Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Universalis]

Anyone else have frustrations when dealing with older students? By "older," I mean ajummas and ajushis past their 50's.

I'm not talking about all of them of course, but many of them seem too set in their ways, too stubborn, and will often ignore completely any attempts to correct their mistakes. For example, from class the other day:

Ajumma: She wakes up 7am.
Me: at 7am...
Ajumma: Yes. She goes to school 9am.
Me: at 9am...
Ajumma: Yes. She has lunch 12pm.
Me: at 12pm...
Ajumma: She goes back to school 2pm.
Me: Alright... stop. Time out.

As I often ask myself when dealing with such a student... why do I bother? I'm tempted to let such students *beep* up the language to their heart's content because they don't seem interested in improving their language skills. But then what kind of a job would I be doing?

Sigh...

Brian

[bosintang]

I have no experience teaching older adults, but looking at this particular example, I can see how you may have approached it differently:

Ajumma: She wakes up 7am.
You: at 7am...
Ajumma: Yes. She goes to school 9am.
You: at 9am...


Instead of this, try:

Ajumma: She wakes up 7am.
You: She wakes up 7am?
Ajumma: Yes. She goes to school 9am.
You: Wait!.....one more time. She wakes up [blank expression] 7am?
Ajumma: [pause]
You: She wakes up at 7am. Now you say it. She wakes...
Ajumma: She wakes up at 7am.
You: Good!
Ajumma: She goes to school 9am.
You: She goes to school [blank expression] 9am?

Or in this example am I missing the point? Is it that the students have their monologue down in their heads and by trying to elicit anything from them you are only interrupting and confusing them?

[twinmaster]

I taught some older adults in Hanoi, Vietnam. Many of them were resistent, and at times downright obstinate, when I pointed out these types of minor mistakes in their speaking and pronunciation skills. What I learned is that some of my older students were either unable or uniterested in perfecting their English speaking abiities, and were taking the class only to speak English well enough to be understood.

That being said, I think it's acceptable when an older students in this category says, "She wakes up 7am ," because as a native speaker I can understand the sentence without the preposition. Of course, I always corrected them, but I learned how to use subtle methods of error correction with these students. For example, I would write the correct sentences on the board, underline the prepositons, and then have the whole class, rather than the individual student, repeat them with me.

Bottom line, some of your older students will be interested in learning how to speak error-free Engish, and some will not. Some need to learn English for their jobs, and are eager to correct their mistakes and reach respectible fluency levels. Others want only to converse with their English-speaking children or grandchildren. I would say go easy on your stubborn students, and focus your energies on the the ones who want to be corrected and are committed to improving their conversational skills.

But hey, at least she's using the correct form of the verb. Hallelujah!

Good luck, and may the creative powers of the universe be with you.

[Universalis]

Thanks for the comments...

The impression I'm getting is that some students (especially older students) are more interested in using English than in actually improving their English.

By that, I mean they come to class, go through the activities, but when I actually try to correct them, they don't want to hear it. It's like they're content to banter in class with a foreigner in broken English and would rather not make the mental exertions required to actually make improvements.

As a point of comparison, when the teacher in my Korean class corrects me, I stop, make a mental note, and try again.

In hindsight, it's not just older students who do this. I can recall other students who have run roughshod over my attempts to correct them. I guess it's just the result of a bad habit thoroughly ingrained into their English speaking.

Brian

[harixseldon]

I'd take 10 ajummas making dumb mistakes over 1 elementary school student sighing and then staring at me blankly when I ask them a question.

[pegpig]

Most adult students are there because their boss explicitly says they must be there or because w/o the classes they won't get promotions and/or raises. Many just want to be entertained - relax and enjoy the class. If they have to take notes and think too much about what's going? Hmph. That's no fun.

I'm the same when I go to see a movie. I don't like subtitles. I wanna relax and enjoy the movie.

My first subtitled movie at COEX was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. (Yes, Korean subtitles.) I didn't know about the movie and it was written in English on the menu. Live and learn.

[bosintang]

[Zyzyfer]

[harixseldon]

[ajuma]

I think that twinmaster has got it right. MOST older students just want to speak the language enough to be understood...NOT to take the TOEIC or TOEFL exams. Give them some vocab and idioms and let the "perfect" grammar slide. Teach it, of course, but don't make it the focus!

[ed4444]

Ajumma'a were my favourite students to teach. I remember my ajumma class. Every day I prepared a topic and class plan but I only used it about 40% of the time.

Most of the time they were already having a conversation in English when I arrived. All I did was just sit down and start making verbal corrections as the conversation continued.

Also if you showed an interest in any of the food they were talking about you were sure to find some of it sitting in the middle of the table in time for the next class.

My advice is to try to be patient while correcting their persistent mistakes and just enjoy the conversations.