Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Len8]

Topic has been beat to death, but interesting article in the Korean herald a while ago said it was because of Asian collectivisim or confucian collectivisim or whatever. Point was made that adherance to the group and not upsetting the status quo had a lot to do with it. Students don't speak up in class wether it be a school class or a hogwon class, because they don't want to upset the harmony of quietness that prevails. Seems as though one isn't supposed to stick out in the group, and that's pretty much what you have to do if you want to get ahead with spoken English.

Point was also made that rather than give a correct answer after some one has bungled is a no no as well, because it's not right to cause another person to lose face.

There are bold students who will be eceptions to the norm of course, but they are rare, and they unfortunately sometimes intimidate the rest of the class.

Apparently a lot of younger students who did spend time abroad and who come back to Korea quite fluent in English get locked into the group mode after a while and end up mute just like everyone else.

Anyway that's my two cents worth. Any other opinions

[the_beaver]

[Medic]

Some students in some universities in some schools and some hogwons learn spoken English. Most don't unfortunately. Could be a conditioning by teachers parents and older people in general to dumb em down. They couldn't learn it, so the mindset is passed on to the next generation.

I think the OP ment spoken English as opposed to English in general. Koreans learn the rote stuff which is what grammar is quite well.

[dimnd]

Why do many teachers refuse to learn Korean or not even try....Perhaps if one suffered through the learning process of a new language..i.e. Korean...one might be able to answer the question about the difficulty of learning English.

[jajdude]

Have you ever met anybody from another country? Perhaps you have, and easily communicated with them because they spoke English well, or at least adequately enough.

Apply this to most Koreans.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The Confucian stuff is just a smoke screen, obscuring and excusing the generally poor educational structure and administration here.

Confucianism does play a role, a destructive role, but not in the ways mentioned in the OP. English is being used as one of the tools to arrange people into a hierarchy, even though it is usually irrelevant to the job itself. Most of the people I know need English to get a promotion, but never use English in any way at work.

I think there is nothing wrong with teaching English (and Chinese) to all elementary students. Then in middle school select out those students who show an interest in and aptitude for it and give them special lessons outside 'the group'. Train Korean English teachers in modern methods of teaching a language. Advance the students as they improve in reading, writing and speaking, not just on making blind guesses on multiple choice grammar tests. Develop reasonable yearly objectives for students to reach in the public school program. Take English out of the university entrance exam. Remove the English requirement for job promotion in all jobs that do not have an obvious need for English. In short, stop this silly one-size-fits-all approach to teaching the damn subject and design a practical program to achieve the desired end.

[SuperHero]

why don't most English teachers learn Korean?

[Mack]

Confucianism dumbs them down. It does this (referring to Ya-ta's post)
in a systematic way, i.e. the administration systems have evolved from Confucist philosophy. I agree with the original poster on the point that "maintaining harmony in the group" is a very powerful influence in keeping students mouths tightly shut. There was no need for mere students to say much or have an opinion, initiative, creativity, autonomy or anything else we vaule in western education in Confucian education. The almighty Confucian (male, of course) teacher had all that and students just had to shut up, listen and imitate HIM. It was just hard work enforced with a stick. Super-control-freakism. Of course things are evolving. When you start teaching here the legacy of this will await you in your classrooms. Students who look totally expressionless. Students who need an intervention to get over the terror of just saying "yes' or "no" in answer to a question.

You can find ways through that, as a teacher but it is much much harder work than it should be. You spend a few weeks dealing with inability to respond to a normal human interaction - quite separately from what we should be dealing with; language learning.

It is often downright bizarre. At the intermediate level when students are a little more confident about language you still see these communicative problems which are super-heavy. Totally nutty. They are terrified not only of foreigners but other Koreans. There are other problems of course, such as the very dissimilar grammar between grammar and Korean etc.

But Good old daddy Confucius has totally FOrked up basic communication skills for many generations!!!!!!!!

[ajstew]

"why don't most English teachers learn Korean?"

- They didn't do a degree in TESOL, and, therefore, probably never planned on working in a foreign country like Korea for an extended period of time like 10-15 years. Those who did degrees in this type of area, I'd imagine, know more Korean than others. Those same teachers who didn't do those degrees also came here on 1 year contracts and it's difficult to see any use in learning anything more than survival Korean if you think you'll be going home in a year's time. And then if you do stay for a second year, the cycle begins again at the end of the contract, where you can't see any use in beginning to learn the language because you'll be going home in one year's time... etc...

- You listen to Korean men speak and find yourselves starved to find anyone who can make the language seem somewhat romantic to speak. That's a turnoff. Who wants to sound like that guy making those, 'KKKHHHHHHHGGGR' sounds in his throat? I'll pass.

[Pak Yu Man]

[Hollywoodaction]

Actually, English in Korea is a topic just like any other one in the the sense that it's used to create a class structure. It's all about the standardized tests.

Don't be swayed by the government's claims of otherwise, that it plays the role of internationalizing Korea. Have a look at Korean textbooks and you'll see them filled with Koreanized English (ie English isn't used to communicate with foreigners, hence it's prime role isn't to 'internatinalize').

[ajstew]

Another reason for why English teachers don't learn English in Korea.

- They simply don't have time... or they don't want to use the few hours of spare time each day to study. Example. I have a few three hour breaks between classes each day and I'd rather go to the gym and work out, than open my Korean language text and let my weight go to hell.

[noguri]

Where I teach, my experience is more like Beaver's. I find my students can chatter like magpies, because I am fortunate to have some advanced students.

Sure, they clam up and do the shy game if I don't stimulate them the right way. But once I get the right topic and set the right conditions in the classroom, they blow me away. They participate with great enthusiasm and their English is darned good.

However, that's a class of English majors. The other conversation class I teach is full of people who are not English majors. They are simply FORCED to take the class. So it is much more difficult to get them to participate.

so I think that the two views expressed on here are correct: Some people [English majors] are going to communicate with non-Koreans and they are enthused about English. Others are simply forced to learn it so that they take exams and get placed into a spot in a hierarchy. Hence, language learning is definitely conditioned by the social purpose to which it is put.

[Teufelswacht]

OP. I Think this is the article to which you refer:

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2006/10/18/200610180012.asp

[ajgeddes]