Korean Job Discussion Forums

[MeMyselfI]

Hi Everyone,

I'm developing a series of E-Books that clarify the most annoying parts of the English language.

I know what I find frustrating about the English language, but I need to know what you find frustrating, what your friends find frustrating, what your students and even that baby that doesn't even speak English yet finds frustrating.

So, I made a survey for you to fill out and pass along, so all the people above can have their say:

edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/995639/English-Education-and-E-Books

Thanks for sharing your frustration,

Georgia

[Dodge7]

Teaching that vowels have many different sounds. Just because there's an "o" doesn't mean you pronounce it "oh" every time.
A pet peeve of mine is kids 9, 10, 11 years old still can't read basic English.
It took me 3 hours and I could read 90% of Hanguel.

[Zackback]

Trying to understand and explain the difference between "This Tuesday" and "Next Tuesday".

A friend of mine is a girl but she's not my girlfriend.

[zappadelta]

Articles

[JustinC]

Irrelevant-a and-a unnecessary-a syllables-a being-a added-a to-a English-ee words-ah by-ah students. AHH!!!

Also English breaks way too many grammar rules.

[Jake_Kim]

Conjugation of verbs in third-person singular
Irregular verbs
Prepositions
Articles
Gender - i.e. country, vehicle, vessel

[some waygug-in]

The idea that you can teach English to students who don't want to learn it.

I am a firm believer in streaming the English programs. You can sort out the few students who really want to learn and put them in advanced classes.

The rest can throw erasers at each other all they want in the general classes.

[nukeday]

articles
phrasal verbs (pick it up, pick up the pen, pick the pen up are all ok, but not 'pick up it')
prepositional verbs
the importance of contractions when speaking

[meangradin]

that they refuse to admit they simply lost the war of independence, tea, their love of soccer, and their teeth.

[MeMyselfI]

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

This goes back to the article problem mentioned earlier.

My question was "What's the most frustrating thing about English?" not "What's the most frustrating thing about the English?".

[matthews_world]

Subject/verb agreement in the present tense is a basic thing - which subject marker to use the 's' ending with.

It's curious that a student might have a public school teacher from one country and a hagwon teacher from the next.

Though it's nice for them to increase their listening ability this way, they often get confused by the differences in vocabulary and phrases used.

No book I've seen ever teaches cognates. I do this personally, though.

[canoe_jesuit]

easy answer to this one

too many tenses, when we actually only use 5 or 6
using IRREGULAR verbs when it is grammatically correct to just say "I did sing a song," which would simply things greatly to just use the past simple with EVERY sentence (since we do it with past simple questions). Did you sang a song?? nope!

[meangradin]

[MeMyselfI]

The English language actually only has two tenses. We use the present tense plus the modal 'will' to talk about the future. However, some grammar books refer to 'modal tenses', which misuse the word 'tense' so it includes all possible ways of looking at time, and is very confusing.

This is why I'm developing a series of English E-Books, and put up the above survey to make sure I'm addressing the most important issues.

[yodanole]

The misuse of homonyms or near homonyms in the written word.