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Zyzyfer
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: who, what, where, when, why, how?
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 Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 1:34 am Post subject: |
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Man sml you're turning into one of those �learn the language� people. I have no problems with encouraging people to make an effort and all but now you're saying that teachers should be proficient in the both languages?
A) I'm curious, how do you feel that this would benefit the students? How would it improve the teacher's approach to lessons?
B) What about the Korean teachers with less than spectacular English?
Not to mention, given your reasons for coming to Korea (not stalking heh, I browsed the military experience thread out of curiosity), I don't know why you would have any substantial interest in the teaching field here.
And the comparison to language teachers in the west is a little off. Those teachers are generally residents and citizens, right? Your average hakwon or public school teacher is just an invited guest. And while I think it's good for foreign teachers here to learn Korean, it's not really for work reasons, and having knowledge of Korean as a job requirement seems a bit much. |
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soomin
Joined: 18 Jun 2009
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 1:57 am Post subject: |
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| sml7285 wrote: |
Honestly, I think that being bilingual in Korean and English needs to be a requirement to teach. |
I think it should be for super low level students... I have to teach kids who don't know the alphabet, so if I didn't know classroom Korean, it would just be charades all class >.< I hate teaching students like that... there is absolutely no reason for a NET to be teaching letters, imho.
I also think it's nice to know some Korean just to help your students out, especially in speaking classes. This way the class can flow more easily if you don't have to bring out a dictionary all the time.
| sml7285 wrote: |
Have you ever had a language teacher in the States who could not communicate in English? |
Yes... and I learned absolutely nothing because it was first-year Spanish... nothing T.T |
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iggyb
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 2:34 am Post subject: |
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| I have to teach kids who don't know the alphabet, so if I didn't know classroom Korean, it would just be charades all class |
And I bet you learned more about teaching a language with those students than you would in a class where all the students shared a non-target language with you.
The reason I'm responding is that this is an interesting topic and there is more than 1 side in the debate....
I'm firmly in the camp that says the non-target language should be used at a bare minimum in class, and that seems to be the majority opinion these days in language teaching theory.
Why did you learn nothing that first year in Spanish? How many of the other students were survival level ones? Or did a good number of them already have some Spanish learning under their belts?
There is nothing wrong with using the target language close to 100% of the time in the lowest level class. If you are having to flip around in a dictionary all the time in a class, most likely you're trying to get the students to work with material they aren't ready for.
Which is the same for if you are having to break into using the shared non-target language. If you know Korean, and you find yourself having to use Korean in the class a few times a week in order to get things running smoothly, you are probably trying to get students to do things they aren't ready for and/or losing good opportunities for students to learn.
I know teachers typically hate confusion and student frustration, but I think it's good for a class. It is real world communication. And it lets the teacher gauge how well the material or the appraoch the teacher is using matches the class' needs.
If you have the same approach with each level class, something isn't right.
My lowest level classes have called me Mr. Bean before due to the amount of body language I use to help with comprehension.
I think I learned a lot about language teaching by starting out in Korea.
When I eventually went back to school to get certified and studied TESOL theory and practice material, I found I agreed with much of it due to that experience in Korea.
If I had started out in the US where I live and was fluent in Spanish, I wouldn't have gotten it.
Even without knowing Spanish, too many of the students in the ESL programs here are already above the survival or low beginner level. You don't get much experience with a true very low level class.
I think that hurts a teacher.
I worked with Korean teachers who were going to spend a month in an English-speaking country seeing how ESL was taught in public school there. I told them they should ask permission to teach a few classes of beginning Korean in Korean. (TKK...) |
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iggyb
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 2:47 am Post subject: |
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One key thing - instead of the teacher using Korean in class, you can get a student who understood help out by explaining things in Korean to quickly help a stalled activity move forward.
If the teacher is fluent in Korean, that does help, because he can tell if the explanation is right or not, but it isn't necessary.
I think students helping students using a shared language is OK. Much better than a teacher using it when things get stuck.
I just haven't seen too many situations where the language teacher had enough discipline not to overuse the shared language.
And you have to constantly push students not to overuse a non-target language in class --- to try to communicate in English as much as possible to get the most use out of the program.
Of course, in the lower level classes, this isn't as much a problem, because producing a limited amount of English is the best they can do... |
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tideout
Joined: 12 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 3:28 am Post subject: |
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| Keeper wrote: |
Honestly, I think that being bilingual in Korean and English needs to be a requirement to teach. Any person can go into a classroom and talk for an hour at a time about any old subject. Very few can do so and effectively educate students when they don't understand. |
I agree it's a challenge to be an effective teacher and something one learns over years.
On the other hand, I've taught in several country's including schools that forbid using the local language. People struggled and progressed as you'd expect but there was no need for someone specifically bi-lingual.
Additionally, there are many good schools around the world where the students in a class come from multiple country's so having a bi-lingual, tri-lingual etc.. teacher even wouldn't be enough.
