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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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 Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:56 pm Post subject: Re: Robots |
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| Ice Tea wrote: |
| Who's Your Daddy? wrote: |
| Ice Tea wrote: |
| All Koreans understand is that natives get results. |
Really? I'm native and I'm not sure I believe that natives get results. |
First off, I understand what you're saying and you have a point. But
consider the alternative. If Natives don't get results, then all the trouble Koreans go to bring us here and pay us high wages is based solely on the racial inferiority complex of Koreans. |
That's a big part of it.  Plus there's also the fact that they don't trust fellow Asians not to rip them off. They don't trust fellow Asians not to pass themselves off as fluent and qualified when in fact they're not. And with reason.
There are other reasons for preferring native speakers but none that would justify the immense trouble and expense Koreans go to, so I think the main reasons are the two I just mentioned.
| Ice Tea wrote: |
| I've worked here for many years. I have experienced first hand the success of Korean kindergartens. The kids come in not knowing a word and leave a year later chatting in English. Somehow it works and it wouldn't work with a non-native in the class. |
Might that have something to do with the fact that human beings are genetically programmed to learn languages at that age? You need a native for them to learn from, but that has nothing to do with NETs being results-oriented or better at teaching, and it doesn't say anything about the desirability of hiring NETs to teach other age groups.
I'm not saying it's not true that NETs have a better approach to teaching kindergarten, but, if so, that only really enhances something that is a natural process, i.e. language acquisition.
| Ice Tea wrote: |
| What goes on at public schools is a different story. I think we all know that's a dog and pony show. How can children learn anything from an hour lesson a week in a class of 30+ students. The government is just sticking natives in classrooms to try and appease voters that can't afford to send their kids to hagwons. |
All show and no substance, and at considerable taxpayer expense. I suppose in the grand scheme of things, though, it's a small part of the budget, and if it brings votes and fools some taxpayers into thinking their government cares about education, it may not be as irrational as it seems from the government's perspective. The Korean government spends less per capita on education than any other developed country, and of course, conversely, the Korean population spends much more.
In this situation I see no grounds for optimism about these new robots. They're for show.
| Ice Tea wrote: |
| I don't believe Koreans are stupid. They wouldn't spend huge sums of money to send their kids to private schools with native teachers if they didn't think it produced results. |
The evidence is all against you on this one. The results are bad, and they know the results are bad. In seriousness, I don't think anyone could claim this is just stupidity, but there does seem to be an enormous lack of self-consciousness, a deficit of the imagination, something which the education system and culture systemically induces. Even the many who are aware, however, feel trapped, locked in, to this social dynamic, as seems to happen so often in this crushing, twisted entity that is Korean society.
| Ice Tea wrote: |
| The robot thing seems stupid to us, sure. But from their world view, it makes perfect sense. blahblahblah. |
Yeah, or then again maybe this is just another dog and pony show. Which explanation seems more likely? I can't decide... |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Smee wrote: |
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| If "English Fever" is as exceptionally high in South Korea as we observe and foreign correspondents note, and if communicative competence is as high a priority as the national curriculum has dictated for nearly a decade, it would behoove policy-makers to finally stop rash spending on gimmicks---like robots, expensive English-Only Zones, or inexperienced white people by the thousands---and start developing real solutions that produce results in the classroom, or at least ones that are suitable stand-ins until a generation of domestic English teachers can catch up to the roles in a communication-based English classroom for which they are currently unprepared. |
http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2010/12/sagong-seong-dae-is-insightful.html |
If and if. English fever is a top-down phenomenon. People hate English here, in no small part because it is simply government and chaebol dictat that they learn it. And communicative competence is not a high priority for the government, whatever they pretend. Korean governments spend less per capita on education than any other developed country.
These assumptions - that English fever is high in South Korea and that developing communicative competence is a priority - don't have much evidence to support them. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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| bobbybigfoot wrote: |
| ddeubel wrote: |
If anyone is still truly hot under the collar about all this robot stuff - go complain to my Alice. |
Well, if the Robots are as good as Alice, then all our jobs are safe!
Here's our brief conversation:
Human: Hello
ALICE: Hi there!
Human: You like nice today!
ALICE: Ah. I like Kraftwerk.
Human: lol
ALICE: I'm glad you find this amusing.
