Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crazylemongirl]

I have recently started learning korean in a classroom (I do night classes). I had a large korean vocabularly but the what the classes have started do is help me express what I want in sentences as opposed to just throwing words together and hoping people understand. Anyway I've noticed that the way I'm teaching has changed a whole lot more.

First up with my 1st and 2nd graders I'm really making an effort to make sure that my students are breaking sentences up a lot more so that they can see how different parts of the sentences are formulated since korean has more explict markers for subject/verbs/objects than english.

But with my 3rd graders I'm trying to get them away from translating all parts of the sentences but to just try and gather meaning as I've noticed as soon as most of them see a sentence they don't know they freak out and give up. So I'm trying to encorage more risktaking in class.

So how has your teaching style changed by learning korean?

[some waygug-in]

For me, it has made me a lot more patient with my students, because I realized just how $%^&*(ing difficult it is to try to learn a new language.
Especially considering the vast differences between English and Korean.

Now, I look at studying French or Spanish as a piece of cake, even Russian seems simple compared to Korean.

As far as the way I teach, not really much has changed except that I realized the imortance of getting the students to memorize complete sentences. Things like songs and chants are good for this. (they have to be lively and fun also, or the students will just ignore them)

I've also noticed that I'm using more drawings and pictures to get the meanings across to the students. A good set of pictures can do more than all the explanation in the world.

Cheers

[crazylemongirl]

actually something else I noticed is that I've become a lot mroe stricter about students no giving one word answers where possible. I think perhaps it comes from my own learning style of throwing as much possible information into a sentence so that I can practice my speaking. Perhaps it shows different motivations between myself and my students as well as very different situations....

[the_beaver]

It's given me empathy.

[some waygug-in]

One other thing is that I've noticed the importance of keeping the lessons focused, with lots of repitition of the vocabulary in different slightly different contexts. And another thing is the importance of reviewing basic things over and over again, but in slightly different ways so that it isn't too boring.

What a frustrating experience it is to have a teacher that just jumps around willy nilly, asking questions that are totally unrelated to the focus of the lesson.

[Kim Jong Jordan]

I just bought a Korean phrase book, will the one liners that I can memorize be helpful? (I am aware that memorizing a few key phrases does not give one any real insight into the language nuances and such that might allow one to actually understand it.) This may be a stupid post.
Awaiting criticism/response........

[Son Deureo!]

KJJ -

Your post isn't stupid at all, but this isn't quite the place for it, since it's really a thread about teaching English. There's a thread with useful phrases here:[url] http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=12478&highlight=korean+useful+phrases[/url], and if you want to get started on studying in earnest before you come here I'd recommend buying the textbook Elementary Korean by Ross King or use the Sogang website: [url]korean.sogang.ac.kr[/url].

As for the original question, learning some Korean was very helpful with teaching kids for two reasons. One was that it allowed me to model different grammar points by writing simple sentences in both languages to show past tense and things like that. Also, knowing most or all of the vocabulary that they were learning in Korean made it easier for me to tell if they actually understood new vocabulary points.

Also, in general I think that speaking Korean makes our students grammar and prononciation mistakes make more sense to us, so it's easier to figure out ways to fix them.

I still don't feel that I'm fluent enough to actually teach English through Korean, which is how I feel that 99% of the kids actually need to be learning. Teaching young beginners through these half-assed "English-only" environments isn't really cutting it, IMHO.

Now that I'm teaching adults that are at a much higher level I almost never use Korean outside of the occasional vocabulary word that I can't draw or explain in some other way (e.g. baboon, quantum physics, etc.).

[Homer]

Indeed it has!

It has openned up all sort of possibilites and allowed me to understand my students better.

[mack the knife]

During my first week here on the peninsula, way back when, I asked a gyopo friend to tell me ALL the nasty Korea words/phrases. That way, the kids couldn't dis me without repercussions. Took a lot of stress out of the classroom right away, because the kids weren't giggling and mouthing off like they did to my non-Korean speaking co-teachers.

Learning the language has allowed me to incorporate games into the classroom involving Korean and English.

Now and again you'll hear some fool warning you NOT to speak Korean in the classroom. Such bull. In certain situations it is more or less necessary to speak the native tongue, and the kids are smarter for it.

[Hanson]

It helps me a lot with teaching pronunciation. Writing an English word on the board using Hangul, and then showing them why they are mispronouncing the word clues a lot of my students in, especially with stress, and syllables.

Using Korea in the classroom is NOT a deterrent to learning English. If anything it amuses the learners and keeps their attention. Poking fun at my pronunciation in Korean helps to make the learners feel comfortable.

Learning Korean certainly can't hurt your teaching!