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Ice Tea
Joined: 23 Nov 2008
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 Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:55 am Post subject: |
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| RMNC wrote: |
Kids that can barely speak Korean won't learn anything be spending 4 hours a week in a building where they can understand even less of the foreign language anyways. English pre-school and Kindergartens always seemed ridiculous to me.
I went to a Spanish-speaking Kindergarten back in the states in the early 90's and I didn't learn any functional Spanish until 5th grade or so, and that was after spending 6 hours a day, 5 days a week in "Spanish Immersion". |
Wrong. I taught at these Kindergartens. I taught elementary students. I taught adults. After two years of kindergarten/grade 1, the majority of children speak near perfect English and far better than most Korean adults. They work. I've seen it. I'm a believer. Koreans are already hopeless by the time they are adults; you have to start them young. No other choice. |
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liveinkorea316
Joined: 20 Aug 2010
Location: South Korea
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:19 am Post subject: |
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| interestedinhanguk wrote: |
| Isn't kindergarten optional? |
True. The reason for this legislation is that the obscene cost of these schools has become a scandal. Also they care for very young kids so there is a concern that there is no specific regulations to ensure standards of safety etc.
The government would like anyone teaching a 3-5 year old child to be under the relevant regulations and that requires:
1. not teaching any English
2. following a strict curriculum
3. rules regarding teachers
4. rules around facilities necessary such as food and health and safety
you get the picture...
But this law would not be necessary or have any major impact if the government just relented and allowed English to be used in Pre-school/kindergartens.
In some way it is kind of an egalitarian policy because the only people who can afford to pay US$20,000 per year for kindergarten are the rich and the rest miss out. Government has been trying to stamp out private teaching for years. They introduced EPIK and GAPIC for exactly this reason because only rich people could get a proper English education. |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:39 am Post subject: |
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| Ice Tea wrote: |
| RMNC wrote: |
Kids that can barely speak Korean won't learn anything be spending 4 hours a week in a building where they can understand even less of the foreign language anyways. English pre-school and Kindergartens always seemed ridiculous to me.
I went to a Spanish-speaking Kindergarten back in the states in the early 90's and I didn't learn any functional Spanish until 5th grade or so, and that was after spending 6 hours a day, 5 days a week in "Spanish Immersion". |
Wrong. I taught at these Kindergartens. I taught elementary students. I taught adults. After two years of kindergarten/grade 1, the majority of children speak near perfect English and far better than most Korean adults. They work. I've seen it. I'm a believer. Koreans are already hopeless by the time they are adults; you have to start them young. No other choice. |
Hence the real reason for the ban, they work too well and are making the rest of the education system lose face. (and future income) |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:39 am Post subject: |
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| RMNC wrote: |
Kids that can barely speak Korean won't learn anything be spending 4 hours a week in a building where they can understand even less of the foreign language anyways. English pre-school and Kindergartens always seemed ridiculous to me.
I went to a Spanish-speaking Kindergarten back in the states in the early 90's and I didn't learn any functional Spanish until 5th grade or so, and that was after spending 6 hours a day, 5 days a week in "Spanish Immersion". |
You really don't know what you're talking about. I've seen kids go in eighteen months from speaking no English to be completely conversation and able to read and write. My second graders, who went through the same program at age seven, are now capable of writing essays and reading at a near native level. Maybe you had some godawful instruction, but generally speaking, these kids are sponges. |
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Space Cowboy
Joined: 27 Mar 2010
Location: On the blessed hellride
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:42 am Post subject: |
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| Ice Tea wrote: |
| RMNC wrote: |
Kids that can barely speak Korean won't learn anything be spending 4 hours a week in a building where they can understand even less of the foreign language anyways. English pre-school and Kindergartens always seemed ridiculous to me.
I went to a Spanish-speaking Kindergarten back in the states in the early 90's and I didn't learn any functional Spanish until 5th grade or so, and that was after spending 6 hours a day, 5 days a week in "Spanish Immersion". |
Wrong. I taught at these Kindergartens. I taught elementary students. I taught adults. After two years of kindergarten/grade 1, the majority of children speak near perfect English and far better than most Korean adults. They work. I've seen it. I'm a believer. Koreans are already hopeless by the time they are adults; you have to start them young. No other choice. |
Applied linguistics has your back on this one. Early childhood L2 education has a very high potential for success.