Human: I told you look nice and you tell me you like Kraftwerk!
ALICE: I remember you told me look nice and me tell you me like Kraftwerk?
* Obviously I made a typo but the bot was unable to detect it. And it merely re-enforced the error. Plus I used two different tenses and this was not corrected either. Instead, a garbled mess of a sentence got spat out.
Let's hope these Korean bots do a better job. |
That reminds me of that Bjork avatar someone has.....
Rock Facts Rock Facts Rock Facts |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 5:40 am Post subject: |
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What is great about this thread and others that are like it is how the robot issue really brings the bigots out of the woodwork.
Just one more excuse to let loose with demeaning-bigotted comments eh?
Carry on fellas. |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| Smee wrote: |
| Quote: |
| If "English Fever" is as exceptionally high in South Korea as we observe and foreign correspondents note, and if communicative competence is as high a priority as the national curriculum has dictated for nearly a decade, it would behoove policy-makers to finally stop rash spending on gimmicks---like robots, expensive English-Only Zones, or inexperienced white people by the thousands---and start developing real solutions that produce results in the classroom, or at least ones that are suitable stand-ins until a generation of domestic English teachers can catch up to the roles in a communication-based English classroom for which they are currently unprepared. |
http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2010/12/sagong-seong-dae-is-insightful.html |
If and if. English fever is a top-down phenomenon. People hate English here, in no small part because it is simply government and chaebol dictat that they learn it. And communicative competence is not a high priority for the government, whatever they pretend. Korean governments spend less per capita on education than any other developed country.
These assumptions - that English fever is high in South Korea and that developing communicative competence is a priority - don't have much evidence to support them. |
I really don't think there's any debating that English is a priority in South Korea. That's why most of us are there. (What's debatable is how Koreans really feel about English and its speakers). And that Koreans have imported thousands of native English speakers over the past decade shows that developing some level of spoken English ability is a priority to some. (It's been a poorly done experiment, I agree). I don't have a link in front of me, but the national curriculum talks about English education and developing communicative competence several times, which is why I brought it up. |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
What is great about this thread and others that are like it is how the robot issue really brings the bigots out of the woodwork.
Just one more excuse to let loose with demeaning-bigotted comments eh?
Carry on fellas. |
A lot of opportunities for that, since somebody starts one of these "Breaking news! Robot English teachers!" every single day. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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Relying on anyone other than native speakers is shite! If they were serious about fluency, they would get the native teachers and Korean conversation teachers to teach a 4th class per week based on conversation. Students can have the other 3 with the regular Korean teachers. They can teach the grammar and whatnot. We should do the speaking. Let us do our thing for the next 20 years and get the next generation fluent and then they will take over. But of course that would be logical and make sense, so I doubt it would happen.
Releying on only conversation teachers, Indians, and Filipinos are a sloppy, cheap effort that will produce cheap, sloppy results.
Kids through Elementary and Middle School need to have exposure to correct and proper English style and then they will "get it" and not need to worry about studying for the tests. If they go abroad, they will speak English. This is where native speakers come in handy. But we have not been used properly or given the resources to be effective. Let's change the approach. Keep the teachers and get them away from full time Korean English teachers who often try to sabotage our efforts because they don't want us here and want to set us up for failure.
But also, we need to take responsibility for ourself too. |
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Fat_Elvis
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: In the ghetto
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| Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 4:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
I said it in the other thread, this is all something cooked up by RobotCoKorea to make kiss my butt money and to get the schools to foot the bill for their R&D costs. I bet after these 30 come 1000 cheaply made units that require oodles of money to replace their parts.
This kind of thing does have to happen though...Countries/Companies do need in field work developing the language capabilities of robots, it just sucks that our industry is a prime target for such things... |
True, and foreign English teachers are an easy target as they don't vote and are pretty unpopular in some parts of Korean society anyway. Notice as well that another big initiative by robot manufacturers in Korea is replacing soldiers, another unpopular role in society.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/7887217/South-Korea-deploys-robot-capable-of-killing-intruders-along-border-with-North.html
If they tried to create robot farmers, or medical professionals, or secretaries, people would probably be demonstrating on the streets as they would be worried about losing their jobs. As some politicians in this country discovered years ago, foreign English teachers are an easy target. |
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