Korean Job Discussion Forums

[withnail]

What is the philosophy behind a University Freshman English program? The course is often described in the literature both in English and Korean as a �Conversation course.� However the textbook we use, is often clearly a �Gen. Eng� or General English textbook.

�Gen. Eng� or General English is a course which is devoted to the general improvement of all 4 skills. It adopts a holistic approach and considers that practice in each skill will have a positive effect on the others.

Conversational English focuses on the skill of speaking as paramount with listening as secondary. Any reading passage or listening text is considered to be useful only insofar as it sets up a speaking activity, or in the case of a writing assignment, a summary of or reflection upon a speaking activity. It argues for maximum student talk time.

These are two quite different approaches to the teaching of English and we need to be clear on what we are offering.
What we might do, is to exploit our Gen. Eng. Textbook to make our lessons top heavy on the one skill of speaking.

To do that we would have to agree on a few basic principles:

1. Our goal should be: all the students speaking, all of the time � we give students the phrases to:
Participate in discussion
(agreeing/disagreeing/interrupting/persuading etc),
Communicate with the teacher (Can you spell that please? Can you go over that again?)
Communicate with their partner/micro group
(What did you get for number 4? I got�etc)

2. No class should be subjected to lengthy lectures on grammar rules while they sit and passively listen.

3. No class should have to read long texts during class time purely for the purpose of answering comprehension questions.

4. We need to consider this:

At the end of a class, how much opportunity did each student have to speak? Can any student justifiably say: �What with all the book exercises, the grammar, the passive listening etc, I barely had the chance to say anything beyond a few utterances?�

5. If we are teaching vocabulary, then this must lead to activation of that vocabulary in discussion.

6. If we use a short reading text, then that must also context-set a speaking activity.

7. If our focus is a grammatical structure, we need to find out how well they know it first (test-teach with a communicative activity), rather than redundantly going through it on the whiteboard, only to find out later that it was actually known and active in their speech.

8. We shouldn�t feel under too much pressure to get through a significant amount of each unit in the textbook. As we all know, many teachers feel pressured to justify the expense of the book by using it as much as possible, whether that creates a communicative, generally interactive lesson or not.

General English is always more attractive to teachers because it gives them plenty of activities and means they are not worried about how they will get through the time. It is comfortable and low risk. It is always defended because of arguments for variety and knock-on benefits to the other skills.

Conversational English is high risk because it has the teacher set up discussions and communicative tasks and then forces them to shut up and let students get on with it. It often also has to defend itself against accusations of �free conversation� and conjures up images of backpacker teachers chatting away about whatever comes to mind in a very unstructured way.

The teacher become passive and circulates, assisting and recording useful corrective feedback rather than being right in the middle of things. They may look foolish if the students do not speak, therefore they have to do a lot of coaching, cajoling and forbidding the use of Korean at first

It also requires the teacher to be able to lower the affective filter quickly. To create a stress-free atmosphere where students feel comfortable. It also has to be fun enough to stimulate the student. It requires a teacher to supplement the textbook extensively where it is not relevant to Korean students. This is time consuming at first.

In short, Conversational English seems counterintuitive � I look like I�m doing very little a lot of the time to an outside observer. I don�t feel like I�m teaching in the traditional sense. However it is also evident that if the students are listening to me all the time, they are not speaking. If they are doing grammar exercises a lot of the time, they are not speaking. If they are listening to long listening passages, they are not speaking. If they are engaged in long pronunciation activities, they are not speaking.

Dr Andrew Finch from Kyungpook National University has suggested that we are often ignorant of exactly how much grammar and how much input the average Korean Freshman has had by the time he or she gets to us. The one thing they have never had is much chance to practice.

As long as there are teachers more concerned with getting through their lesson comfortably, being in control, not taking risks and unwilling to change, they never will. This is a unique opportunity.

There is an excellent video out there that I would recommend to anyone where Finch spells out some of these ideas. The link is:

http://www.finchpark.com/videos/finchinterview.wmv

[andrewchon]

Sounds a lot like a mix of Rassias method and TPR. Kind of thing many teachers attempted before drowning in flop-sweat. I agree Korean students sorely lack speaking opportunities. As a learner of third language, I must admit having a constant stimulus of having to communicate would accelerate my ability as well. Was there a measurable objective at the end of this course?

[withnail]

Actually it is the teacher centered approach that will exhaust you, I find! The key point in all this is, let them speak! At first they don't but they do come to accept it after a few lessons!

[andrewchon]

I agree they need to speak. It's that non-speaking period before they start speaking; that's when the feint hearted drowns. Teachers would probably benefit from learning the method in workshops before they actually do it to live students. How was the success/failure of the course assessed?

[withnail]

They had an Ielts-like interview pre and post and the results (scores) in the criteria of fluency were dramatically better whereas for accuracy the results were less extreme. What was clear though was that the students liked the classes much more....

[PRagic]

Where is the question? Sounds like the OP, while offering some decent insight, is simply thinking out loud.

Sure, it would be great if all language classes were coordinated.