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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:33 pm Post subject: How much of an impact are we making? |
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I am not sure how much of an impact we English teachers are making over here in Korea. Many of us who work in hagwons are under a lot of pressure from parents, and I am not sure how interested the average Korean kid is in learning. I definitely see progress among the students, but when I like at some of my intermediate students, and their grammar seems to be horrible, and it doesn't jive with that claim that Koreans have stellar grammar.
Your thoughts? |
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toddswift
Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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Impact????
The only reason you are in korea is because the kpeople are scared to death of CHINA.
SOONER or later, the days will come when you will find a bunch of unemployed koreans sitting around with no jobs *(because of the economic CRASH that is bound to come) and as western people come by to buy stuff (like in Thailand) they will remember their English lessons as kids, and they will be able to help you.
so I guess you are impacting the future tourists as they visit korea. |
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kimchipig
Joined: 07 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:10 pm Post subject: |
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It is hard to actually quantify but the level of Englishie in Korea is way better than it was fifteen years ago. Of course, given the amount of time most Koreans have spent studying Englishie they should have all won Pulitzer Prizes by now, but it is better.
How much if this is attributable to waygooks is an open question. After several years of teaching in Korean universities, I realised that they were learning S.F.A from me and were using what they learned in high school. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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| kimchipig wrote: |
It is hard to actually quantify but the level of Englishie in Korea is way better than it was fifteen years ago. Of course, given the amount of time most Koreans have spent studying Englishie they should have all won Pulitzer Prizes by now, but it is better.
How much if this is attributable to waygooks is an open question. After several years of teaching in Korean universities, I realised that they were learning S.F.A from me and were using what they learned in high school. |
I am not sure what S.F.A stands for. Definitely, I think the Korean students are making progress, but considering how many years they study English, they should be better. I think that if we really pushed the students to learn a lot of English, then the parents would complain, and the kids would drop out. I think that's part of the problem. I am almost teaching my students North American style, but I am being a little laid back and giving them plenty of time to do the assignments. They kind of balk at the kind of vocabulary they have to deal with in their speeches, but I think it's fair game for a 12 year old to open up a dictionary and look up the word immigrant or gladiator. Frankly, if I want to a Spanish equivalent of a hagwon, I would think I would be pretty fluent at Spanish.
These kids have grammar, reading, and speaking classes, and they do this for years. |
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blaseblasphemener
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Location: There's a voice, keeps on calling me, down the road, that's where I'll always be
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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| siht fcuk all? |
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htrain
Joined: 24 May 2007
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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| toddswift wrote: |
Impact????
The only reason you are in korea is because the kpeople are scared to death of CHINA.
SOONER or later, the days will come when you will find a bunch of unemployed koreans sitting around with no jobs *(because of the economic CRASH that is bound to come) and as western people come by to buy stuff (like in Thailand) they will remember their English lessons as kids, and they will be able to help you.
so I guess you are impacting the future tourists as they visit korea. |
LOL.
I would love to see the jobs board listings 10 years from now. |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| kimchipig wrote: |
It is hard to actually quantify but the level of Englishie in Korea is way better than it was fifteen years ago. Of course, given the amount of time most Koreans have spent studying Englishie they should have all won Pulitzer Prizes by now, but it is better.
How much if this is attributable to waygooks is an open question. After several years of teaching in Korean universities, I realised that they were learning S.F.A from me and were using what they learned in high school. |
I am not sure what S.F.A stands for. Definitely, I think the Korean students are making progress, but considering how many years they study English, they should be better. I think that if we really pushed the students to learn a lot of English, then the parents would complain, and the kids would drop out. I think that's part of the problem. I am almost teaching my students North American style, but I am being a little laid back and giving them plenty of time to do the assignments. They kind of balk at the kind of vocabulary they have to deal with in their speeches, but I think it's fair game for a 12 year old to open up a dictionary and look up the word immigrant or gladiator. Frankly, if I want to a Spanish equivalent of a hagwon, I would think I would be pretty fluent at Spanish.
These kids have grammar, reading, and speaking classes, and they do this for years. |
You are comparing an English speaker learning Spanish and a Korean speaker learning English? |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Underwaterbob wrote: |
You are comparing an English speaker learning Spanish and a Korean speaker learning English? |
Okay, I could do it with Swahili if you give me 4 years of Swahili with grammar, speaking, and listening, and if the classes are not watered down then I can master Swahili. Or, give me Russian. Russian is far enough from English to count. Seriously, kids should be able to have basic grammar down after studying English for several years or is that too much to expect? My co-worker also thinks their level is poor if they supposedly have been taught grammar in the past several years by various hagwons. The Korean teachers are teaching them grammar. I am not going to blame the Korean teachers. I don't know what's going on. Maybe, they can only push the kids so much when it comes to grammar, because their parents will complain. I think the problem is the kids often don't really want to learn very advanced English, and the parents want them enrolled, but don't want a lot pressure on their kids, either. If I were a parent, I would rather pay for private lessons. |
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htrain
Joined: 24 May 2007
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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Have you looked at the grammar texts? It's terrible.
