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okokok
Joined: 27 Aug 2006
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 Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 2:45 am Post subject: Why Few Koreans Master English |
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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/05/137_44297.html
Nice job Ray. If only Koreans would listen.
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Why Few Koreans Master English
By Ray Stevens
Once again Jon Huer has approached an issue of interest ―``Why Is English So Difficult for Koreans to Master?" (April 25) ― but, rather than grounding his thesis in real-world research (i.e. talking to students or teachers of English), he has wandered off into thickets of abstruse philosophizing leading to risible and unsupportable conclusions.
For example, Huer makes much of the social stratification embedded in Korean versus English egalitarianism. I have yet to meet a Korean, however young, who took longer than 30 seconds to grasp that English has only one second-person pronoun, you, which is used to address everyone from the president to a janitor.
Similarly, Huer contrasts ``efficient, calm and factual" English with the han-ridden emotionalism of Koreans. One wonders if Huer has read Shakespeare, Faulkner or Albee (to name a few), who have plumbed the depths of pathos and psychic torment in English.
Enough. Here is why Koreans have difficulty mastering English.
1. The Korean educational style ― rote memorization and regurgitation ― may work well for math and science, but not for English. Not surprisingly, Koreans readily learn grammar and vocabulary, but are poor speakers. Speaking requires creativity, spontaneity and risk-taking: not the hallmarks of Korean education.
2. If quality English instruction exists anywhere in Korea, it is only in isolated classrooms with exceptional teachers. There is no general awareness of how English should be taught or what a quality program looks like; certainly not among public-school bureaucrats or hagwon (cram schools or private learning institutes).
Most native ``English teachers" have no training in education or ESL. With government regulations barring British and American language schools from establishing branches here, Koreans have no exposure to quality instruction or know-how to recognize it.
3. Confucian roadblocks further hinder effective English instruction. In my first hagwon job, I found that every class had students of similar age but widely varying abilities (age is one element of status, and students dislike being in a class with younger children).
When I suggested grouping students by level, not age, a Korean teacher said, ``Oh, we wouldn't do that." Hierarchy trumps efficiency, and learning suffers.
Other cultural roadblocks: the boss is king; a contract is just a piece of paper; appearance supersedes substance; the inability to plan or think ahead; what do you mean you can't teach eight hours straight?
4. English is crazy. Few languages sport roots as profuse and tangled as English (Celtic, Germanic, Latin, French, Spanish, etc.).
No sooner is a rule propounded than exceptions bury it. Pronunciation is haphazard: ```ough" is pronounced differently in tough, trough, though and through. Articles (a/an/the) confound Koreans, whose mother tongue lacks them.
English is written three different ways ― lower-case, upper-case and cursive ― compared to Korean's unitary alphabet. Third-person singular verbs take ``s" (I eat/He eats) for no logical reason.
Here is a spelling rule, pulled from today's lesson: ``When the verb ends in a single consonant after a single short vowel, double the final consonant and add ed." The wonder is that even native speakers learn the language!
5. English has sounds Korean lacks, among them F, V, and the hard R (as in teacher). Korean students have trouble distinguishing between (and pronouncing) P, B, and V; R and L; D and T.
6. Koreans love numerical indices of rank and progress, fueling the cycle of constant testing. The time and effort students expend cramming for tests is largely wasted.
I once borrowed a Korean co-teacher's word list to review with our students; they cried, ``But those are yesterday's words!" They had flushed them from memory to absorb the next list of words, in a meaningless cycle of wasted effort.
7. The dreaded ``mothers mafia." Why parents who don't speak English presume to dictate how it should be taught is a mystery, but hagwon owners bow and tremble before maternal threats to take their children elsewhere.
Too little homework, too much homework, more grammar, more pronunciation ― the complaints never cease. Pages filled with red circles, and constant testing, constitute quality instruction in the Mafiosas' eyes, and schools bend to appease their ignorance.
