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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 6:10 am Post subject: |
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| Juregen wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| Juregen wrote: |
| Weigookin74 wrote: |
| Korean children should start learning English from Kindergarden age. Barring that, they can also go abroad. These are the two main ways to achieve near fluency. Any Korean expert who does not have this near fluency themselves are in no position to question this. Sounds more like these "experts" are trying to make their nation uncompetitive by doing away with English education. Over the age of 11 or 12, kids begin to get set in their ways and thus the aquiring of a second language is much more difficult. In Korea the public school gives minimal education at younger elementary ages and pile it on in middle school. This causes a lot of memorization and a lot of unnecessary stress because they are always having to memorize. |
You are as wrong as those silly people writing the booklet.
Fluency can be achieved at a later date, just at greater cost. |
Juregen, he is not simply as wrong as those silly people writing the booklet. Have you done the research? Some researches have said that after the age of six, true fluency in another language becomes much harder to achieve to where you can't be distinguished from a native speaker. A Korean child can be fluent in both Korean and English if he/she starts learning English before age six, but many people will feel theatened. What the poster wrote comes out of what theorists have stated in Second Language Acquisition literature and is taught to people doing graduate work in the field. I didn't conduct the studies. You're saying the people who conducted the studies are silly, and you know more than they.  |
I did not start learning English until I was 12. I am considered a fluent speaker.
Humbug, I tell you. May I suggest the next time you look into language acquisition theories, you look at countries where people speak multiple languages before saying anything at all. |
You're not understanding clearly are you? You may consider yourself a fluent speaker. There is a debate between constitutes a proficient speaker and truly fluent speaker in the sense of being exactly like a native speaker. I knew a German girl who came to the US at around the same age. Her English is great, but she has a slight German accent. Her sister who is younger than her doesn't.
What do countries where people speak multiple languages have anything to do with the theories and research that says after age six, it starts to become more difficult to become truly native like in the target language.
You're arguing with people who have conducted years of research in the field. It's extremely rare to be truly like a native. You may be extremely good in English and seem like a native speaker, but may not be so in certain ways. That's why I said when you attacked the user earlier and saying he was being silly, he was stating what a lot of research states, not what ordinary people want to be true. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| Stout wrote: |
Reminds me of a TESOL conference I attended in Seoul.
The finale for the day had a bunch of TESOL Ph D'd "experts" up on the stage (some of whom have never taught in Korea), most or all of them from some big program in Anaheim which has managed to convince major Korean unis to go their way.
So in any case a Donald Rumsfeld-esque expert starts bellowing out a chant that the Korean government must acquiesce and begin compulsory English ed at an earlier age, all the while emphasizing how much more money it would translate into for all of us (the anointed foreign EFL saviors), at which point the room erupted into some surreal type of mass hysteria with everyone cheering madly as though everyone had dropped a tab or two.
Then someone asked him what one should do with public school Korean students who are unruly in the classroom, and he didn't have much of an answer. |
I concur with the poster that said that many Koreans go to too may hagwons. When they're in high school, they're going to be too tired to learn English. Considering how much pressure the students have by the time they reach high school, it would make sense to introduce English to the students at a younger age. Ideally, they would be exposed to enough English before age 11 i.e. before middle school. However, some nationalists will wrongly assume that it would negatively affect their ability to learn their own native language. What was so wrong with what the fellows with the PHD's stated? I probably met them on the subway in Ilsan some years ago. I agree with them on what you mentioned above. I talked to some PHD's, and I told them that it would be hard to get their ideas implemented in Korea. There are cultural barriers.
We should not see ourselves as saviour. English is the number on international language, and we speak it. They need English to communicate with people from many countries. That's why we're here.
We can only be a tool. It's Koreans who should be the English language saviours by using both Korean and Native speakers who teach English more efficiently. |
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Stout
Joined: 28 May 2011
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| Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 6:53 am Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| Stout wrote: |
Reminds me of a TESOL conference I attended in Seoul.
The finale for the day had a bunch of TESOL Ph D'd "experts" up on the stage (some of whom have never taught in Korea), most or all of them from some big program in Anaheim which has managed to convince major Korean unis to go their way.
So in any case a Donald Rumsfeld-esque expert starts bellowing out a chant that the Korean government must acquiesce and begin compulsory English ed at an earlier age, all the while emphasizing how much more money it would translate into for all of us (the anointed foreign EFL saviors), at which point the room erupted into some surreal type of mass hysteria with everyone cheering madly as though everyone had dropped a tab or two.