1.) The boy _________ to the store tomorrow.
a.) will go
b.) is going
Which is correct? Choose one and only one answer.
They would rather spend hours yammering about the difference between sleepy and tired than actually teach anything of merit.
Some of the books I am expected to teach irk me; I have to spend all my prep time fixing the errors in the text before I can even begin. It really sucks. Has anyone used the TOEFL ING series? Oh ... my... god.... |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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They definitely spend too much time nitpicking the fine details and not enough on doing anything actually useful.
My co-teacher would smite me in a grammar competition and I do know a fair amount about grammar; however, he couldn't speak his way out of a wet paper bag. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Underwaterbob wrote: |
They definitely spend too much time nitpicking the fine details and not enough on doing anything actually useful.
My co-teacher would smite me in a grammar competition and I do know a fair amount about grammar; however, he couldn't speak his way out of a wet paper bag. |
I wouldn't say that most Korean teachers are better than me at grammar. I would say some of them are pretty good, and I would say some are as good as me. Granted, some would know certain terms I am not familiar with, because I don't study grammatical rules all the time. I do that on occasion. One of the books I am using has many grammatical errors. It is annoying. It was published in Korea. I have had the grammar teachers ask me about grammar. Sometimes, I don't know the answers without researching. Anyway, I am not the grammar teacher. If I were the grammar teacher, you can bet I would be reading tons of stuff about grammar. I did that for my first hagwon job.
Anyway, I am not going to blame their grammar teachers, because I don't know what's happening in those classes, but they should have basic grammar down. There should be no excuse for a child who has been learning English for some years to say "I'm go to school" or to say "Teacher, I do my homework". I can't stand hearing the students say those things, so I correct them ad nauseum. Sometimes, they complain that I am a bit hard on them. Their parents are paying good money for them to learn, so they need to work. |
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htrain
Joined: 24 May 2007
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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I have a few students who have been going to hagwons for over 5 years and still can't make a sentence. "Teacher bathroom." "Teacher, I'm toilet." "Teacher, water."
It is shameful. I wonder why despite my best efforts at correcting them they never change... I think some are so fed up with learning that they have more fun mocking English. Some of my rat bastard students like to read with Konglish pronuncation. |
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hauwande
Joined: 17 Mar 2008
Location: gongju
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| some, but very little... |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Speaking in perfect English gets some kids lots of unwanted attention from classmates. When I worked in a hogwon I had a few who became mute or "stupid" once they hit middle school/puberty. |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Underwaterbob wrote: |
They definitely spend too much time nitpicking the fine details and not enough on doing anything actually useful.
My co-teacher would smite me in a grammar competition and I do know a fair amount about grammar; however, he couldn't speak his way out of a wet paper bag. |
This is so bloody true, isn't it. And of course it's not only your co-teacher or the ESL field in particular, Bob. This is the picture I see throughout Korea, whatever the job, industry or socio-economic level. Is this the inevitable result when a country approaches the learning of a foreign language as one does just another school subject? But then, that's not so very different from how it's dealt with in much of non-English-speaking Europe.
| htrain wrote: |
I have a few students who have been going to hagwons for over 5 years and still can't make a sentence. "Teacher bathroom." "Teacher, I'm toilet." "Teacher, water."
It is shameful. I wonder why despite my best efforts at correcting them they never change... I think some are so fed up with learning that they have more fun mocking English. Some of my rat bastard students like to read with Konglish pronuncation. |
And this is always the puzzle. Not that Koreans might have trouble composing highly complex sentences, but that by and large they cannot utter or scribble the most rudimentary and routine ones like you've mentioned without making a hash of them. Just simple, basic, survival stuff that a newbie to Korea would get down pat in Korean in less than a year. And again, it's not just the kids.
A few countries I have personal experience with are Portugal, Greece and Iran. The average person in those countries would probably not be able to communicate with you in English, at least not that I found. But the few who can -- even if they're only a tiny fraction of the total population -- are no slouches. They talk circles upon circles around Korea's "good" English speakers. And they don't have English drilled into them the same way from womb to university as matter of a national policy or at the urging of hyper-competitive mommies. Nor did I get any sense that mocking English or intentionally mispronouncing it was a source of great merriment. Then again, I didn't converse much with toddlers. |
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