Despite all these obstacles, I have met a number of Koreans with a strong mastery of English. They fall into three groups: (1) those who have lived in English-speaking countries for an extended period; (2) children of well-off families who have studied with native speakers from an early age; and (3) those who self-study by watching American movies.
That these Koreans have mastered English undercuts Huer's abstractions about hierarchy and emotionalism, and underscores that motivation and quality instruction are the keys to English mastery, in Korea or elsewhere.
The writer teaches English at a hagwon in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. He may be reached at [email protected]. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 3:01 am Post subject: |
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Absolutely spot on.
Great overview of why Koreans work so hard at English, spend so much money and time, yet rarely reach a decent level of fluency.
Sadly, I don't think Koreans can change the way they teach and learn. Not for at least two more generations anyway. |
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The Gipkik
Joined: 30 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 3:22 am Post subject: |
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| A very sensible article. Almost sounds like common sense--in retrospect. Koreans need to understand that English is all about communication, not testing, but that won't happen until they see the need to communicate meaningfully and don't have to plow through so many abstruse English exams to feel like they're getting ahead. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 4:32 am Post subject: |
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That's one of the best pieces I've ever read in my life. The Korea Times is not worthy of such brilliance.
Bravo!!! |
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okokok
Joined: 27 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 4:38 am Post subject: |
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| #7 is a big one. |
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The Grumpy Senator
Joined: 13 Jan 2008
Location: Up and down the 6 line
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 4:46 am Post subject: |
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Sadly, this is the case in all subjects. I have come to understand that the Korean education system is setup for multiple choice tests. Critical thinking and debate is not taught to students. There is only one correct answer. So many times I have asked a student an open-ended question and then questioned their answer (playing devil's adovate). Instantly, the student changes their answer and says I am right. They are trained to not question the teacher.
There is too much structure and not enough freedom in Korean public schools. I have even found Universities to be the same. It is essential in ESL to allow the students to apply their learned lessons, to expand and grow from there. Teachers should allow their students to explore the language and make connections on their own. Most mistakes will fix themselves if the teacher models the correct way and allows for practice.
Assessment does not only happen on Test Day. |
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blurgalurgalurga
Joined: 18 Oct 2007
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 4:50 am Post subject: |
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Truisms all. My favourite is #6. I call it the Puking Parrot Principle and it is key here...memorize, regurgitate, forget; memorize, regurgitate, forget.
To a certain extent, even higher education in our home countries has an element of this. Obviously some of the information stays down and gets digested, but when you're taking five classes a semester, you always forget a lot of stuff when it's time to start a new bunch of classes, so as to make room for the new influx of data.
I'm glad I kept most of my notes from my university days. I'd remember very little detail of the history I studied otherwise; or, I'd misremember things and assume I was correct because there's nobody to test me on it now except myself.
But the way they so often cram vocabulary in the schools here, without going back and reviewing the old terms, is at the apex of inefficiency. |
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markhan
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 5:35 am Post subject: Re: Why Few Koreans Master English |
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Some I don�t agree. For example,
| Quote: |
| 1. The Korean educational style ― rote memorization and regurgitation ― may work well for math and science, but not for English. Not surprisingly, Koreans readily learn grammar and vocabulary, but are poor speakers. Speaking requires creativity, spontaneity and risk-taking: not the hallmarks of Korean education. |
I studied Japanese when I was in Japan and I noticed that top 10 students were most of the time, (well, actually 99%of the time) Korean, and bottom students, students from U.S. (Or Europe). If speaking truly requires creativity, spontaneity and risk-taking, as the author says, are we to believe that American students lack above qualities? And how many English teachers here are fluent in Korean? Yeah, I thought so.
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| 2 English is crazy�.. |
Well, you could say that for every language, Korean isn�t exactly easy to learn either, as many here attest.
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| 3. English has sounds Korean lacks�.. |
And Korean has sound where English lacks.
