Korean Job Discussion Forums

[curlygirl]

[meangradin]

[beercanman]

[Auslegung]

CentralCall: you critiqued my response based on a misunderstanding of what you said, which I admitted to before replying. Then, you quoted everything I said that you agree with, but I wasn't aware you agreed with because of the initial misunderstanding (i.e. what a natural language is). However, you didn't speak to my responses to your two-fold societal issues. I believe we agree on a lot, but I disagree that motivation is the problem I am experiencing. I agree with what you said about memorization. I'm mainly confused as to why you said anything in response because we agree on virtually everything, and if there's a problem it's probably in semantics.

Juregen: thank you for insulting myself and everyone else who isn't the best teacher in the world, and thank you for indicating that you are, in fact, that best teacher, and then failing to teach any of us anything of importance except to know what you are. Please define what success is to you in this context, and demonstrate your success rate. If you would read my second post you would see that the overwhelming majority of my students want to learn. You'll also see the reason I conclude that this is not the issue.

NathanRutledge: I agree that it is those moments that keep me going, but when I step back and realize just how tiny of a step it is, and how much effort has gone into that step, I come to the conclusion that it is not worth my effort. We should not have to bust our humps just to see a kid create a short, simple, grammatically correct sentence.

Meangradin: I agree that building is required. My hagwon (surprise, surprise) has no such curriculum that successfully builds upon already-acquired knowledge. On the same day, I have taught the same vocabulary word, "surprise," to students who were barely above phonics, and to those in the "fluent" class. The fluent students obviously learned it on a different level, but that is just as much a result of their age and development as it is their language proficiency. Now that I've been with my hagwon for 8 months I know what books the students have just read, and what books they will read soon, so I can do a small amount of building and preparing, but it is not nearly enough.

I appreciate (most) everyone's responses and feedback. What I am looking for and hoping for is either 1) extreme agreement, or 2) explanations for why I'm wrong. I want to be either justified in my frustration, or shown that there should be no frustration.

So far, many of you have offered up reasons you see for many of your students not acquiring the language, but they do not (I believe) apply to most of my students. I am truly lucky in that most my students are motivated and try. How I stumbled on such a group I do not know, but I do know that no matter their motivation, their studying, or my techniques (admittedly thin as I am not a trained educator, but I have studied a little in how and what to do), acquisition is not happening.

[ajuma]

After 13 years, I could write a book...maybe I should!

Problem 1: Too many students in a classroom. Most schools have 30+ students. Listen/repeat/memorize probably seems like the best strategy to Korean teachers. Speaking of Korean English teachers

Problem 2: Korean English teachers. A fair number of them can't speak English themselves and are more comfortable teaching vocab and grammar. Their pronunciation is terrible. I have students who say "is-land" or "iz-land" instead of "i-land" because that's the way their teacher pronounced it. And EVERY Korean English teachers teaches their students "billag-e". Korean teachers also stress translation instead of teaching students to think in English.

Problem 3: As has been mentioned before. English is treated like a subject to be memorized, not as a dynamic language which needs different skills to acquire.

Problem 4: Motivation. Generally, English classes at unis earn fewer credits than major courses. If a student doesn't do well in English, it's not as big a deal as flunking a major subject.

Problem 5: The Korean education system does not encourage "outside of the box" thinking. A kid who says "Teacher, me pen give." should be encouraged for using the right words and not punished for using the wrong grammar structure.

Problem 6....and on...and on....

For you hagwon teachers, do the best you can to keep your kids learning and being excited about English. I remember substituting for a teacher at an elementary school. In the class there was I kid I'd had in summer camp. Now this kid was on the bottom rung in his camp class, but he was the ONLY one in his elementary school class who could understand me and respond to my questions. In the camp, it seemed that he didn't take anything in, but he did! Know that your students might be out there wowing their friends and teachers!

[Privateer]

There are just two things I want to add to what has already been said.

Firstly, I think the linguistic gap between English and Korean makes it too much of a conceptual challenge for younger students. We get better and better at abstract thought as we get older, so the average Korean student isn't really capable of understanding how English works until university age - and then only if motivated to learn.

It would be the same in reverse. I shudder to think of the mess the average English secondary school kid would make of Korean.

Secondly, students don't frame the problem correctly. They're used to an education system in which there's a perfect model answer provided by the teacher, which they are supposed to reproduce verbatim. They're not used to a system in which they're supposed to learn a set of rules and apply them appropriately according to the situation in order to achieve communication. The idea that they have to figure out from the situation what type of answer makes sense - and then perhaps even decide what answer *they* want to give - is not something their educational experience prepares them for. To us that's natural and common sense, but we're fighting years of conditioning in a completely different mode.

We're looking at them expecting an answer that makes sense, and they're looking at us thinking 'Tell us what answer you want us to give'.

Add to that all the other things mentioned - students' natural disinclination to study, preoccupation with other things, lack of practice time, overly large class sizes, poor discipline, and so on - and it's amazing how much kids actually learn.

[Privateer]

Also, there's the issue of materials.

I think most of us are continually reinventing the wheel every time we produce a lesson plan. Yes, it's our duty to come up with materials and lesson plans, but all this individually replicated effort seems pretty inefficient.

The Korean government - or Korean universities - should put together a team of experts and develop a complete beginner-to-advanced integrated program including a rich set of materials ([url]bogglesworldesl.com[/url] seems to me like a good example of one on a small scale) and guidelines on how to use them, and make it available to all teachers. It should be one that both NETs and KETs can use, and there should be training courses on how to use it. The current school curriculum clearly needs improvement, and my experience is none of the textbooks on the market are adequate - I don't think I've seen any that really address the problems of Korean students.

Naturally, a teacher can and should come up with their own stuff, but a core set should also be there.

The government and universities, unfortunately, do not have the interests of students at heart.

[Auslegung]

Wonderful insights, I agree wholeheartedly. I have put a few minutes of thought towards the need for a standard set of books, but I feel that even if one were to be sponsored by the government, it wouldn't be the best. There wouldn't be enough people at the top aware of the problems Korean students face when learning English, and they would just use the same old approaches. We should all get together and produce something. I mean, how hard can it be

[Fishead soup]

[Privateer]

[anamika]

[Xuanzang]

No accountability in English class doesn't help either. Most of the time, the graded participation portion is just 10%. I`m betting little Su min would be more receptive if 50% was riding on my evaluations and activities.

[Privateer]

[Auslegung]

And Latino would be my guess.

Anamika: it seems you're offended by the idea of there being (only?) 4 races. Could you expound on that? I really don't see it as an issue. If you're arguing that there are many more people groups and that to lump them all together is negative, then I'm ok with that, but like I said I don't see it as an issue. Probably cuz I'm white.

[cruisemonkey]

To all newbies... people who tell you to 'believe' K-ids will improve their English ability in the PS system are taking you for a fool. In fact, nothing is farther from the truth... these people have a vested (monetary) interest in you thinking you can be 'super teacher'.