Korean Job Discussion Forums

[n3ptne]

God damn... am I the ONLY writing major in Korea? And by the way... what the *beep* is going on with the education system here, has anyone ever heard of literature? Or more basely... the thing that makes the left brain and the right brain get together to form coherent sentences and begin to sound remotely fluent?

This TEFL 'training' is complete horseshit. In two days of teaching phonics, that is to say a focused stressing on how every letter has two sounds, how every word must be comprised of at least one vowel and one syllable, and then demonstrating how to "read" or "break up" large words into easily manageable subcomponents, I've achieved far greater progress.

The English language is like a wave... /\/\/\/\, with each zenith forming the pronounced syllable, and each nadir forming the natural pause. For instance the sentence, "I am going to study English" would appear to be "/\ /\ /\/\ /\ /\/\ /\/\". Each zenith, in every single spoken word, is exactly the same height, for example take the letter configuration "IS". There are technically, based on the alphabet, four ways to pronounce IS when it appears together in any word: IS Is iS & is, but the only one of which that is evenly combined, that is to speak of the "musical key" being pronounced in harmony, is "is".

I was astounded to find out that none of my students knew was a vowel was, let alone a consonant, but when listed, A E I... they knew about O and U (though curiously not about Y). A few days of pounding this into their heads and I have 12 year olds pronouncing the following words, unassisted:

Barbarism
Totalitarianism
Self-righteousness
Mirthlessly
Ignorance
Consciously

Just write the word on the board, hand them a marker, and teach them how to break it up. Now... they all know how to use a dictionary, and they all know how to "read", they just don't know that they know how. Whets the next logical step? Reading English literature. Not only is it infinitely more relevant to their lives, but they are much more entertained and involved. Furthermore it is only upon reading actual English that one learns how to play with the language to suit the desired context of any given particular speech. This is how we all learned to speak, and write, its how we essentially learned to "think" in English.

Case in point is a thirteen year old student of mine who can read all the paragraphs in her text books, but upon being asked the simple question, �How do you dress up for Chusok� she can only respond �I wear pretty clothes�. The thought of actually saying what color they are, style, etc., is completely beyond her understanding thus far. To her, �pretty clothes� sums it up completely, and she�s maintaining a near flawless grammatical phrasing.

This entire system is foolish and I'll be throwing my "Talk Talk Talk", et al, books out as soon as my Internet order of Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss, and a handful of other children�s books arrive. In six months I guarantee the kid's speaking ability will sky-rocket. Sit them down, read with them for an hour, do a paragraph at a time and then stop to ask them what�s going on. For homework assign writing assignments on the plot development, so far I've been using 1984 with 14 year olds (funny because there are plenty of 20 year olds, some of whom I guarantee are teachers in Korea, who couldn't make heads or tails of it) and they're doing quite nicely. English isn't about what you say, it�s about concepts... we need to be teaching the concepts, the Korean schools and teachers can teach them the rest. You all remember similes and metaphors right? CONCEPTS NOT GRAMMAR! That�s the beauty and flexibility of the language, the ability to say one thing a dozen different ways, or more accurately the ability to most precisely describe a feeling or event using the dozen different conceptual avenues:

There is a cup on the table.
Their cup is on the table.
They're sad because their cup is broken on the table.

The underlined portion is the "meaning", the additional eight words explain why. Few, if any other languages exist that offer such flexibility. This is not only why English is worth learning, and quickly becoming the dominant language of the world, but it�s exactly what isn�t being taught: The beauty of the language. I work at a school that�s been around for about eight years, had many foreign teachers before me� none of them taught the students (some of whom have been students there for four years) what vowels, consonants, similes, metaphors, syllables, or phonics were. Not that the students don�t know already, in Korean� but they�re learning ENGLISH for Christ�s sake. I can only imagine the rest of the country is similar.

[guangho]

I am curious, are you proposing to inflict actual education on students? An education grounded in principles of neurolinguistics and language acquisition? These would be Korean students, right? Right? Are you in a hakwon by chance? Dahl? What are you thinking? Are you thinking? Have you been fired yet?

Let me break it down for you junior. Mom and dad got married to avoid becoming bitter old hags/jerks. They knocked out a couple of kids because they don't have the spine to tell their overbearing parents that they themselves have about as much interest in parenting as they would in swimming the length of the Ganges in the nude. They now spend upwards of fifteen hours a day being at work (without actually doing work) and leave their kiddo with you for that time period so that they can do something else. They pay large sums of money for this which your director largely pockets but occassionally will allow you a half a pittance.

As things stand, left brain, right brain, Dahl and all the rest of it are not your business. Take it from the guy who tried to get his hakwon to open a library and schlepped down to Iatewon to buy harry potter books for said library. Do you know where those books are now? Surely not in a library, because there is NO library.

So what then is your mission? To make school "fun". And how? By playing hangman and bingo. So you say you have a conscience? Then get out of there NOW.

[n3ptne]

I am at a hagwon, and this is how i ran it by my owner...

Me: "AHH Mrs Kim, these language books are crap, I want to try a few of my own that i'll pay for off the internet"

Mrs Kim: "Oh? Why? Whats wrong? Are the students bad?"

Me: Made the entire case, three times over, during the course of a full hour.

Mrs Kim: "Ah let me see if I understand, you'll pay for them?"

Me: "Yes, plus I think the students will learn much more, and they will be much more interested in studying. Your school will be more popular because they'll have more fun, more students might come here, and I gaurantee they'll learn faster and better. Of course, I'll do whatever you say, thats what I get paid for."

Mrs. Kim: "Ah... ahh.... maybe I look online too and try to find some books, we give it a go, see how it works... but you'll still use our books right?"