Then someone asked him what one should do with public school Korean students who are unruly in the classroom, and he didn't have much of an answer. |
I concur with the poster that said that many Koreans go to too may hagwons. When they're in high school, they're going to be too tired to learn English. Considering how much pressure the students have by the time they reach high school, it would make sense to introduce English to the students at a younger age. Ideally, they would be exposed to enough English before age 11 i.e. before middle school. However, some nationalists will wrongly assume that it would negatively affect their ability to learn their own native language. What was so wrong with what the fellows with the PHD's stated? I probably met them on the subway in Ilsan some years ago. I agree with them on what you mentioned above. I talked to some PHD's, and I told them that it would be hard to get their ideas implemented in Korea. There are cultural barriers.
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What he was saying was way more about the money to be made than how it benefits Koreans' fluency (basically him hyping a teaching theory in order to get to the pot of gold).
And he wasn't able to give any useful practical advice regarding how to manage unruly students in the classroom.
So he was a guy who could give brilliant treatises all day long, flash his credentials, quote his sources and grammar rules et. al. But then put'em in a public school classroom and he'd be out to sea. |
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ZIFA
Joined: 23 Feb 2011
Location: Dici che il fiume..Trova la via al mare
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| Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:13 am Post subject: |
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| Malislamusrex wrote: |
| if you send your kid to a hakwon for 20 hours a week he is bound to learn something. |
They learn well especially in a hogwon. Class sizes are smaller and they get to bond with their teachers.
You got to laff at a booklet about english teaching written by a load of embittered KT's.
Their motivation for trying to dispose of FT's: more cash in their pockets as they take over the market for privates. (And charge ten times what foreigners would). |
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Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| Juregen wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| Juregen wrote: |
| Weigookin74 wrote: |
| Korean children should start learning English from Kindergarden age. Barring that, they can also go abroad. These are the two main ways to achieve near fluency. Any Korean expert who does not have this near fluency themselves are in no position to question this. Sounds more like these "experts" are trying to make their nation uncompetitive by doing away with English education. Over the age of 11 or 12, kids begin to get set in their ways and thus the aquiring of a second language is much more difficult. In Korea the public school gives minimal education at younger elementary ages and pile it on in middle school. This causes a lot of memorization and a lot of unnecessary stress because they are always having to memorize. |
You are as wrong as those silly people writing the booklet.
Fluency can be achieved at a later date, just at greater cost. |
Juregen, he is not simply as wrong as those silly people writing the booklet. Have you done the research? Some researches have said that after the age of six, true fluency in another language becomes much harder to achieve to where you can't be distinguished from a native speaker. A Korean child can be fluent in both Korean and English if he/she starts learning English before age six, but many people will feel theatened. What the poster wrote comes out of what theorists have stated in Second Language Acquisition literature and is taught to people doing graduate work in the field. I didn't conduct the studies. You're saying the people who conducted the studies are silly, and you know more than they. |
I did not start learning English until I was 12. I am considered a fluent speaker.
Humbug, I tell you. May I suggest the next time you look into language acquisition theories, you look at countries where people speak multiple languages before saying anything at all. |
You're not understanding clearly are you? You may consider yourself a fluent speaker. There is a debate between constitutes a proficient speaker and truly fluent speaker in the sense of being exactly like a native speaker. I knew a German girl who came to the US at around the same age. Her English is great, but she has a slight German accent. Her sister who is younger than her doesn't.
What do countries where people speak multiple languages have anything to do with the theories and research that says after age six, it starts to become more difficult to become truly native like in the target language.
You're arguing with people who have conducted years of research in the field. It's extremely rare to be truly like a native. You may be extremely good in English and seem like a native speaker, but may not be so in certain ways. That's why I said when you attacked the user earlier and saying he was being silly, he was stating what a lot of research states, not what ordinary people want to be true. |
English no longer belongs to the English. Savvy?
So accents no longer play any significance what so ever, and therefore not an indication of fluency.
Fluency simply means the ability to be comfortable in speaking the target language, without hesitation. Education of second languages should not target for "Perfection", especially since native speakers don't even speak "perfect" English.
Thank you, I understand all too well.