More challenging but still doable. You have to use different approaches...... |
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soomin
Joined: 18 Jun 2009
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 4:59 am Post subject: |
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| iggyb wrote: |
| Quote: |
| I have to teach kids who don't know the alphabet, so if I didn't know classroom Korean, it would just be charades all class |
And I bet you learned more about teaching a language with those students than you would in a class where all the students shared a non-target language with you. |
I learned a lot of Korean because of those classes, lol. My hagwon teaches from kindergarten to last year middle-schoolers, and almost every class struggles with the most basic things. It doesn't help that my boss has openly and repeatedly told me not to teach, and to just be friends with the students and keep them entertained. I only have books for my middle school classes because my boss says books are too stressful... they don't encourage reading, but instead try to get the kids to memorize the books with the Korean teachers (who don't correct their pronunciation so it is sometimes incomprehensible when the students repeat it). Many students can't read, can't write, don't know letters, don't know basic words and refuse to even try. They are troublemakers who complain about any homework at all (even though they have a week to do it) and have been conditioned to play games all class and run and scream and be crazy.
I feel sorry for the teacher who will replace me... I wish I could watch a day in their life as the students scream "연필! 연필~~~~" and stare at them blankly when asked questions like "How are you?" and "What day is it?" Teachers in that situation better know some basic Korean... But, again, my hagwon is not one of the good ones, lol. I've worked in full-immersion hagwons and the class that didn't know how to read and didn't know what "sit down" or "open your book" meant lost their foreign teacher privilege and I didn't have to teach them.
| iggyb wrote: |
Why did you learn nothing that first year in Spanish? How many of the other students were survival level ones? Or did a good number of them already have some Spanish learning under their belts?
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We were all beginners because it was high school spanish and there weren't many immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries there at the time (though that has since changed) and the only thing people knew was stuff related to Mexican food. We sat in the classroom and the teacher had pretty much no grasp of English... I don't know how she got the job, actually. She was a native speaker and would just look at us and say something and we'd have no idea unless the translation was in the book for us to look at or it was a tangible item. She got fired (of course) and I don't know if she was even there for a full year... The next teacher was bilingual and played a lot of "Simon Dice" (Simon Says) and lectured us on where in the afterlife she thought we would be going (I got purgatory, which was pretty lucky considering some people got hell)... When I went to college, my teacher told me that I had not only a ridiculously low level, but had also been taught wrong words (I think my teacher had just made stuff up to sound good? She taught us things and would be like "that's the Spain dialect~~" ??) and told me I'd have to go to the lowest level class or just start a new language.
Wow... that was a long answer~~ So yes, I think classroom Korean is important because even if you refuse to speak it/ acknowledge it, you can still understand what's going on and what students (or coworkers) are trying to tell you. |
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iggyb
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:25 am Post subject: |
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| openly and repeatedly told me not to teach, and to just be friends with the students and keep them entertained. |
That is part of the Korea teaching experience that hasn't changed and takes us back somewhat to the original purpose of the thread...
You can't run a class like you would want to run it if the focus was truly language learning. Not in the hakwons and I think not in most or at least many of the public school jobs...
That still makes Korea a good place to start for recent college grads with little or no teaching experience. If you want, you can learn a good bit about language teaching --- even if you don't get to put into practice all that you think you've learned.
The sad thing is that you can get by in hakwons and public schools without learning much about teaching. You can get by without it. In fact, the schools pushing you to focus on entertainment rather than progress, and other factors, tend to encourage you to do the minimum...
Which makes Korean ESL not too attractive if education is your career.
It might be good for a couple of years but not longterm.... |
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tideout
Joined: 12 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 6:15 am Post subject: |
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The sad thing is that you can get by in hakwons and public schools without learning much about teaching. You can get by without it. In fact, the schools pushing you to focus on entertainment rather than progress, and other factors, tend to encourage you to do the minimum...
Which makes Korean ESL not too attractive if education is your career.
It might be good for a couple of years but not longterm.... |
Unfortunately, I basically agree with you.
I really like teaching and I'm very interested in continuing on with ESL. If I were asked if Korea was a good place to come and teach by someone who was really into language teaching, methods etc. I'd advise against them coming here. Someone who was killing a couple of years or was just trying to make some $, would probably be happier here.
The money's good but it's warped on so many levels it's hard to recommend otherwise. |
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sml7285
Joined: 26 Apr 2012
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 6:51 am Post subject: |
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| Zyzyfer wrote: |
Man sml you're turning into one of those �learn the language� people. I have no problems with encouraging people to make an effort and all but now you're saying that teachers should be proficient in the both languages?
A) I'm curious, how do you feel that this would benefit the students? How would it improve the teacher's approach to lessons?
B) What about the Korean teachers with less than spectacular English?
