Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ajuma]

I teach at a uni, and SO many of my students have poor pronunciation. I know that most of them have learned pronunciation from Korean teachers who have poor pronunciation themselves, but a fair number of them have gone the hagwon route and they STILL have terrible pronunciation.

Please, PLEASE!! If you teach in a hagwon, DON'T let your students get away with H-ee, orangee, bus-uh and the like. They CAN learn to say "l", "r", "v", "f", "z", "th" and "w" sounds. Kids (especially the kindys!) can easily learn correct pronunciation, but the older they get, the harder it is to change. I know that many hagwon teachers are newbies and don't understand the importance of correct pronunciation, but belive me...it's as important (or maybe more so!) as grammar and vocab!

Future teachers will thank you!!

[VanIslander]

After a few years at the same hagwon I can say that two things my students do excellently is pronounce and spell.

Don't ever let a student get away with adding vowel sounds at the end of words. The 'e' at the end of 'orange' has NO SOUND. That is a lesson from day one, and I never let ANY pronunciation error slide.

We all should at least be producing youth who could make the two main "th" sounds, "z", "f" etc.

[Gorgias]

Perhaps you are unaware of the politico-culture war?

The point is not to teach them, to sabotage their efforts to learn-- the Koreans are getting ahead enough as it is without giving them the weapon: English.

Teach them words that don't exist, rediculous pronunciation...

What are you thinking @ajuma? Are you really on Their side? I thought this was just an unspoken rule.

[ajuma]

Yeah, yeah, yeah....

This is just like the thinking that American kids should "just write" and not pay attention to spelling or grammar. They have a rude awakening when they come across a teacher who thinks these things are important!!

[swade]

For some strange reason I think that hagwon teachers should take offense to this post. Why should it be suggested that we would allow our students to continuously mispronounce words? I think that we as educators want the same things for our students; it really doesn��t matter if we teach at a hagwon, public school or college.

[Paji eh Wong]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

"l", "r", "v", "f", "z", "th" and "w"

Ha ha, my middle / hich school phonics lessons of the past month. No, Jeong-ju, don't use your top lip when you say f or v. Put your finger over your top lip ... now try (repeat with 300 students).

Actually my 1st and 2nd grade middle schoolers pick up pronunciation more easily than my high school students - there's something about learning pronunciation before or after about age 15. However with middle and high school teachers who haven't and will never bother to learn to correct the most common mistakes in their own speaking, there's little hope.

[joe_doufu]

I primarily teach dirty words and pop culture references (from ten years ago). Is that OK?

[andrew]

.....

[ajuma]

[Zenpickle]

[manlyboy]

An accent can sound quite endearing. Arnold Schwarzenneger pays a voice coach to help him maintain his thick Austrian accent. In other words, he deliberately mispronounces things because people find it interesting.

If a student mispronounces something, I ask myself if it would still be comprehensible to the average native speaker. If the answer is a resounding yes, then I'm not going to pull the lesson up over it.

By all means, take the time to correct POOR pronunciation, but if the student is perfectly comprehensible, there are more important things to work on.

[pet lover]

Whenever we get a new student who used to go to a certain neighboring hagwon, I can tell IMMEDIATELY. The foreign teachers at that hagwon do NOT bother to correct their students' pronunciation.

At my previous job, my co-worker and I declared war on Konglish pronunciation. This was not easy as the Korean teachers were worse about it than the students....so were the bosses. It took a few months and we lost a lot of "book time", but we eventually got it somewhat under control.

My method was to buy a HUGE poster and hang it on the wall. Every time someone added an "uh" or an "ee" at the end of a word that shouldn't have it, I'd write it on the poster. Then I'd make everyone say it ten times, correctly. Screw up and start counting from zero. Then, the next time, they'd have to say all the other words on the poster ten times a piece. I put ALL words together from all classes. At one point, we had more than 70 words on the poster and saying each word 10 times each took quite a bit of class time. But, the kids became VERY careful with their pronunciation and they improved dramatically.

I'm starting to think about doing it where I am now as the new students we've gotten in over the past few months have contaminated the others' pronunciation. These kids tend to be less stubborn than the ones I had on Jeju, so I think that I'll get even better results, faster.

[lastat06513]

Ajuma~ I am sorry to ask....but what is YOUR job?

Why do you expect someone to do something that should be in your line of expertise as well.
If you know that students are having a hard time doing something, it is the job of ALL OF US (regardless of where we work), including you ajuma, to help the students.
I work at a college and I make it a part of my class to teach pronunciation, whether the students or the school likes it or not.
What is the point of being at a job if you can't teach them simple mechanics as well as read to them.

Do I have to do this for them? Especially since I have tenure and not working in the English department....
No, I do it because I know that my students need this skill in addition to the other skills I'm teaching them here.

I'm sorry to say this, but if a person can't do their job, they shouldn't expect another person to do it for them and seriously reconsider their line of work....

[baldrick]