Korean Job Discussion Forums

[afsjesse]

I just read John Huer's Article in the KT about why koreans can't learn English, and I must say I agreed with about 80 percent of his reasoning. I like his main point about how they are just "Korean" in their mindset. I know many people on this board give this guy an F for what he writes, but I think he gets atleast a B on this one.

I report, you decide lol

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/05/272_45029.html

[Papa Smurf]

i dont really get it. he doesnt give any concrete examples.

[tzechuk]

I haven't read the article - yet - but the idea of putting *decent* and *John Huer* in the same sentence seems like an oxymoron to me.

[Joe666]

I do like his point about Koreans needing to have an open mind about learning English. Even more to the point, if they just had a more open way of thinking in general, their country would be in much better social shape.

[Unposter]

The man is a hack. He doesn't know a thing about language education and it shows. He isn't even a two-bit acadamic. He is an ego maniac who thinks his shoot from the hip ideas are God's own truth. As much he likes to throw around words such as "rational" he shows no glimpse of rationality in his articles. He is devoid in understanding of science and what is knowledge.

Yes, if you want to be "fluent" in a language, you need to have some inate understanding of the culture of the language - some. But, you don't have to adopt an alien culture to be fluent in it. You do have to have some sense of how people communicate in that language though. And, But, there is little evidence to suggest that Korea wants English to be a second language. And, he only begs the question, "what culture are they supposed to learn?" American culture? The culture of "English," whatever that is?

There are Koreans who go through the public education system barely able to utter anything beyond, "Hello." The simple reasoning behind this is that students get "passed" through the system and they rarely are taught how to communicate in the language.

There are two big reasons why they are not taught to communicate in the language. The first is that Korea has few teachers capable of teaching communication in English. The second is that it is not required for the Korean College Enterance Exam or the TOEIC Test.

So, obviously communication in English is not a real requirement of the Education system.

Now, of course, there are those who do see some value in learning speaking and writing. And, there are real advantages to learning them. But, it is not a requirement.

What Jon Huer is trying to say is that Koreans lack motivation to learn English speaking, writing and culture. Those who cling most to their "Koreanness" are least motivated to learn English.

And, his use of "rationality" and other of his supposed characteristics of English is culturally intolerant at best and is racist at worse.

There is no reason to believe that those who learn English communicatively don't learn how to communicate in English. The problem is making communication in English a priority. There is not a cultural barrier to learning English and Koreans are plenty capable of learning English as many do when they get a chance to learn communicatively.

Huer should really do some proper research before he shoots his mouth off publicly. His inability to understand basic academic protocol speaks loudly about the quality of his own education.

[BizzeeB123]

Yes, I agree with Unposter - this guy is an abomination - it's hard to believe that he lived in the US, and is Korean, and yet understands apparently nothing of either culture...did anyone see the column from Friday, wherein he claims that Korea won't be a 'civilized country' until people can engage in casual banter on subways??? Yeah, really, this profound revelation warranted a newspaper column...

[Smee]

It kills me that after telling me not to write about English education anymore, they let this guy run his mouth about it on a regular basis. To us this guy is so completely wrong that you'd almost think he's joking. How else could a guy be so off the mark about every single aspect of Korea? Yet, Koreans with mediocre English won't know any better and will waste their time reading his crap---and thinking that other foreigners think the same way he does---rather than finding out what foreigners really think.

How about getting a foreigner in there to talk about English education from our perspective? And after that, why not get a foreigner in there who isn't a teacher or isn't a diplomat pulling in six or seven figures? Most of the million of us here don't fit that description, after all.

But instead we get to read Jon Huer, 9-year-old girls, Dokdo Poet, and Vanilla Ice.

[The Gipkik]

[ulsanchris]

has anyone bothered to ask a korean about the importance of learning the culture surrounding the english language and how it effects the acquisition of english?

So far I've only asked two koreans, both can speak English well, about this. They replied that knowing about English culture was very important. I was also told that, at least in the past, they weren't taught anything at all about English culture.
However according to one of them not knowing about English culture is not the main reason why koreans can't speak english.

[Papa Smurf]

[ulsanchris]

To understand why things are done a certain way in a language one needs to understand the cultural context. It helps a fair bit to understand pieces of the culture of the language you are learning. I've studied both Korean and german, though i am not great at speaking in either of them, and both cases the teachers would explain about the respective cultures and why things were done in a certain way. Knowing about the culture and the context in which the culture influences a language aid in the acquisition of a language. However it is not the reason why a large segment of the population fail to learn english.

[ulsanchris]

as much as I hate a lot of Jon Heur's writing I do have to agree with this.

[Gillian57]

[bjonothan]

[michaelambling]