Korean Job Discussion Forums

Son Deureo! · Joined: 30 Apr 2003

As little as possible. Not for educational reasons, though. The students (adults) make too big of a deal out of it, no matter how little I say they'll act like I just split the atom in class.

It irritates me to no end, and it's a really big distraction, so I try to avoid writing or speaking Korean in class. If I can find no other way to get a point across, I'll use it, but I really try to keep it to a bare minimum.

I'd like to "train" my students not to make a big deal out of it, but I deal with a new crop of students every month, so there's not much point. It's easier to just avoid it.

Hans Blix · Joined: 31 Mar 2005

"for the hundreth time, i don't like it when you give me ddong chim"

gang ah jee · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: city of paper

tomato · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:04 pm Post subject:

Yesterday, I had to explain to one of my students that we were studying past tense, as opposed to present tense.

She didn't understand.

So I took out my pocket dictionary and showed her that the terms meant �� and �� .

She still didn't understand.

So I told her that "�״� ��ϴ�" was an example of �� , or past tense, and "�״� ��ϴ�" was an example of �� , or present tense.

She understood.

It's not every day that I get to teach Korean to a Korean.

MixtecaMike · Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 9:03 pm Post subject:

I can only say about 5 things in Korean, which limits my use of Korean in the classroom. Apart from that, if I do attempt to say anything in Korean the whole class runs up and puts an X next to my name and shouts 3 x, go to the director.

just because · Joined: 01 Aug 2003 Location: Changwon - 4964

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

I use Korean commands but always back it up with English. I'm slowly weaning them off the Korean commands.

Otherwise, I will use Korean to help them understand sentences. My classes alternate between 1 foreigner and 1 Korean teacher. The Korean teachers tend to automatically translate everything for them (that's another thread in itself), so the comprehension is way behind where it should be. And I think the foreign teachers before me weren't very good, judging by the relics they left. (Ex: spelling tests with incorrect words marked as correct. Ex: kids didn't understand "Please read." or "How are you doing?" when I arrived.) So, when we are dealing with long English sentences that incorporate new vocabulary, I'll write the English on the board and translate various words for them and help them rearrange and glue the words together in their minds. I'll ask them to translate a sentence to Korean for me, as well.

I find my students respect me more as I learn more Korean. Before, they seemed to think of me as the idiot who can't even speak their language. Now they see that I'm learning way faster than they learn English and it puts more pressure on them.

Yeah, they will invariably laugh if I mispronounce something or if I leave a hash mark off a vowel when writing, but who cares? I just laugh with them and say thank you for the correction.

tomato · Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 1:38 am Post subject:

Mixteca Mike's post reminds me:

Some students mistake foreign borrowings for Korean words.
Once when I used the word supermarket, one of the students shouted, "Teacher, hangukmal!"

When I sing a song on do re mi fa so, they usually shout, "Teacher, hangukmal!"
Then I say, "That's neither Korean nor English. That's Italian!"
And I thereupon show them where Italy is on the map.

Incidentally, a syllable name on the musical scale is called a ��̸�.
And to sing on do re mi (that's solfeggio in Italian) is called ��̸� �θ��.
Ain't I smart? I just learned that today!