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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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 Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 1:48 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
In the high school in the US where I used to teach, the Spanish teacher is a whitey from Pennsylvania. She does a bang-up job. Would the kids benefit from firing her and flying in a native speaker from Spain, paying her a higher salary and provide an apartment? I don't see how, unless the import is a superior teacher. It's the quality of teaching, not the place of birth that is key. |
If the whitey teacher from Pennsylvania can speakSpanish at a high level, and motivate the students then yes of course that makes sense.
The problem is that there simply aren't enough Korean teachers who speak English at a high level, for that to be a viable option in Korea right now. In ten to fifteen years time when the hagwon generations graduate from university, then it will be.
Ideally, there would be an English language proficiency test- one heavily based on speaking, for Korean natives who want to teach English at public schools. I know they're moving towards that for French teachers in Canadian schools |
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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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| Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| In the high school in the US where I used to teach, the Spanish teacher is a whitey from Pennsylvania. She does a bang-up job. Would the kids benefit from firing her and flying in a native speaker from Spain, paying her a higher salary and provide an apartment? |
a) No school teaches Spanish from Spain. They teach Messican Spanish.
b) Why fly a teacher from Spain, when there are a sexzillion Hispanics already living in the U.S.?
c) Yes, the kids do benefit from the native speaker, for all the aforementioned reasons in this thread. |
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paperbag princess
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Location: veggie hell
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| Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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children do benefit from good native teachers, the proof is in highquality english language hagwons, kidnergartens and international schools. ofcourse the crappo teachers that have their students colouring all day are another story. i quite often catch my korean co-teacher telling the children incorrect pronunciation and syntax.
the other reason it's good to have foreign teachers in a school is because it gives these children exposure to different cultures from an early age. |
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matthewwoodford
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Location: Location, location, location.
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| Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| manlyboy wrote: |
| What has really surprised me is not how poor their English is, but how completely unfamiliar they are with the concept of learner-centered teaching. They just don't seem to get it at all. What used to be a simple two sentence instruction in English followed by a five minute activity ends up being a five minute lecture in Korean followed by a thirty second activity! |
No surprise. Learner centered teaching is a relatively new concept in the west and, it seems, hasn't caught on among teachers in Asia. I find myself in sympathy with the old-fashioned teacher-centred view even tho' I don't follow it.
Here are some quotes from an ELT book I'm reading:
| Quote: |
Learners from different cultures may have different beliefs about what constitutes good teaching. For example, an Australian student studying Chinese in China commented:
The trouble with Chinese teachers is that they've never done any real teacher-training courses so they don't know how to teach. All they do is follow the book. They never give us any opportunity to talk. How in the world do they expect us to learn?
This can be compared with the comments of a Chinese student studying in Australia:
Australian teachers are very friendly but they often can't teach very well. I never know where they are going - there's no system and I just get lost. Also, they're often badly trained and don't really have a thorough grasp of their subject. |
Of course this is about learner perceptions rather than teacher's practices. Actually, I find students, even older generation ones, take to the learner centered approach with little or no trouble these days...This book dates from 1996.
Just a thought, but I think the Korean - and probably Chinese too - view of the teacher as omniscient expert authority sets the bar too high, so you get some Korean teachers who are so afraid a difficult question may show them up they don't tolerate questions at all. Perhaps this never happens with Chinese teachers, because of their 'thorough grasp of their subject', but I doubt it.
I wonder if it's always possible for teachers to lay out clear cut rules of English for students anyway. For instance, there was a grammar thread recently where it was hard to tell if a word was a gerund or participle. That's because:
| H W Fowler wrote: |
PARTICIPLE AND GERUND
...the identity between the two forms leads to loose and unaccountable gerund constructions...
It is indeed no wonder that the forms in -ing should require close attention. Exactly how many old English terminations -ing is heir to is a question debated by historical grammarians, which we are not competent to answer. But we may point out that writing may now be (1) participle—I was writing; I saw him writing; writing piously, he acts profanely—, (2) gerund or full verbal noun—I object to your writing that—, (3) hybrid between gerund and participle—I do not mind you writing it—, (4) detached verbal noun—Writing is an acquired art—, (5) concrete noun—This writing is illegible. Moreover, the verbal noun writing has the synonym to write, obligatory instead of it in some connexions, better in some, worse in some, and impossible in others; compare, for instance: I do not like the trouble of writing; I shall not take the trouble to write; the trouble of writing is too much for him; it is a trouble to write; writing is a trouble. The grammatical difficulties, that is, are complicated by considerations of idiom. |
I wonder if students will accept it if you say a word is a 'hybrid' between a gerund and participle or go away thinking the teacher is incompetent? |
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