Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ice Tea]

I'm curious about this one. Of all the qualifications needed to be a great English teacher, you would think having a learned a second language during your life would be one of them. After all you would know what works and what doesn't and you can emphasize more with your students. I know when I teach I constantly bring up methods I used to learn French and German. Other good teachers I've met also spoke a second language like Spanish or French. So, amuse me. I'd like to see this one answered.

[Hugo85]

English is my second language, French is first.

[nate1983]

[Louis VI]

J'ai etudie francais pour neuf ans mais ma grammaire est tres terrible et mon ami n'est jamais parlez francais, si j'ecoute et lire un peu. Pardon. Je suis vraiment mal maintenant.

So do I have a second language? No more or less than the average Korean student who learns English in the classroom only over their school years.

One of my most enjoyable evenings spent in South Korea was back in the summer of '03 on Myeongsashimni beach on Sinjido near Wando chatting and laughing half the night with a Korean guy who spoke no English but who had spent seven years in Uruguay for work, and so, with his broken Spanish and my broken French and body language, we communicated surprisingly a lot, even telling stories. The soju helped us tap into our second language mental histories I think.

[hondaicivic]

Vietnamese. A little bit of Mandarin.

[BigBuds]

English and bad English.

[myenglishisno]

My knowledge of Japanese and Korean combined almost make a full language. Unfortunately I'm not fluent or even confident in either.

[T-J]

Empathize.

[Yaya]

English is my mother tongue but I learned to speak it after my family immigrated to the U.S. when I was a child. I relearned Korean after coming back to the motherland but I had a headstart since my parents spoke Korean to me while growing up.

That said, certain nationalities are notorious for not wanting to learn foreign languages, namely Americans, French, Brits and Canadians, unless their parents or families were originally from elsewhere. I hear, however, that you need to speak Spanish to do anything in Miami, and speaking Spanish in Southern California can be quite useful.

[jfromtheway]

[Yaya]

I have to disagree that Spanish is a useless language. If you live in the U.S., you have plenty of chances to use it.

I took French in junior and part of senior high school and THAT in my opinion was the useless language.

[jfromtheway]

[McGenghis]

Great thread OP.

I went through French immersion in Atlantic Canada, despite being of (tangible) Scottish stock. My grandmother used to sing Gaelic lullabyes to me as I worked on my French homework.

I went through four years of intensive Scots Gaelic at the university level and finally got a scholarship back across the pond for it.

My idea is that when a youngster is exposed to different languages, he is given a healthy distrust of his mothertongue. He learns to think (and even dream) in other languages and does not always revert in his mind to thw.mothertongue for clarification.

Learning a language is magical. I am sure I read somewhere that grammar and glamour are related, and not without reason!

Have some happy eyes^^

[littlelisa]

double post, sorry

[littlelisa]