Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jajdude]

That last class today, about 80 minutes, we were all burned out and I had to tell them several times to stop chatting in Korean. I didn't mind them not doing much English work. I just couldn't handle the language babble. It bums me out sometimes. I tried to explain to them how I felt.

"Imagine you are in another country, and you are the only Korean in a room full of Italians ( or Chinese or ...) and they are all babbling away. Now you have this around you for you several hours daily. How would you feel?"

I don't think they understood. Very low English skills and a situation they could scarcely conceive of, I'm sure.

Lately I have been stricter about allowing any Korean, mainly for the sake of my own sanity. But sometimes I let it slide. It's harder to enforce when the material isn't good or you just feel too burned out to deal with it.

And of course most people between age 5-15 have a hard time shutting up for more than a minute. Constant babble/entertainment is a must.

[rapier]

Koreans ensure that the same scenario never happens to them, by travelling in large safe groups of other Koreans wherever they go.

[rawiri]

The kids were "babbling away " huh?...here's an idea...learn korean then it will cease to be babble, or is that a bit too much of an effort?. They are kids in an 80 minute english class...i'm not surprised your little anecdote didn't work. Listening to korean doesn't bum me out, after a couple of months of study I like the fact that i'm picking up the odd word here and there. Take the initiative man learn the language, it's not like we don't have any spare time over here.

Anyways a good learning korean book is the ga na da or �� �� �� series.Book 1 starts at the beginning with learning the hanguel alphabet and moving into everyday words and grammar, it's a 6 book series so if you can get up to level 6 you would have to be fairly fluent i'd imagine. The good thing about it is that the books all come with accompanying c'ds.

[Randall Flagg]

If there is one thing I am strict about is that there is no speaking Korean in class. There are exceptions though. If they have a question and don't know the English, I allow them to ask it out loud to the class. But they have to ask me first if they can speak Korean.

I have found that I have never really been bothered by hearing Korean in the background. I guess I just have no problem tuning it out.

Now though, I have noticed a sharp increase in my comprehension and the babble is starting to sort itself out. I am nowhere even close to fluent but I am picking up words and phrases out of other people's conversations. Learning the language is starting to get really fun.

Try a bit Jajdude (maybe you already have, I don't know). It will help to change the babble into something halfass meaningful.

Anyways, cheer up. Have a nice Lunar new year

[crazylemongirl]

Actually hearing too much english freaks me out. My first day back in New Zealand my mom and i went to a shopping mall. It was December 23 so the place was packed with people speaking english, it was like being able to hear peoples' thoughts. It took me most of the time I was there to stop listening to it.

I was actually relieved to get back to Korea to hear korean again. I can understand bits of it but tune it out easily.

As to the no speaking korean rule. Having sat in Korean class where little or no english is spoken is spoken by the teacher I find my head hurts after being for two hours. If I'm having trouble understanding the teacher then I have to really concentrate to stay on task because I just zone out. . And I want to be there!

I'm a lot more pragmatic with the kids, espeically lower level ones. If they are on task then speaking korean is fine. I actually enjoy listening to my kids working on task using bits of english and korean. Today they were playing monoploy and scrabble. They were speaking about 50/50 english in Korean but they were on task and having fun. I think that's far more important than playing bad cop and forcing them into speaking english.

[Randall Flagg]

Yeah, I'm not such a hardass. If they are on topic I let a little bit slide. But just random chatting,especially when I'm explaining something, isn't tolerated. The young ones have no other option but to speak Korean to me, so thats ok.

[JacktheCat]

Same here.

As long as they are on topic and not interrupting my explanation, I give them quite a bit of leeway as far as speaking Korean goes. It seems to be a great stress reliever for them.

On thing I won't tolerate is any bad speaking or swearing, though the occasionally "student x is babo," is fine by me.

[canadian_in_korea]

[Randall Flagg]

Kyobo in Gwanghamun

also

Bandi and Lundy (?) at Coex

I have seen it in the bookstore next to the McDonalds in Shinchon.


It is a good book for the most part, but I have found many mistakes in it (the first book in the series, that is). Although, it is a real confidence booster when you think you locate a mistake and then get confirmation from a Korean friend that you were correct.

[matthewwoodford]

I thought this thread was about the English language and the headache of trying to explain it to clueless kids.

[Randall Flagg]

*hijacked*

[jajdude]

[Zyzyfer]

I have this one class of little kids where I enforce the "No Korean at all" rule. Usually it's just no Korean with me, but this class is young, so I figure while they're young and not embarassed about babbling in English, they'll continue to feel confident about it when they get older. It's a very passive teaching method, but they are improving slowly, and naturally as well.

Anyways, I like it when I'm in the classroom and they're under the rule, and the Korean coteacher comes in and babbles at them in Korean and they speak back in English. She always gets embarassed for a moment, and then starts speaking in English with them. I just love catching her offguard like that.

-----

All the Korean used to leave me mopey and depressed at times during my second year here, but I've gotten pretty nonchalant about the whole thing nowadays.

[jajdude]

I had a pretty good job once in Taiwan. It was an English-only school, except when the boss showed up once in a while (or parents). When new kids joined they would not speak for about 2 weeks. It helped that it was really small and the manager was good at keeping kids in line. The kids policed each other on the rule too.

[Yu_Bum_suk]