Korean Job Discussion Forums

[lowpo]

Why do we still let the kids say Fishee, Englishee, and Orangee in the classrooms?
It took me half my class last night to correct some 6th graders from different elementary schools during my night class at my middle school. They kept wanting to say "Fishee, Englishee, and Orangee".

[AsiaESLbound]

You can correct them and get them to repeat fairly correctly, but they will always start doing it again within 5 minutes. It's something to do with Korean phonics where a vowel has to follow consonants to complete a syllable.

Emart-uh
Finish-ee

Well, you get it.

[Catfisher]

[Poker]

[lowpo]

[Geumchondave]

When teaching in Europe I used to spend a long time on pronunciation - getting the French to say their H's was a particularly grueling one - out here I guess there are so many more urgent fires to be putting out and mostly new teachers so the emphasis goes elsewhere.

I always correct it occasionally do some very quick drill but I try and spend most of the lesson elsewhere - its just a matter of what is going to be more beneficial long term out of that one hour you have with the student - I personally dont think a large class being drilled every week will have a huge long term benefit - I would only bother if i was seeing a class far more often and could actually fix it and move on

[JBomb]

I used the classic cartoon of Ernie going here fishy fishy fishy to help teach mine the difference.

[ticktocktocktick]

Here's a little something that I've found works well:

Write the word on the board, and then add the Korean character for E (이) or uh (으) at the end, so it looks like this:

Orange이

Bus으

Then make a song and dance about crossing out the 이 or 으 - if the kids are young enough, let them come up and cross out the character in amusing ways. It takes a few classes, but it will stick.