Not to mention, given your reasons for coming to Korea (not stalking heh, I browsed the military experience thread out of curiosity), I don't know why you would have any substantial interest in the teaching field here.
And the comparison to language teachers in the west is a little off. Those teachers are generally residents and citizens, right? Your average hakwon or public school teacher is just an invited guest. And while I think it's good for foreign teachers here to learn Korean, it's not really for work reasons, and having knowledge of Korean as a job requirement seems a bit much. |
I don't expect to go down the ESL path unless something goes spectacularly wrong with my career plan (not a jab at teachers; it's just not for me), but my dad is a tenured university professor and I spent about 10 years from 8th grade until graduation from UNC coaching swimmers, so I have some experience with coaching/teaching - at least enough to have an interest in how others teach.
I'm not stating that I think that NETs should be proficient Korean speakers. I just think that they should know enough Korean to 1) explain difficult concepts in Korean and 2) to restart stalled conversations.
I guess I did cause some confusion with my "fluent" comment. I guess "conversational" would be a better description. Of course the better the students are at English, the less proficient at Korean a teachers needs to be. |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 7:01 am Post subject: |
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Back to the OP...
Those sites are a joke.
Anyone who relies on such "testimonies" to make an employment decision on a Teaching job needs their head examined. |
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iggyb
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 7:14 am Post subject: |
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| I'd advise against them coming here. |
I think Korea is good for people new to teaching who want to teach.
You can get by in the hakwons and public schools without learning much about teaching if you want.
But, if you want to learn about language teaching, it is good.
Like I wrote before, I think it can be better than starting out in many ESL positions in the public schools in the US (at least where I live). I haven't done elementary school ESL here in the US, but in most positions, you don't really deal with a class full of low beginners.
You do get true beginners - survival level English students - but classes are usually mixed level. That's very different from a class full of low beginners or survival level.
Without that kind of experience, I don't see how people really get a good feel for language teaching. I'm sure there are plenty of ESL teachers who do a good job who haven't had that type of experience, but I think a person who has done it is better off.
So even with hakwon and public school jobs being too much about entertainment and too little about standard things like lesson plans, evaluation, and so on....I think Korea is a good place to gain early TESOL experience.... |
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nautilus
Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 7:17 am Post subject: |
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| iggyb wrote: |
My sense is that it is still much better than in the past |
-but the gap is closing.
probably the height of the abuses was in about 2003/4.
Things improved since then but the bad conditions and exploitation is returning due to it being an employers market.
| O.P. wrote: |
| Don't Teach English in South Korea |
I would never recommend Korea to my friends.
This country is an acquired taste, it's not for everyone. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 8:30 am Post subject: |
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Soomin, I'm sorry for your difficulty in teaching beginners, but you are completely off base.
Teaching students in English only, with no Korean whatsoever, is absolutely the best way for students to learn, from ABCs on up, even when they arrive not knowing a single word in English.
We have been doing it for years with great success. There is no need to translate ever. If you design a teaching program with this method in mind from the outset, it will work, and the students will learn to talk, read, write and perform in an all English classroom in a short period of time - far faster and more proficiently than with any other method. |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 9:10 am Post subject: |
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.
I'm not stating that I think that NETs should be proficient Korean speakers. I just think that they should know enough Korean to 1) explain difficult concepts in Korean and 2) to restart stalled conversations.
I guess I did cause some confusion with my "fluent" comment. I guess "conversational" would be a better description. Of course the better the students are at English, the less proficient at Korean a teachers needs to be.[/quote]
*~*
Not to be annoying, but I doubt very much that you could explain difficult
concepts to students without being at an advanced level of Korean yourself.
Difficult concepts are best explained in English because translation always
seems to lead to misunderstandings because often there is no accurate
way to translate certain concepts. |
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iggyb
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 9:18 am Post subject: |
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| There is no need to translate ever. |
I don't go that far - unless you mean the teacher never translating. And I think TESOL theory has moved away from that too...
There was a time about the 1990s and 80s where the big push was not even allowing students to use a language dictionary, but it has moved away from that to something more practicle. (There was also a big push to teach every age group the way babies learn their native language, but that also got modified. My college French courses tried that way, and it was too chaotic for us.)
| Quote: |
| far faster and more proficiently than with any other method |
I do think that is true - in an ideal situation --- if all the students in the class were at the same level, and it was in an ESL setting instead of EFL, or maybe if it were EFL but the students had 1 or more hours of English class everyday --- but outside of an ideal situation, I think allowing the students some use of non-English is practicle and does facilitate learning faster than if you try to keep all use of non-English out.
Classes are always mixed level to some extent, and the amount of contact hours the students have with English is also limited. They aren't going to get as much routine reenforcement over time for things to sink in as much as they would connecting some of the target language with their native one, I think...
Depending on the situation, I try to limit the amount of help students give each other in their L1s, but I think allowing it does help the learning process. And I can't see going to an extreme like not allowing language dictionaries in class. |
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