Korean Job Discussion Forums

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

I've been prepping three 14 year old girls for some entrance exams for a special English high school, maybe one of those foreign schools that let in Koreans. I dunno. It was all last minute and I wasn't given a lot of information. A typical story.

Anyway, I had to give them some essay topics. I think SNU has upped the essay portion so suddenly my school is all about teaching essay writing. The essay writing I teach outside of these three is to basically kids in that right-before-they-toddle-off-to-middle-school age range (don't you love teaching elementary school, watching them go off as individuals, or the closest thing Korea allows to individuals, and then seeing them a few months later after they hit high school and they suddenly look like drones...). Naturally their writing ranges from putrid to "if you learned to use articles and prepositions better, you'd have something."

Anyway, these three girls were amazing. I guess they're the equivalent of grade 9 in North America. But they could write better and fashion and argue ideas better than half the writing I encountered as an editor for my university newspaper.

You give them an essay topic, a few ideas, and next day they come back with beautifully written essays with clear, well-argued points. Personally I can't imagine many native English grade 9'ers writing half as well.

Where do kids like this come from? When you've been teaching kids who have ostensibly been studying English for half a decade and can't write a simple SVO answer to a simple question like "What did you give your mother today?" it blows my mind.

Paji eh Wong · Joined: 03 Jun 2003

Learning to write seems to be the new fad. I've never taught a course explicitly on writing; maybe now I'll get the chance.

Canadian Club · Joined: 12 Aug 2006

My school has writing classes...

sadsac · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Location: Gwangwang

Not to be negative, but are you sure that they are the authors of the work. Writing has always been a sorry element of English for 99.9% of Koreans. Have them do a 15 minute exercise in class and see how they go. Smile

HapKi · Joined: 10 Dec 2004 Location: TALL BUILDING-SEOUL

One of the high school enterance exams was yesterday (friday). I believe it was the one for foreign high schools, such as Dae-il, Dae-won, and Seoul. I've been helping a 16 year old (korean) girl for the test, mostly in paragraph writing. I don't think there's a component for speaking skills in the test.

Pak Yu Man · Joined: 02 Jun 2005 Location: The Ida galaxy

I teach a writing class at the uni. I love it. If students can get to the point where they can writr...usually their English is great Smile

Hotpants · Joined: 27 Jan 2006

Argh! Writing class.... I can get up to 23 hours of writing classes on my schedule per week. I rarely get a decent essay unless I have a student who has attended all my classes and has bothered to pay attention to the points I've actually made. But, even then, there will still be some inevitable grammar errors that never go away.

If you've got students who come in with a 'perfect' essay, it could be that they've memorized 1001 essays; they employed a private tutor to write the essay for them; they got their parents to copy an essay from the Internet; or they've cheated and had an entire essay stored onto their cellphone (happened in my class); or they haven't yet told you that they actually grew up in the States!

I agree to give them some abstract essay titles and watch if they can write an essay in front of you.

The Lemon · Joined: 11 Jan 2003

coolsage · Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:31 pm Post subject:

I teach writing classes at the uni, and with the exception of the Aggies, they're fine to work with. Also, you can cut classes short and send them away to do the writing assignments in a more comfortable setting: home, the library, a soju-bang, whatever works. A couple of caveats: if they're ripping their work off the internet, it will quickly show. The last graded piece is in-class, so they need to put their little noses to the grindstone for that one. And, this can't be stressed enough; do not write in Korean first and translate. It simply doesn't work. What results is, with different word order, etc., a hash of Konglish. It has to be English from the start. All luck with it.

babtangee · Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 1:42 am Post subject:

Your avatar's freaky looking today, OP. If she was in my class, looking at me like that every other day, I'd probably quit.

Captain Corea · Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Location: Seoul

I've seen some really good writing of late... from highschool studetns. It's possible.

ajuma · Joined: 18 Feb 2003 Location: Anywere but Seoul!!

Even though teaching writing is a lot of work, I love teaching it as it's one area that I can actually see improvment. Teaching them how to proofread their own work (start from the bottom and work UP) and the correct use of articles, prepositions and past tense verbs are the main focuses (foci??) of my classes. If a student copies from the internet, they get an F for the class...with the full backing of my boss. I have some good writers (maybe 5-10 errors per essay) and lots of poor ones. One of the best speakers in the class is one of the worst writers! We had a long talk about it and I suggested that she "talk" the essay into a tape player, then write what she's said. It seems to be working for her!

OP, I'd make sure that the essays are "self-based"...that is, things they can't find on the internet. Topics like "My first best friend", "My favorite childhood toy"or "The best gift I ever got" aren't easily "searchable" on the internet. Also, do some in-class writing. Since there are only 3, they can work together to write a Korean fairy tale, a story using 5 randomly chosen words or directions how to do something.

coolsage · Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 8:13 am Post subject:

Ajuma, it appears that you're serious about this sort of work. Try peer-editing. Have your students read each other's papers and comment on them before they submit them to you. It's a juicy experience, breaks the tension, and everyone benefits. And when you finally get those paragraphs, they're a bit better than they were before.

ajuma · Joined: 18 Feb 2003 Location: Anywere but Seoul!!

coolsage I've tried peer editing, but I find that the students pass on their own errors to their peers!!

I find that small group writing in class with me going around and correcting/explaining works much better for me and my students. I make "random" groups in each class, making sure that the better writers are with the weaker ones so that they BOTH learn...the better ones by explaining "why" and the weaker ones by having the explaination in their own language.

And yeah....I AM serious about my writing classes. The students are NOT freshmen and they're taking the class because they actually want to learn something!!!

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Maybe all three of them are getting their essays edited before turning them in, but I dunno. This was just a quicky 3 day thing with no grade being offered in the class.