Me: "Oh yeh, one day i'll use a real book, the next time i'll use the crappy one, we'll alternate and see which one the kids like better and which one they learn more from"

Mrs Kim: "Ok... you email me the books you want and I'll order them, I pay for."

simple man... its all about dollars and cents, just how you make your arguement. Now I have two additional private sessions (by that i mean free talking) with her two daughters, twice a week, reading real books and writing... the kids love it, i promised to get them "charlie and the chocolate factory" or... the movie all the kids in korea are either dying to see or have already seen? Chocolate? Candy? Kids? Hello..... half the kids I deal with in 1-1 sessions are literally jumping out of their seats at the prospect of reading that book. The other half are just happy to get away from Talk Talk Talk and questions like "What do you think about prenuptial agreements". They'll do anything.

[n3ptne]

oh you know what... my mr and mrs kim are two of the nicest people i've ever met in my life, didnt mean or want to make them sound like i did.

my mission? my mission is simple... to occupy myself during the 6 hrs i spend at school everyday. I dunno about you, but i'm pretty smart, and so are the kids... we fly through the "curriculum" (2-3pages/day, are you serious?) in the first twenty minutes and spend the last 30 playing hangman. now I get paid phat, my apartment is huge, two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, terrace with ocean view (if you lean out and look left, but still), and a laundry room... two tv's, two vcrs, one dvd player, a computer... blah blah blah blah... and i love it here, so i'll do whatever they want, but i'm getting bored, and the kids are getting bored. i just wanna do my job, you know... 'teach'..... actually accomplish something.

day i walked into the school i had to give a test, that whole first week i gave tests... average score on one of my oral tests was a C, with a good chunk of students failing. three weeks later... lowest score of anyone in one of my classes is a B-, which the vast majority getting A's or A+'s. Maybe I did it, maybe they just started working.... English is hard to learn, just has to be taught in the right way.

[jay-shi]

[Cheonmunka]

Good job. I think well done that you are putting your experience in there and getting the job done. If I had a school, you'd be the first I'd employ.

[desultude]

I absolutely hate the books that are used for teaching conversation. Even the best are boring, stilted and hard to use. Thanks for the ideas. I don't teach reading, but I do incorporate a bit of it into my classes.

Is there a single place where I can find the phonics stuff you use? I feel like I have been cheating my students. I would love to teach them this stuff and I think it would help a lot.

Personally, I am a way over-educated political scientist posing as an English professor. I am always looking for some ways to improve my adopted trade.

Kudos for your good efforts. Please make some suggestions for methodology in terms of phonics and reading.

Ah, yes, you sound like a literate, well educated person; please tell me why you use "wanna", for me, this is like the proverbial fingernails on a chalkboard, the Bushification of the English language, but maybe I am being too harsh. Is this really acceptable written English these days?

[lastat06513]

I haven't used books in my class since my first hogwon job, that ended in 2001.

I prefer to make material to use in my classes so I feel comfortable and confident knowing I can teach them using the method that is right for me.

But here is the Catch-22

The books generate money for the institutes, and if the teacher steers away from the book (in some cases), the students could complain that they paid all this money for a book they don't use. If they return the book, that would make the institute (and yourself) very un-happy campers.

I found 2 ways to remedy that;

1. Use the book sparingly and depend more on suppliments that you feel are useful in your class. That way the students get some satisfaction that they are using the book, at least passively.

2. Have the students use the book in homework assignments and review what they learned in the book in class. That way they can concentrate (a big "if") on the book and it can be used as a foundation of what to teach in class.

Does anyone have any other ideas to help make the books we use more "palatable"?


As for reading;

I write a small passage and some questions related to it. But I make the passage and questions so easy that they can easily put the sentence from the passage into the form of an answer to the question.

In class, I read the passage to my students so they can hear how it is suppose to be read. I do that about once or twice. Then I have my students read it aloud and then they work together to answer the questions (I am big on teamwork). After a few minutes, I select a few students to tell me their answers as I write them on the board. Then I ask the questions and the students read the questions off the board.

I know it sounds "funny", but since I'm dealing with business majors and not English majors, it is better to take it one baby step at a time...

[shifty]

Hi N3

Those two bedrooms with matching tvs you have.

It sounds like you're in a shared accomodation set-up. You're in there alone,b/c the student enrollment has taken a downward trend.

If all your efforts pay off, your reward might be to give the place a good springclean, pending the arrival of the new teacher.

[ddeubel]

Great! Just what is needed, a whole nation of Koreans who can read fluently but understand nothing........ same difference with what exists at the moment, a whole many who can't speak but understand a lot. Phonics ain't no panacea......just ask me about my Spanish. I can read Don Quixote but understand not a word.....sounds nice though...

DD

[mindmetoo]

[baldrick]

[n3ptne]

No no no, not a shared accomodation, this place is all mine and is always gonna be mine.

As for books/citations towards my method? I have none, I invented it. The benefits of being a writing major is simple, and I dont mean this with any offense, but I have a much more intimate relationship with the language than the average education/english major. Why do I use wanna? Because I can, its the evolution of the language, its a sound, monosyllablic with multiple contextual connotations. I.e. the future. Slang is a beatiful thing.

Just remember that every English word/sentence/paragraph has a natural "flow", hiphop is a good example of this... its a wave, literally a scientific wave that is constantly equal. The reason we say BOAT (instead of BOE-ATE) is for this exact reason, conversely the reason we sait BAIT instead of BAH-IT is for the same reason. We, as native speakers, can "tell" what is right or wrong pronounciation by the stressing of vowels. It is a subconscious thing that is based on our lexicon... this is what Koreans need to know and practice.

[n3ptne]

[desultude]