Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gopher]

I had a ninth-grade Chilean student named Karina who watched "Friends" every night for an academic year, on cable TV, and several months into it she was speaking English no different than any of us. I watched this happen and it was nothing less than miraculous. She liked the show so much, I guess, that it pulled her into the English-speaking world, and she just didn't have the inhibitors all of us mortals have when it comes to foreign language acquisition. I'd heard of people like her but never met one before.

It was very frustrating for me to know that she existed, EDIT: especially in Chile's utterly disogranized educational system. She could have picked up several languages while in high school, if it had been possible to focus her towards that goal, maybe send her abroad for a year to China or whatever. But, such is life, I guess. Still get a little down when I think about her.

I found a book that she gave me before I left Chile and I remembered her.

Anyone else out there ever have a student with that much talent?

[eamo]

A seven (six western) year-old called Julie. Taught her last year in an Apgujeong hagwon.

She had never been abroad and had only been in another hagwon (Kids College) for a year of kindy.

Her level was about mid-intermediate. Amazingly high for a 6 year old with so little life-experience.

The deal with her is that she only needed something explained once. She could lock in meaning, pronunciation, and correct usage in a sentence after one simple, brief explanation.

[schwa]

I taught a middleschool girl in a hagwon who had never been abroad before who moved to Canada on her own, entered regular highschool there, & has done well.

Not my students but:
I know the 8-year-old daughter of wealthy parents who have provided one-on-one tutors for her since she was an infant & her english is flawless.

I interviewed a girl from the Minjok Leadership Academy, a highschool for gifted students in Hoengsong, in an english contest. Wow. She applied to the most prestigious American universities & was accepted by all of them. Story made the Korea Times.

[jajdude]

I don't know if this is incredible, but I was impressed. A kid about age 9 left Korea with no English. Went to the states for one year. Came back to Korea fluent in English.

Maybe not incredible but I think pretty good. I doubt many kids would go from zippo to become conversationally fluent in a year. I taught this kid for months. We could talk easily, and just focus on improving vocabulary, writing, grammar, etc... almost like any native speaker. Usually, if he did not know th something, I could explain it to him no problem. And he'd say, well, I don't know the Korean for it either. Then he'd figure that out, and improve both languages. Poor kid was resented by his peers for being TOO good at English. He'd embarrass his Korean English teachers by speaking better and knowing more. He was put in a class briefly with older kids at the hagwon. I said no way, that kid embarrasses the older kids. He is in his own league at this place.

Examples of poor kids ostracized for knowing English. Some hide their ability. Can you blame them?
I also taught a nearly fluent grade one girl, who was the hagwon owner's daughter. Funny thing, the owner could speak almost zero English, and his wife just knew a little. The kid was the interpreter when necessary. And again you could see it in the older kids' faces, they did not seem pleased to see her speaking English as well as she could.

[zappadelta]

Fluent's a pretty strong word.

[jajdude]

[bosintang]

Not a student, but a little boy I used to babysit. He was only 6yrs old, in grade one, and he was extremely talented in a range of subjects. His geography skills rivaled most adults, I'm sure. He was also a little terror in school and had to be sent home on more than one occasion for fighting or misbehaving.

My craziest memory of him was his obsession with time. You couldn't fool him with it. If you told him it's quarter to nine, he'd get angry when he found it really was 14 minutes to nine. What was really special about him is that when he got involved in an activity, he would still know the time to the exact minute hours later, even though there were no clocks around.

[ajuma]

[jajdude]

wow

2 months improved a kid's ability so much!! awesome.

[ulsanchris]

I interviewed this one girl who was first grade middle school . She had been abroad a few time to study english so her english was pretty good. She hasn't spooken it for awhile so at first she wasn't so good but she improved a lot as she went on. I was only supposed to talk to her for about 20 minutes but I talked to her for more than an hour. What impressed me was that she had so much confidence. She was also fairly knowledgeable about a lot of stuff going on in the world. moreso than anyother kid her age. She was the most mauture, confident, and knowledgeable kid i have met in korea. Too bad she didn't decide to come to our hogwon.

[Hater Depot]

Technically my best student is an American--a gyopo who just moved to Korea last December. I don't know how much Korean he speaks but obviously his English is perfect, which of course he's hiding from the other kids in order to fit in.

Other than him my most advanced student was in an after-school camp. He was an army brat who'd spent a year in Alaska, and spoke English better than anyone I know who actually grew up in Alaska. Unfortunately the lessons were never tough enough for him so he quit pretty quickly.

[dandoeskorea]

While interviewing students for an after-class English course at my Public School I came across a 4th grade girl (11 years old Korean, 10 years Western), who could speak perfect grammatical English. I was mesmerised! Almost all of the students I'd seen before her had very poor grammar skills, but this girl would answer any of the questions I'd give her instantly, with perfect grammar and in-depth. From beginning with questions like "How's the weather today?", and "What's your favourite food?", I moved on to things like "In your country, which singer is the most popular?" In the end I put down my list of questions (which only included a couple from the top level text book I was using - which she was way above I might add) and asked her who her favourite English language author is? She replied "My favourite English language author is William Shakespeare". I asked her why and she said something not dissimilar to "My favourite English language author is William Shakespeare because his poems make me laugh, his good plays make me cry, and his bad plays help me go to sleep at night". Astonishing! I was also very surprised when she told me that she'd never been out of Korea once, and even more so when she said that her hakwon teacher was Spanish! I really don't know what to make of that. Needless to say she didn't join the after-class course. In fact I recommended against it, as my classes are intended to improve grammar skills. What she needs now is to focus completely on colloquial conversation, and forget grammar.

[Greekfreak]

While I was still working in a hogwon, I definitely noted that girls were quicker learners than most of the boys--of course there were exceptions, but 8 out of 10 of the most brilliant students were girls. I still find that even at my college.

[Badmojo]

I've had some great students at all my teaching stops. One thing I noticed about all of them is their accent was dead on and their listening was amazing. You don't have to tell them twice, they just understand. I think it's a kind of natural ability these top students have that can't be taught. You have it or you don't.

[JacktheCat]