Korean Job Discussion Forums

[murmanjake]

I can't stand the way most(all that I've encountered) textbooks teach kids to write their letters.

I think they make a basic mistake in using computer fonts which differ from handwriting. Letters like these, the way we see them here:

a
t
k
R

I think these look nice, but would be strange ways to write letters by hand. More problematically, I think asking kindergarteners to write letters like this leads to awkward and poorly formed letters.

Now I may be totally off-base on this, and maybe the rest of the world does write these letters how they appear here. That's why I'm asking.

I'm especially willing to believe that I'm wrong about k, even though it is one that drives me really crazy. I don't write "k" like it appears here, my k is a straight line with a "<" coming off of it. It's a slight difference, but I think mine is much easier to write.

Young kids often seem to F-up the "k" typified by this font, by connecting the third line to the second at some weird place way too high up.

Is there a standard in letter formation amongst textbooks? Should there be? Am I being completely daft?

[Boodleheimer]

one of the things that really oddly bugs me here is that people are never taught English handwriting when learning English, but learning Hangeul and Hanja stroke order is a big deal when you learn Korean.

students of English don't cross their Ts here, they tee their crosses. (if you've seen it, you know what i mean.)

i don't know why it's not part of the curriculum, but it isn't.

one more story: back when i worked in a public school, i mentioned to my co-teacher that i was surprised that students couldn't read my cursive when i wrote on the board. she responded that she had been told that nobody used cursive anymore!

[Troglodyte]

I think that most of the time the Korean teachers just want to go on and on about how good the students are, even when it's blatantly obvious that the kids are ignorant. I've never tried teaching kids cursive writing here. I really don't want to open that box of headaches. But I can completely believe that the Korean teacher would make up an excuse for why the kids can't read it. The other universal excuse I hear is something like "Oh. They know it. They are just to shy to __________." I've had Korean teachers swear that middle school kids know the IPA.

If you work with middle school or high school kids, teaching them to write stuff with the IPA is one way to motivate them to be conscious of the different ways to write letters with and without tails (e.g the little arm over the "a" or the bent bottom of the "t").

With elementary and middle school kids, I often have them write out lines of letters or words. I found fonts (some on dafont.com) that have the correct way to handwrite, some of them even have a dotted line at middle height so that they have a reference for how high to make letter and where to put the dots and crosses.

To add a bit to you list, here are some others that I find they consistently mess up.

I - but they write the top and bottom serifs like the top of the letter "T". The end result looks like a sideways "H"

K / k - often indistinguishable. I often write them like a | with a < but I don't think that it's necessarily wrong if it's not actually a <. BUT the big K has to be, well, BIG. I usually say something like "Oh. You write 'korea' with a little 'k'? This means that you think Korea is inferior? You should be proud of your country and write it with a big 'K'." Same if their family name is Kim.

r / v - the v is usually ok, but the r often looks like a v

Other than that the big problem that I see are the exaggerated tails (which as you say aren't actually used in normal hand writing) and that many of the kids/teens don't place lower case letter in their correct position, thus making 'j' look like 'J' and 'g' look kind of like an '8' or '9' (but even the '9' doesn't look like a nine but actually a 'P').

[northway]

[mimi belle]

This is interesting and kind of funny.

I have seen people write that kind of 'a' so maybe it's an acceptable variation. And I've seen that kind of 'k' and 'R' before now that I think about it. But not the 't'.

The influence of computer fonts...
I guess this group of kids will grow up writing in Helvetica or Ariel! I know some designers who would be very amused.

Could you add outside worksheets to your lessons?
Here's one I found that has the kind of letters you want:
http://www.tlsbooks.com/traceandprintatoz.pdf

It's odd because some other ones have a new kind of 'q'. It has a hook on the end instead of a tail. Like this:
http://www.handwritingforkids.com/handwrite/manuscript/animation/lowercase.htm

[murmanjake]

Mimi: That's funny 'cause I've always written my q's with a hook on the end, except my hook is an angle, not a curve. I thought some differences might just be regional, and there you have it.

