�̽º�, ���ȹ��� �ߴ�
������, �ѱ� �Ƶ��� ��� ȹ�� ����
������, �츮 ����

and here are some examples:

1 year 10 months: ���� ���̴�
2 years 3 months: ����! �䳢 ����!
2 years 5 months: �� �տ�
2 years 5 months: �б� ���� ���� �ϼ���

�� �ѱ��� ����

It seems that most Korean textbooks present too much information at one time and too little practice using that information. ���� �ѱ���, published by �������б� �ѱ��м���, is a notable exception. I feel very comfortable studying this textbook series.

Here is the information on the title page:

Tel: (82-2)705-8088-9
Fax: (82-2)701-6692
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.sogang.ac.kr/~ckss/

��á �Ϻ��� ����

Studying a third language with instruction in a second language might be easier than you think. Maybe L2 teachers should not speak L1 in the classroom, but most
Korean teachers of Japanese do not realize that. So you can get instruction in two languages for the price of one.

The first words covered in Japanese class will correlate with the first words which you learned in Korean. For those Korean words which you already know, this will be a valuable review. For those Korean words which you do not already know, this will fill in important gaps.

One word, though: most foreign language classes in Korea move too fast.

�� ��ȭ ����

In most cities, sign languages are rare. You will be lucky if you can find a class, and even luckier if you can find a class which does not move too fast.

If you are a self-starter, though, you can buy a book and study at home. The best sign language dictionary seems to be �ѱ���ȭ, published by �������� �ѱ������ ��ȸ: Here is the information:

address: ����� ���DZ� ��õ 11�� 1659-2 û������ 2��
phone: (02)871-4857~9
fax: (02)871-4523~4

☺ ���� ����

If you have musical skills, you should have no difficulty learning a musical instrument in Korea. In one city, I attended ocarina class, and in another city, I attended �ܼ� class.

Music classes use a small vocabulary. do, re, and mi are the same, and the names for the rhythmic values are not difficult.

�� ü����

When I was in South America, I encountered only two unknown words in karate class. One was punete, which means "fist." The other was patada, which means "kick."

That was thirty years ago, when I was thirty years younger.

�� �ѱ��� �ɷ� ����

The Korean Proficiency Test is given on 7 levels. There are study materials available. I think I can make Level 1, but it will take some effort.

I know of two publishers of study material. One publisher is the Korean Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE). Here is their information:

http://www.kice.re.kr
phone: (02)2299-2016
fax: (02)2299-6146
address: ����Ư���� ������ �Ͽձ鸮�� 977-6, �ѱ����������򰡿�

The other publisher is HollyM. Here is their information:

phone: 3460-5523 and 735-7551~3
fax: 3460-5528, 730-8192, and 730-5149
addresses: ����Ư���� ���ʱ� ��� 304, �ѱ��м�¡�����
����Ư���� ���α� ��ö�� 13-13, �Ѹ����ǻ�

Both publishers give complete instructions regarding where, when, and how.

Do you know of any other ZPD's?

[kylehawkins2000]

I'm lost.....
what's the point of your post? You seem to meander too much to make much sense of it....

[d503]

ZPD is something I discovered on my own, well discovered it for myself. I learned it when I was studying in Russia. I was in a program that had 2 options--beginner and advanced. Beginner was learning Cyrillic phrases, advanced was doing readings and discussions in Russian. I was put in the advanced because I had already mastered the ascpects of the beginner course but it was far too hard for me (I should have been in a first level intermediate class). I soon realized I was getting nothing out of the class and took language study into my own hands. Things I found really helpful at the intermediate level:

Reading things you have read in English. I used to pick up copies of books I had already read and reread them in Russian--Since I knew what was going on I could use inference skills to figure out words or grammar constructs I didn't know.

Watching TV especially news or documentaries. The grammar and speaking style in these kind of programs tend to be more correct and so they are easier to follow.

Surfing the web, I like to browse web pages in cyrillic, mailny because it is really easy to use an online dictionary for vocab, copy and paste. I also agree that listening to music is a great help. Russian has a bard style pf music that is pretty easy to follow and I always liked when I could sing along to the radio.

These are just my personal ones. I am now in a Korean class that I like a lot because it is a true beginner class but it moves quickly.

[tomato]

Hello, Kyle Hawkins!

I rewrote the first few paragraphs.
I hope it is more clear this time.
If it isn't, write again.

[tomato]

Whereas:

■ it is impossible to stop Korean teachers from speaking Korean in English class--at least I haven't been able to.

■ it is impossible to enlist the Korean teacher's cooperation in asking the students to speak English instead of Korean--at least I haven't been able to.

■ it is difficult to find a setting in which a foreigner can understand much spoken Korean--at least for me.

■ trying to sharpen one's Korean listening skills is extremely discouraging--at least for me.

■ a foreign teacher feels resentful to Korean teachers for hijacking his classtime and looks for subtle ways of getting even--at least I do.

Be it resolved that we start a game in which we keep count of the Korean words and suffixes which we can identify in one class period.

Identifying two or more lexical units in a row counts extra.

If you would like to participate, go to:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?p=2205566#2205566

[jboney]

Any Education major should know this, it's 1st semester theories of education stuff....blah blah blah.

Also be sure to check out readings on chunking, schema, and scaffolding that were further developed from Vygotsky's ZPD.

In NYC this was all required reading and learning for teachers of all subjects, especially language teachers.

[Manuel_the_Bandito]

What is it called when they've learned the phrases five times and have still forgotten?

[richardlang]

In my UMissouri-Columbia online studies, this was all covered in Human Development 1.

[Old Gil]

Isnt' this also called i+1? I thought it was niceuh, as far as language acquisition goes.

[tomato]

That's what Krashen calls it.
He borrowed the idea from Vygotsky.