Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nycgrl99]

So I got sick of teaching the textbook earlier this week and decided to forgo the national curriculum for a few days to teach about other countries. I was an international relations major in college and am a strong believer in learning about other cultures at an early age.

I gave a "countries test" to all of my classes (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th) in which I asked them to identify countries by their flags and by national landmarks. I had some pretty tough ones on there too -- like the Singaporean flag, the Egyptian flag, etc. Strangely enough, all of my classes did INCREDIBLY well.

100% of my 6th grade classes could identify the Chinese, Japanese, Russian, British, American, Canadian, and French flags. A huge majority of them could identify Egyptian, Indian, Singaporean, Italian, Australian, Mongolian and Indonesian flags. They also did very well with landmarks. They did have a little trouble with country capitals, but did remarkably well considering their age. My younger classes did even better. I had three 3rd grade students who knew that Lagos was the capital of Nigeria. WHAT. I'm not even teaching at a particularly "good" public school. Just your run of the mill chodeung hakyo.

Just out of curiosity, has anybody else tried giving out a quiz or teaching a lesson about other countries? If so, how did your students do?

I'm asking because my co-teacher insists that Korean children are more internationally aware than American students (I'm American) and I'm starting to believe her...

[samcheokguy]

if you can memorize it Koreans are amazing...of course...what to DO with the image of a french flag is an entirely different matter.

[Goku]

Actually my kids are also incredibly good with countries, capitals, and flags. And I'm in only a halfway decent school. I'm suprised. However I think cultural understanding still needs more supplement. Kids understand things like shaking hands and waving hi, but they seem to be unaware of different cultural modes, something like "personal space" is hard to comprehend. That, however, is very reasonable as my kids are still only middle school.

The only thing that trips them up is asking them how many continents there are... and name them.

I find that only about 15-30% of my classes can answer that question correctly. I'm not sure if English is the barrier or what.

On a side note. I think Korean schools are very good. I went into class today and found diagrams of mitosis and meiosis and I was impressed. Kids knew hemoglobin. I mean, kids in America at that age don't even know what hemoglobin is.

[ekul]

Well out of my first and third grade middle school students less than half the classes could tell me the 4 countries that make up the UK. But that's not surprising when the co-teacher then went on to explain that Wales and Scotland are provinces like Gyeonggi-do and Gangwon-do.

[nycgrl99]

[Otherside]

Next time, check your answers before you make the test.

Lagos is NOT the capital of Nigeria.

[prideofidaho]

When I was in school we had that Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego computer game...that was an awesome game.

Try this one: http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/euroquiz.html

[julesk]

For an International Relations major, you are quite misinformed on the subject.... the capital of Nigeria is Abuja, not Lagos.