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| 6. Koreans love numerical indices of rank and progress, fueling the cycle of constant testing�� |
Not true, if he had heart-to-heart talk with Koreans, he would have known that most Koreans don�t like it either.
Unlike in the State where some enters college thanks to the deep pocket of their family (legacy), or of having advantageous color skin or ethnicity (Asian excluded) or because they are from poor neighborhoods, Koreans only have one criterion to enter top-tier college � grades. Why? Because that�s only thing you can quantify. Who is going to judge that one student is more creative than others? If one student is indeed creative, who is going to be judge of that? Who is going to judge the judge?
In conclusion, I noticed that English teachers tend to overemphasize the point that Koreans suck at speaking English and they come up with some Confucius BS and the likes.
Maybe I should come with reasons why Americans suck at speaking East Asian languages and blame it on the Christian history where they actually believe Mary having Jesus without, well, doing a naughty thing.
| okokok wrote: |
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/05/137_44297.html
Nice job Ray. If only Koreans would listen.
| Quote: |
Why Few Koreans Master English
By Ray Stevens
Once again Jon Huer has approached an issue of interest ―``Why Is English So Difficult for Koreans to Master?" (April 25) ― but, rather than grounding his thesis in real-world research (i.e. talking to students or teachers of English), he has wandered off into thickets of abstruse philosophizing leading to risible and unsupportable conclusions.
For example, Huer makes much of the social stratification embedded in Korean versus English egalitarianism. I have yet to meet a Korean, however young, who took longer than 30 seconds to grasp that English has only one second-person pronoun, you, which is used to address everyone from the president to a janitor.
Similarly, Huer contrasts ``efficient, calm and factual" English with the han-ridden emotionalism of Koreans. One wonders if Huer has read Shakespeare, Faulkner or Albee (to name a few), who have plumbed the depths of pathos and psychic torment in English.
Enough. Here is why Koreans have difficulty mastering English.
1. The Korean educational style ― rote memorization and regurgitation ― may work well for math and science, but not for English. Not surprisingly, Koreans readily learn grammar and vocabulary, but are poor speakers. Speaking requires creativity, spontaneity and risk-taking: not the hallmarks of Korean education.
2. If quality English instruction exists anywhere in Korea, it is only in isolated classrooms with exceptional teachers. There is no general awareness of how English should be taught or what a quality program looks like; certainly not among public-school bureaucrats or hagwon (cram schools or private learning institutes).
Most native ``English teachers" have no training in education or ESL. With government regulations barring British and American language schools from establishing branches here, Koreans have no exposure to quality instruction or know-how to recognize it.
3. Confucian roadblocks further hinder effective English instruction. In my first hagwon job, I found that every class had students of similar age but widely varying abilities (age is one element of status, and students dislike being in a class with younger children).
When I suggested grouping students by level, not age, a Korean teacher said, ``Oh, we wouldn't do that." Hierarchy trumps efficiency, and learning suffers.
Other cultural roadblocks: the boss is king; a contract is just a piece of paper; appearance supersedes substance; the inability to plan or think ahead; what do you mean you can't teach eight hours straight?
4. English is crazy. Few languages sport roots as profuse and tangled as English (Celtic, Germanic, Latin, French, Spanish, etc.).
No sooner is a rule propounded than exceptions bury it. Pronunciation is haphazard: ```ough" is pronounced differently in tough, trough, though and through. Articles (a/an/the) confound Koreans, whose mother tongue lacks them.
English is written three different ways ― lower-case, upper-case and cursive ― compared to Korean's unitary alphabet. Third-person singular verbs take ``s" (I eat/He eats) for no logical reason.
Here is a spelling rule, pulled from today's lesson: ``When the verb ends in a single consonant after a single short vowel, double the final consonant and add ed." The wonder is that even native speakers learn the language!
5. English has sounds Korean lacks, among them F, V, and the hard R (as in teacher). Korean students have trouble distinguishing between (and pronouncing) P, B, and V; R and L; D and T.