I guess it wouldn't be so bad if the next generation ends up writing in Helvetica, the most perfect presentation of English known to man.

Troglodyte: You're spot on with all of those. Letter placement is a big thing I wasn't even thinking of.

Those r's that look like v's get to me as well. Then again, I'm the one who sometimes confuses the kids by omitting the pointy bit. They think it's a c!

One last irritation. Those trace the letter exercises that present dots above letters as squares, or outlined circles.

Number one is just stupid, and for number 2 the kids end up either:

making their dots resemble miniature black holes by drawing circles and filling them in

OR

just drawing circles and not filling them in.

I also completely detest the way that koreans write 7, buts that's a whole 'nother ball-game.

[stephorama]

I'm intrigued by this topic!

So Korean schools don't use D'nealian or Zaner-Bloser? Do they have a name for the fonts they teach?

Do you have the freedom (maybe depending upon the school?) to teach the actual American way to properly form letters?

In the U.S. I have used my trusty ABC Teacher font CD year after year. It has both D'nealian and Zaner-Bloser (and cursive).

Cursive handwriting is being taught in most U.S. schools but it's really not terribly useful anymore except to sign your name. When writing anything for someone born in say, Mexico or Russia, I always print.

Very curious as to whether or not there is some universally accepted font in Korea. Do the public schools have a standard they follow in this regard?

[murmanjake]

steph: I just checked out D'Nealian and Zaner-bloser. I'd never heard of them before. D'Nealian would be unnecessary as cursive is not taught here, and it seems to be mainly a way to ease the transition from block to cursive. Couldnt find too much about the other method, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a standard here.

I can and do teach handwriting in my own way, but often the students have already developed habits of writing, based on previous textbooks, which are hard to counteract. Its also nigh to impossible to excise the offending portions of some beginner textbooks, and you just have to teach the kids to ignore the book...

[Troglodyte]

There is a default Korean font on word processors other than TimesNR and Ariel. It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't quite remember it.

I think that cursive is still quite useful because a lot of people still do write by hand. Sure, almost everything we do is on the computer, but sometime we have to take note or other stuff. At least, adults do. If kids aren't taught a standard form of cursive writing, they'll just end up creating their own by writing words too quickly - quicker than they should be written with block letters. If they learn cursive script, they can increase their speed a lot, and still retain a degree of legibility. Whether or not there's any advantage to Koreans learning to write it is one thing. If they are adults likely to use the language abroad, then they should definitely learn to at least read it.

[stephorama]

[710]

You are actually referring to �glyphs� not �fonts�, and technically, you are trying to reference �typefaces� not �fonts�.

Just like there are several dialects that should be understood, there are different letterforms that should be recognized. A lot of the differences stem from historical evolution of typography. Just like italics and obliques usually have a different form of �a� then the roman counterpart. If you look at hangul, there are also different ways to render �ㅈ�.

Besides, we do not read words letter by letter. unless the type is written in all-caps. We read by recognizing the overall shapes of the words. This is why you can still understand text when certain letters are switched. When we read, we see the shapes of the first, last and middle letters and read into the context of the writing�

I think if students get too used to one thing, they could have trouble reading the variation that they are likely to experience in the real world. We don�t all have the exact form of handwriting...

[jinks]

I find Korean students' English writing is surprisingly similar to the classic continental European handwriting style. I'm also surprised to see even the lowest English-ability students write very nicely in English. Some of their stroke order is a bit weird - like drawing the dot of the 'i' first - but overall I rarely come across shabby handwriting - the language content isn't always so good, though!

[southernman]

[murmanjake]

[BoholDiver]

A related but slightly different thing.

I friggin' hate how so many people here write a 9. They write them like a P. I can not see any rhyme nor reason for that.