I teach a conversation class to a group of engineers. One of the topics I brought in was "English Education for Children", and it was really interesting to hear their opinions. Apparently, it's a fairly commonly held notion here that teaching English to children at too young an age will confuse the daylights out of them. The way these guys told it, any interest in preventing early childhood English education stemmed from a desire to preserve Korean linguistic and cultural identity. Maybe that line of thinking has infected the Ministry of Education? |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:45 am Post subject: |
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| Space Cowboy wrote: |
| The way these guys told it, any interest in preventing early childhood English education stemmed from a desire to preserve Korean linguistic and cultural identity. Maybe that line of thinking has infected the Ministry of Education? |
That part might be true, as I find that the kids who went through English kindergarten tend to be awfully open-minded. |
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megandadam
Joined: 28 Dec 2008
Location: toronto, canada
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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i'm a little biased here as i work in a private english kindergarten so take that as you will.
i also teach some middle school/elementary school kids after-school and let me tell you, my 6 year old kindergarten students could kick their a**es in any english test - even our lowest level class.
i don't condone tons of pressure on kids of that age to learn another language (so i don't pressure them needlessly) but it is their parents' decision - whom happen to be overwhelmingly affluent and wealthy.
i would agree with the poster above about the childrens' abilities to actually get a pretty good grasp on concepts and rules of english at that age, not to mention the concepts of the other subjects we teach, like science, math, writing, and art.
a big difference with our program is that the parents usually send their kids a year (or more) before they come to us as 6 year olds and complete a year or two of montessori learning, in both english and korean.
if i was immersed in french and english in kindergarten and after, i wouldn't be surprised if i could actually stay in a french conversation longer than 30 seconds.
i hope they keep the english kindergarten alive as i have really learned a lot about myself these past few years. i've seen students come in to my class for the first time at 5 and 6 years old, crying their eyes out for two weeks before they get comfortable. the same kid in the next week starts saying hello to me, starts talking to her friends in english, laughing and having a good time. flash forward to graduation where she is giving the graduation speech in ENGLISH! it's priceless, and i wouldn't trade it for a world. i hope someone else gets to feel that good about what they do.
that's it. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Space Cowboy wrote: |
| I teach a conversation class to a group of engineers. One of the topics I brought in was "English Education for Children", and it was really interesting to hear their opinions. Apparently, it's a fairly commonly held notion here that teaching English to children at too young an age will confuse the daylights out of them. The way these guys told it, any interest in preventing early childhood English education stemmed from a desire to preserve Korean linguistic and cultural identity. Maybe that line of thinking has infected the Ministry of Education? |
They are right, it does confuse the child. But I guess they don't know the whole story. A baby will absorb all kinds of words and start experimenting with it until it learns what works and doesn't. It's short term and the kid will work it out before the kid hits school.
I guess these Korean language 'experts' at Seoul U just find it horrifying that a 2 year old can't sort out different words in different languages. But once that kid is 5 the kid will have figured it out. They need to send these 'experts' out to Europe or Canada to see a child in a multilingual environment. |
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tanklor1
Joined: 13 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| I feel bad for the people who will lose their jobs. |
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Sprite06
Joined: 20 Sep 2010
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:46 am Post subject: |
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| Could this have any affect on public elementary schools? |
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vermouth
Joined: 21 Dec 2009
Location: Guro, Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:16 am Post subject: |
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I really don't know what I'd want to do if I can't continue to teach kindergarten here. I really love the kids at that age. They're actually fun to be around and haven't been so throughly brow beat by the system yet.
I also really can't understand this because if you get kids when they are so young they're so easy to teach. It's like their brains can still accept a second first language and they pick stuff up so fast. |
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carleverson
Joined: 04 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:36 am Post subject: |
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Much like the regular hollow English hogwon industry with it's unqualified teachers, useless curriculum and unethical owners / managers, the English kindergartens are yet another scam some koreans pull on other koreans for $$$.
Korean consumers get raped in this country, while the government watches. |
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marsavalanche
Joined: 27 Aug 2010
Location: where pretty lies perish
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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To those saying it's a scam, have you even been inside an English Kindergarten?
I second what someone said earlier in this thread. Some of those kids have a higher level than my 6th graders at a job I just finished up. The parents are getting their money's worth for spending that much and having a child with a better English ability than most adults. |
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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Son Deureo! wrote: |
| Quote: |
From the Korea Herald,
2011-01-17 |
Having taught in the English kindergarten program at Kid's Herald (now known as Herald School), a hogwon chain owned by the Korea Herald, I found this part particularly hilarious. |
Good point. No conflict of interest there? Herald media owns chains of hagwons all throughtout Korea and yet they report on hogwans all of the time without disclosing that fact. |
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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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| There are more kindy hogwan in Korea than are being reported in articles about this latest issue because many kindy hogwan are unlicensed and operating illegally. Be smart and don't work at places that are operating illegally. They won't honor any contracts and you won't be able to challenge them at Labor. Recruiters should avoid helping them, too. Many recruiters get stiffed by these kind of shady operators, too. |
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