Korean Job Discussion Forums

[htrain]

So I'm in the middle of getting my teacher's license right now. We have a Korean American in the class and this is her take on American public school ESOL. It basically stole her culture.

What's your opinion? The professor said this woman's quote is very moving and worthy of being passed on to other teachers. Is it?
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�Inequality in education also has been apparent in how students� languages and dialects are perceived and treated in the school.�

When I first entered into elementary school in the United States, I spoke only one word in English. It was �no.� It was like being in a Charlie Brown cartoon, except everybody, not just the adults were saying, �whaa, whaa, whaa.� However, for a few hours of the day I was placed in an ESOL class with others who knew limited English. There I found solace in a girl who knew how to speak my native language. I distinctly remember the ESOL teacher �encouraging� us to use English when we were together not just during study times but also during free playing times so that we would learn English faster. She had the best of intentions; however, I believe she contributed to the degradation of my native language by making me feel ashamed to speak my own language and practice my own culture. I would have learned how to speak English regardless of the instruction I received in the ESOL class sooner or later. However, because I was told to abandon my language and assimilate, I have slowly lost the ability to communicate with my parents. They don�t know enough English and I don�t know enough Korean to effectively have deep, meaningful conversations with the elders in my family. I went through my entire educational career, including elementary, high school, college and graduate school without any help or support doing any of my assignments. I never had the �unearned privilege� of having parental support that most of my fellow student had.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

She moved to another country as a little girl and forgot her previous culture. What else is new?

[pkang0202]

I'm a Korean-American and I gotta disagree. My parents put me into a Saturday Korean language school so that I could learn to read/write/speak Korean.

I didn't need my parents to help me with school work or my studies. I went to class and got my teachers to help me. If I didn't understand something, I spoke to my teachers after/before school.

Her ESOL class had to teach her English as quickly as possible so she could successfully integrate into the US public school system.

If she wanted to learn Korean or keep her "Korean Culture" then she should go to a Korean church. Even if she's not a Christian, she could easily find people there who would gladly remind her of her Korean roots.

[Scotticus]

From the sounds of it, no one made her ashamed of her old language/culture. The teacher was doing her job... mainly to improve the student's English.

The thing about her parents doesn't make sense. If her parent's English is crap, then they'd be speaking Korean at home, which means the girl would be speaking Korean all the time at home. Thus she wouldn't have forgotten how to speak it. Furthermore, how did the parent's spend a decade (probably more) in the US without learning how to speak English? That kind of shit puts the worst of us ESL teachers to shame.

[Smee]

Ethnicity is very trendy in the US. That's why 6th-generation descendants of Irish people still claim to be proud of their Irish heritage, and why people actually say things like "I identify more with my Italian side than my American side" . . . when their families have lived in the States for 120 years.

With one exception, the Asian-Americans I knew back home spoke almost none of their parents' native language, and had no ties to that culture except for food and maybe Sunday school. Invariably they'd go through a phase where they'd identify with their parents' native culture, and feel bitter that they never invested any time or interest in learning their parents' language. Hell, most Asian-AMericans will tell you how embarassed they were of their parents' language skills, and how they stayed away from that language as a sign of rebellion. By the time they wise up in their 20s or 30s, it's usually too late. And because ours is a culture that doesn't stress personal responsibility, you have people blaming "English" or "American culture" or whatever for the extermination of native cultures . . . when in reality the blame lies with maladjusted teenagers. Damn kids. With their hipping and their hopping.

[Captain Corea]

I call bunk on it. If the ESL teacher had not encouraged her to use English at every opportunity, 1. she might not have learned English as quickly, 2. She could have fell behind in her other studies, and 3. she'd now be blaming the teacher for not pushing her enough.


Some people love to lay blame. If she wanted to use Korean in her home, she could have (and obviously needed to). She could have studied more with her parents as well.


Basically, she's pointing fingers at everyone but herself.

[Atavistic]

Also, in some schools and/or school districts, teachers are told that they are NOT TO ALLOW any non-English in the schools.

I got into a few...tiffs with my admin teach my first year of teaching over this matter.

So let her complain to the whole school board.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

People emigrate, Koreans are just one of many. There seems to be an exceptionalism to her argument; that her experience in America was the most painful and the most shameful. I say, get in line.

[Kimchi Cha Cha]

[Hater Depot]

I think people are leaping to conclusions when they think she's blaming people or society for her situation. She's expressing a common frustration that immigrants have. It isn't nice to lose touch with your language and culture even if good things do come of it. It seems a bit churlish to judge her for expressing that, especially behind your computer screen and going on nothing but the OP.

[Jeweltone]

I got in trouble with administration at the CA high school I worked at for not allowing a Hispanic NON-ESL STUDENT to speak Spanish during a high school English class...I was reprimanded for "lack of cultural sensitivity" I am fluent in Spanish, BTW, and the students knew it....

[Scotticus]

[moosehead]

[cbclark4]

What's really cool is us 'Mericans can go anywhere in the world and learn any
language and we don't have to worry about losing our culture.

Primitive relics.

[steroidmaximus]

Sounds to me like she was trying to write a moving piece on ethnicity to get a better grade and make an impression. Taking a class like that, she was probably encouraged to 'confront' her inner turmoil, to root out some traumatic experience and spill it onto a page. Also sounds like she took her reading of Kingston's "The Woman Warrior" to heart and tried to duplicate the sense of loss and disenfranchisement.