Korean Job Discussion Forums

[alphalfa]

Here's a quote from a professor of English literature at SNU.

" The goals for college English education are not to hone students' conversational skills focusing on speaking and listening but to cultivate their academic English so that they can read and write high-level English"


For those of you currently teaching ESL at university , do you agree with this statement?

This same professor proposed that the govt. put it's efforts toward developing English education programs suitable for the Korean students and developing the skills of Korean English teachers.

suitable for Korean students? ... base the programs on the memorization
method of learning~ is this what he is proposing the govt do?



alphalfa

[caniff]

I surmise that he's probably insecure about his own conversational skills.

[amilin90]

[blurgalurgalurga]

Well, he's the literature prof, so for sure being able to write academic English should be pretty important in that faculty.
As for the other 95 % of the student body though--I can't see academic English being particularly useful in and of itself. That's a common belief I think, and probably why all the uni's are leaning more towards conversation classes these days for their requisite English classes.

However...one good thing about teaching Koreans to write, rather than teaching them conversation, is that it's maybe a good fit with their education system as it currently is. I'm sure most of us have found that there is often a reluctance to speak openly in a large class, and most people are not comfortable goofing around with the second language like Lit students back home are--maybe out of a fear of standing out, or of losing face because of a mistake. At least with a reading and writing based course the kids would be more free to experiment a bit, privately, and stop being so damn giggly and worked up over what the other kids think.

While I don't think learning academic English will improve conversation skills quickly, it may be that the students would actually learn a lot more in a class where they had to write a 500 word essay every week, rather than spending 15 weeks re-learning the same basic conversation skills they were supposed to have learned already in high school.

The other problem with teaching conversation classes in uni is that the classes are too bloody big. Conversation between one native speaker and 25+ ESL students is pretty ineffective, unless you're dealing with an extremely motivated group. Same deal with high school; some students will participate and learn stuff, but a large number of them will try to get out of it if they can. With writing, assuming the prof has time enough to do detailed marking and commentary, the students might find themselves using the new language a LOT more than they would in a basic conversation class.

[blurgalurgalurga]

Oh yeah--of all the Korean English teachers I've worked with, I'd say the vast majority of them aren't capable of writing academic English themselves. There's no getting around the unpleasant fact that most of the old guard here are lucky to be working, and can't speak three clean licks of the language they are paid to teach. In a writing and grammar based class, that ugly truth is more easily concealed...SNU Prof is likely an exception to that rule, but not necessarily. He may well just be covering his own butt too.

[amilin90]

[blurgalurgalurga]

[mikeyboy122]

Plook as many co-eds as possible!

[aka Dave]

First of all, the classes I teach are mostly "conversation" classes, so it'd be strange to neglect conversation in my classes.

I do teach a couple writing workshops a semester, where the entire focus is on essay writing and re-writing.

I teach in the "English Education dept." of my Uni, which is for students who want to become middle school/high school teachers of English. I've heard that the conversation portion of the English teacher's exam has been augmented, so they need to focus more on their conversational skills.

Perhaps English Lit. majors (I believe that exists, but am not certain), or linguistics majors studying to become professors might need to focus more on academic writing.

That said, the older profs in my department speak atrocious conversational English. I've had 8 year olds from hagwons who are more fluent. My boss (she's head of the dept., younger) speaks superb English, but the rest are really poor.

I disagree with the general notion that you can divorce one element of a language from another. If you can't speak English properly, you can't possibly understand poetry and the music of the language the poems express. A lot of poetry was meant to be spoken, it is akin to music after all.

On Edit: I have some students (all seniors) who can write a reasonable academic essay (we write about academic stuff like Input theory, meaning negotiation, etc). Some of them, however write sentences that just simply go off a cliff and are incomprehensible.

They could never fool me, regarding plagiarism. Korean English is just too recognizable after you correct papers a while. Constant use of phrases like "nowadays" "it could be" (they overuse the conditional) and other sorts of Koreanisms clearly mark their writing.

I had student turn in two papers, one clearly was his, one clearly a copy from a website. I mean it was *screaming* plagiarism. I didn't make a big deal about it, as it's a summer immersion program and they're really stressed.

I did say however, "Chang-hyon, if you're going to copy papers you're wasting my time and yours." He admitted it and we moved on (I made sure to say this in front of the class so they know I'll know if they try to cheat).

[Young FRANKenstein]

[amilin90]

[Young FRANKenstein]

[postfundie]

[blurgalurgalurga]

The limply-proffered defense I made earlier regarding the policy of teaching college level students 'academic quality' writing (though I think we all agree that most profs here aren't up to it themselves, and probably shouldn't be teaching it) wasn't expressed very clearly. What I mean is that it might be a more efficient way to teach large classes here, providing the students actually do the work--attend the lectures, read the materials, and write a lot.
My reasoning is that 'conversation' based classes, the ones I've taught anyway, seem to be pretty light on substance. I'm sure as I get more experience, I'll become a more effective teacher, but really, it's a tall order to be conversing with 20 or 30 students at once; obviously it becomes a lecture, speaking drills, and pairwork. Only the really motivated ones get anything out of it at all.

For the requisite English courses, I sometimes think the unis here might be better off just getting all the kids to watch 'arrested development' or 'lost' for an hour, read a bunch of translated japanese comic books, and have one hour a week of conversation class with a group of 15 students and a single native teacher. Better that, maybe, than two hours a week with 30 kids and one frazzled pedant. Probably they'd learn little in that kind of system as well, but at least they'd be exposed to some aspects of English language and culture beyond the god-awful texts currently in vogue. If they didn't hate English already, they probably will soon.

On that note--does anybody know a really good large-class conversation text? I'm using an Oxford set right now that blows donkey gristle.

Clearly I'm getting spread a little thin here in my comments, but I'm really interested in hearing more about how you more experienced conversation teachers manage large group classes effectively. I mean, I can 'handle' my classes, but I worry that they're not learning much of use.

[blurgalurgalurga]