Countries where people speak multiple languages vs those where only one is spoken show very clearly what is possible in language education, and therefore of greater in importance to understand, on an operational level, what is required to achieve that goal. Irregardless of physical changes within the mind. |
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Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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| ZIFA wrote: |
| Malislamusrex wrote: |
| if you send your kid to a hakwon for 20 hours a week he is bound to learn something. |
They learn well especially in a hogwon. Class sizes are smaller and they get to bond with their teachers.
You got to laff at a booklet about english teaching written by a load of embittered KT's.
Their motivation for trying to dispose of FT's: more cash in their pockets as they take over the market for privates. (And charge ten times what foreigners would). |
Finally someone who understands, without to much blabla, what it is about.
Thank you. |
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tideout
Joined: 12 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 2:10 am Post subject: |
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Just a few comments.
Unposter - I really enjoyed your post, great perspective and it's always good to see that post someone puts up with a bigger view of the situation.
Stout - Great post about the TESOL conference. Nothin' beats cheerleading no matter how little thought may have actually gone into it. As if starting the same process that's in existence now but a few years earlier would clear it all up? Pretty unreal..
Last edited by tideout on Thu Nov 03, 2011 1:19 am; edited 1 time in total |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Juregen wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| Juregen wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| Juregen wrote: |
| Weigookin74 wrote: |
| Korean children should start learning English from Kindergarden age. Barring that, they can also go abroad. These are the two main ways to achieve near fluency. Any Korean expert who does not have this near fluency themselves are in no position to question this. Sounds more like these "experts" are trying to make their nation uncompetitive by doing away with English education. Over the age of 11 or 12, kids begin to get set in their ways and thus the aquiring of a second language is much more difficult. In Korea the public school gives minimal education at younger elementary ages and pile it on in middle school. This causes a lot of memorization and a lot of unnecessary stress because they are always having to memorize. |
You are as wrong as those silly people writing the booklet.
Fluency can be achieved at a later date, just at greater cost. |
Juregen, he is not simply as wrong as those silly people writing the booklet. Have you done the research? Some researches have said that after the age of six, true fluency in another language becomes much harder to achieve to where you can't be distinguished from a native speaker. A Korean child can be fluent in both Korean and English if he/she starts learning English before age six, but many people will feel theatened. What the poster wrote comes out of what theorists have stated in Second Language Acquisition literature and is taught to people doing graduate work in the field. I didn't conduct the studies. You're saying the people who conducted the studies are silly, and you know more than they. |
I did not start learning English until I was 12. I am considered a fluent speaker.
Humbug, I tell you. May I suggest the next time you look into language acquisition theories, you look at countries where people speak multiple languages before saying anything at all. |
You're not understanding clearly are you? You may consider yourself a fluent speaker. There is a debate between constitutes a proficient speaker and truly fluent speaker in the sense of being exactly like a native speaker. I knew a German girl who came to the US at around the same age. Her English is great, but she has a slight German accent. Her sister who is younger than her doesn't.
What do countries where people speak multiple languages have anything to do with the theories and research that says after age six, it starts to become more difficult to become truly native like in the target language.
You're arguing with people who have conducted years of research in the field. It's extremely rare to be truly like a native. You may be extremely good in English and seem like a native speaker, but may not be so in certain ways. That's why I said when you attacked the user earlier and saying he was being silly, he was stating what a lot of research states, not what ordinary people want to be true. |
English no longer belongs to the English. Savvy?
So accents no longer play any significance what so ever, and therefore not an indication of fluency.
Fluency simply means the ability to be comfortable in speaking the target language, without hesitation. Education of second languages should not target for "Perfection", especially since native speakers don't even speak "perfect" English.
Thank you, I understand all too well.
Countries where people speak multiple languages vs those where only one is spoken show very clearly what is possible in language education, and therefore of greater in importance to understand, on an operational level, what is required to achieve that goal. Irregardless of physical changes within the mind. |
That's not what fluency means. "Perfection" is a straw man. Nobody is targeting perfection.
Yes, let's just totally disregard the mind. I guess I missed the memo saying the mind is no longer a terrible thing to waste. |
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The Floating World
Joined: 01 Oct 2011
Location: Here
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Technically there is no physical mind, rather the mind is a conceptual model which we use to refer to the subjective experience of reality produced by the physical brain. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 5:15 am Post subject: |
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| The Floating World wrote: |
| Technically there is no physical mind, rather the mind is a conceptual model which we use to refer to the subjective experience of reality produced by the physical brain. |
This is the wasted mind part, right? |
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