6. Koreans love numerical indices of rank and progress, fueling the cycle of constant testing. The time and effort students expend cramming for tests is largely wasted.
I once borrowed a Korean co-teacher's word list to review with our students; they cried, ``But those are yesterday's words!" They had flushed them from memory to absorb the next list of words, in a meaningless cycle of wasted effort.
7. The dreaded ``mothers mafia." Why parents who don't speak English presume to dictate how it should be taught is a mystery, but hagwon owners bow and tremble before maternal threats to take their children elsewhere.
Too little homework, too much homework, more grammar, more pronunciation ― the complaints never cease. Pages filled with red circles, and constant testing, constitute quality instruction in the Mafiosas' eyes, and schools bend to appease their ignorance.
Despite all these obstacles, I have met a number of Koreans with a strong mastery of English. They fall into three groups: (1) those who have lived in English-speaking countries for an extended period; (2) children of well-off families who have studied with native speakers from an early age; and (3) those who self-study by watching American movies.
That these Koreans have mastered English undercuts Huer's abstractions about hierarchy and emotionalism, and underscores that motivation and quality instruction are the keys to English mastery, in Korea or elsewhere.
The writer teaches English at a hagwon in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. He may be reached at [email protected]. |
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markhan
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| eamo wrote: |
Absolutely spot on.
Great overview of why Koreans work so hard at English, spend so much money and time, yet rarely reach a decent level of fluency.
Sadly, I don't think Koreans can change the way they teach and learn. Not for at least two more generations anyway. |
Not true. If you are an English teacher it is obvious that you will get students who are not fluent in English. But I noticed that Koreans, who come to U.S. to study, learn English a lot faster than students from other countries for simple reason that they got their fundamentals down. Also when compared to 10 years, a lot more Koreans are fluent. |
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cj1976
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 6:45 am Post subject: |
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| What hard r in 'teacher'? Not all English speakers have an American accent. This is something they need to understand. Koreans try too hard to mimic others, and it often results in a strange faux American twang. |
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michaelambling
Joined: 31 Dec 2008
Location: Paradise
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 6:52 am Post subject: Re: Why Few Koreans Master English |
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| Quote: |
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| 3. English has sounds Korean lacks�.. |
And Korean has sound where English lacks. |
And that's irrelevant to the author's thesis.
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| 6. Koreans love numerical indices of rank and progress, fueling the cycle of constant testing�� |
Not true, if he had heart-to-heart talk with Koreans, he would have known that most Koreans don�t like it either. |
I think by "Koreans" he meant "the Korean education system/social structure"
| Quote: |
| Maybe I should come with reasons why Americans suck at speaking East Asian languages and blame it on the Christian history where they actually believe Mary having Jesus without, well, doing a naughty thing. |
Actually, a great deal of the cultural clash between westerners and Koreans CAN be explained in these terms. Even we non-Christians from America are deeply influenced by a Judeo-Christian past (empirical reasoning, after all, is a development from Judeo-Christian exegesis, hermeneutics, alchemy, and natural philosophy via the ancient pagans and 8th-11th century Muslims). |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 6:57 am Post subject: |
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| markhan wrote: |
| eamo wrote: |
Absolutely spot on.
Great overview of why Koreans work so hard at English, spend so much money and time, yet rarely reach a decent level of fluency.
Sadly, I don't think Koreans can change the way they teach and learn. Not for at least two more generations anyway. |
Not true. If you are an English teacher it is obvious that you will get students who are not fluent in English. But I noticed that Koreans, who come to U.S. to study, learn English a lot faster than students from other countries for simple reason that they got their fundamentals down. Also when compared to 10 years, a lot more Koreans are fluent. |
Not really relevant when you remember we're talking about English education in Korea.
Getting the fundamentals down is important, but it can be done in tandem with speaking practice. Something Korean English teachers seem incapable of doing with their students. Or maybe they just see it as a waste of time because their students won't be tested orally.
