Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Paji eh Wong]

[ddeubel]

Can I ask you a simple question?

I am a teacher. I teach without any materials. My curriculum is the English language. Is there learning? Am I a bad teacher? Or asking the same question existentially - Do I exist (as a teacher) without the all important "materials"?

DD
http://eflclassroom.ning.com

I'll reply more later but would like an answer to this starter first.

[Unposter]

I am not sure I agree or disagree with the article or its seeming premise as I have not read it, but...

I really do not think the materials matter. It is HOW you use the materials that matter. Anything can be turned into a good lesson if you know how to do it.

Objectives are very important. If you want the students to be able to use the language then they need to practice using it. If you don't teach usage, very few students will get it.

Curriculum matters. The biggest problem with language education in Korea is not the teacher and while materials could be better - it really isn't the materials. The problem is the curriculum. It does not set minimum expectations. Instead, it forces students to compete to see who can score the highest. Also, it does not emphasize usage but expects learners to become fluent in the language - an impossibility. The whole system is set up to fail.

Koreans and especially the Ministry of Education needs to decide whether they want English as a foreign language or a second language. They teach it like a foreign language but they expect second language results. It just isn't going to happen that way.

There really needs to be more concensus on English education in Korea.

[the_beaver]

That would be a profound revelation if it wasn't just an opinion.

Unfortunately, studies show that people do tend to learn a language more quickly, and to a higher level, when formal studies are a part of their approach.

[VanIslander]

[Easter Clark]

I think teachers forget that it is the students who are doing most of the work. We can make the language more accessible, set them up to succeed, give them opportunities to use what they have learned, etc... but at the end of the day, if they aren't using it or studying on their own, they're not going to learn it.

Does a coach take the credit for am Olympic medal?

[zpeanut]

It's important for teachers to know the difference between good and bad material, but really, it's the teacher who delivers the content and controls the dynamics of the class.

If the teacher is crap, so is the class.
Boring teacher = boring class.
Stupid teacher = useless class.

I know a really good teacher who is able to teach for a whole hour simply by eliciting from students. No materials needed. Now that's skill.

[aka Dave]

Okay, I'm fluent in French, I took a standarized test at UCLA which measured all skills, including oral skills, listening, etc. and I out-scored a couple native speakers (this was the test you took if you were going to be an exchange student with French Universities. The natives were Quebecois and a couple people who grew up in France).

Now, that is contemptible bragging, and if you want to flame me for it I won't take offense
because it deserves to be flamed.

However, it's necessary to make my point. I've also studied 4 other languages, including Korean. So I have a lot of experience studying foreign languages.

So when I teach a foreing language, my first thought is "What worked for me?"

And really, this isn't complicated. Massive input, massive output. Then lots of self-study with vocabulary/grammar. At least 3 to 4 hours per night to make steady progress. One hour a night to make halting progress.

For French, I worked at a video store in college, and I watched hundreds of French movies with the sub-titles taped over. I'd watch the same movie ten times. I listened to my "French in Action" tapes and watch the videos
over and over,. Literally thousands of hours listening/repeating French over the years. The same for output, I'd get language partners (Ucla has a language trade program - sign up and trade French for English) and practice as much as possible.

And I'd go to French class. French class was 4 hours a week as an undergrad. I was one student in a 25 person class.

My self-study was 25 to 30 hours a week. Guess which was more important?

Unless you're doing a long term intensive class, language courses don't require the time necessary to learn a language well. And most students aren't willing to put in the necessary time. With the internet there are ample resources for any dedicated student to learn any major language if they're willing to put in the time.

I teach my students 2 hours a week at my Univ. That is a joke. I make it clear the first day of the semester, if they're not listening/studying/speaking at least a couple hours a day they won't make much progress. I give them lots of websites like npr.org that provide authentic English with text.

Language classes are road maps. If you're a language learner you've got to do the work to get there.

[Paji eh Wong]

Maybe people aren't reading the whole article.

It is written from a learner's point of view. Not a teacher's. He is also reccomending ESL type environments, not EFL.

Here it is.

[Paji eh Wong]

[Paji eh Wong]

[aka Dave]

I agree with most of the long text of the quoted post, with the obvious exception of the ludicrous assertion that he acheived fluency in German in 10 weeks. I must have mis-read that (I'm watching a football game as I type), but achieving fluency in any language in 10 weeks is absolutely unthinkable.

I think the bottom line to keep things simple. Provide students active input/output and give them the tools to work on their own.

However, the quote says teachers should be purely descriptive, which is almost certainly inappropriate for Koreans. The mistakes they make are incomprehensible to natve speakers, especially in writing. Colloquial native misuse of grammar may be acceptable because it doesn't prevent communication and understanding.

However, if mistakes hinder the communicative abilities of the learner they should be prescribed and corrected. Further, in writing classes you have to correct mistakes because these students take tests and will be graded based on these mistakes.

[the_beaver]

[Adventurer]

In Korea, many of the students do make significant progress, but effective teachers with experience are hampered by the short-sightedness of many of the hagwon owners who are not very good at grasping business logic nor are they willing to talk to their teachers.
Whether you are an experienced or inexperienced teacher, you will generally be used as the same way, much like an inner city public school in the US will often use you, so you can't expect a tonne in so many cases.

I protested vigorously recently at work that our boss saddled us with way too many courses. So, consequently, the quality has gone down. Some of the parents noticed. The boss seemed to want to get as many students as possible and somehow wanted the same quality. There is no logic to that.

When I taught a lighter load, I taught my students a lot. I really invested a lot of time in refining their writing, taught them by correcting their speeches and adding idioms to express themselves in much the way a North American child would. However, when we get hampered by the Korean of education which focuses on memorizing so many things and their speeches when they haven't mastered the language yet, then you do the kids a disservice? Does anyone else think it's dumb to focus on memorizing speeches or what have you when the students cannot express themselves so well? When I had free reign with the kids and didn't focus so much on formalities, they improved dramatically.

In Korea, it is not about the materials as much as a horrible way of teaching students a language and all that often useless busy work.
That is not our fault as foreign teachers. That's a cultural issue.
The culture is blocking the attempts of many well-meaning foreign teachers to impart their knowledge of the language. That said, many kids do learn a lot of English.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The OP makes a good point. Good materials are vital. It's one of the key factors in a successful program. The claims about becoming fluent in a short time are suspect, but whether true or not, don't reflect the reality of our students here in Korea. Our students live in a Korean language culture (shocking revelation!) that limits their opportunities to speak.

But back to materials. One of the woeful lacks here is a good dictionary for learners to use. We need a dictionary that clearly explains how 'inconvenient' is different from 'comfortable', how 'exciting' is different from 'interesting'. What I'm talking about are materials that are specifically targeted to Korean learners, dealing with specifically Korean problems.

It wouldn't hurt to have lit books that are graded by vocabulary, grammar and age-appropriate content either.