Anyway, the upshot is, the average Korean young adult who has studied English intensely for the last 12 years can barely put together a basic 5-word sentence. I know English is a very complex and confusing language, but, c'mon!
Actually, if you think about it, Koreans must have an irrational mental barrier to mastering English..........
..... Imagine that in your home country you grew up surrounded by a second language. It was everywhere. On the TV..... In the movies. On the signs of every other shop, restaurant and bar. On many menus. On the road and subway signs. Everywhere..............Also, you're taught that language in school for an hour everyday.........then you go to an academy to study that language more intensely 3 nights per week......... Any chance you get you're getting out your books to work a bit more on that language.........Your life prospects depend on getting into a good university which depend on getting a good score in that language.
.......don't you think you'd get a bit good at that language after 12 years!! |
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red_devil
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| It IS common sense. He's stating what any experienced ESL teacher in Korea knows. Did this get published in the Korean edition? Will these points ever go beyond sites and media that cater to expats? Will large curriculum wide changes, or systematic changes to how English is taught in Korea change based on these points? I think we know the answer to these... |
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crossmr
Joined: 22 Nov 2008
Location: Hwayangdong, Seoul
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:25 am Post subject: |
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| Not really relevant when you remember we're talking about English education in Korea. |
Its quite relevant. It shows that Koreans have the first part down. It means the entire english education system isn't a loss. If they're much more prepared to learn english than people from another country, they're doing something right. They might not be able to drive it home, but it could be evidence they're further ahead. Perhaps instead of a complete scrapping of the system, better tweaking at the more advanced levels would lead to much better English education.
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| .......don't you think you'd get a bit good at that language after 12 years!! |
I had to study french for 12 years in school, I even did 4 years of immersion as part of that. Had a french speaking girlfriend for 1.5 years after I graduated. I might not starve to death on the street in france, but push comes to shove, probably most of these koreans who studied for 12 years wouldn't starve to death on the street in NA either.
Last edited by crossmr on Mon May 04, 2009 7:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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earthbound14
Joined: 23 Jan 2007
Location: seoul
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| Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:29 am Post subject: Re: Why Few Koreans Master English |
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mark, mark, mark,
The point was not to trash or insult Koreans, but to make a point about the real difficulties Koreans have learning English. AS far as I'm concerned these are all legit and your rebutal nothing but defensive.
Westerners are at the bottom of the class when learning Korean, Chinese, or Japanese because the languages are far too different when compared with other Asian languages. Just as English is different from Korean (which is why Koreans have a hard time learning it). That is why we find Korean phonics as difficult as Koreans find English phonics. However English has the added difficulty of being far less regular and far more confusing becuase it is a language mixed with many others.
Rather than be defensive about Korea perhaps you might have seen that the author has basically said that English is a stupid azz mother fecker of a language to learn and that he has taken great strides to understand what it is that is difficult about it so that he can teach his students more effectively.
The other reason why westerners don't learn Korean is motive....there is little motivation to learn it as we are paid to teach English in a country that is capable of coping with English speakers. We don't really need Korean. This shoudl stand as a testiment to the ability of average Koreans to communicate well enough for us to go about our daily lives whilst remaining ignorant of the Korean language. So comparing westerners ability to speak Korean against the ability of Koreans to speak...any other Asian language is pointless...we both have difficulties learning each others languag because they are very foreign. Using this as a defense does nothing to further the ability of Koreans to learn English...it's just stupid and defensive.
I for one would love to be better at speaking Korean but as I meet only Koreans who already speak English with more fluency than I speak Korean it can be a bit difficult to find people who will take the time to allow me to practice, usually they are too busy trying so hard to get in as much English time as possible for their free English lesson.
And Korean mothers would really do well to let those who know their own language and know how to teach it impliment their own curiculum rather than constantly micro managing and worrying about every little detail....which many Korean mothers do. Properly pronouncing an o as if you were a native English speaker is really unimportant if you can't ask where the hell the toilet is. Get in in the ball park first then we can worry about perfection. |
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