Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cwemory]

I teach in an immersion program at a private elementary school (like an international school without the international students).
There are several foreign students though, mostly half-Koreans who speak Korean at least passingly well. There is however, one Filipino-American third grade student who has been in country for only a few months, she speaks no Korean and is unfamiliar with Korean culture.
Being the only foreign teacher at the school who speaks some Korean, I have been asked to tutor her. She receives tutoring from several of the English-speaking Korean teachers, but they believe that I will have a different approach to teaching the language, and that will be beneficial to her.
I am at a bit of a loss on what to teach her. She receives plenty of pronunciation, structure of a letter, vocabulary, and pattern example instruction from her Korean teachers, albeit in a very rote manner. So I need to either teach her something different or teach her what she has already learned in a different way.
If possible, I would like to include Korean culture and social aspects. She receives very little of this from her Korean teachers. She spends much of the class asking question most foreign eight-year-old girls would ask about Korea: "Why do they say o-ran-ji?", "Why must I bow?", "Are rice and kimchi served at every lunch?" She seems to get a bit of comfort from talking with someone who thinks Korea can be a strange and confusing place too.
So far, I have been teaching her Your First 100 Words in Korean . This is the most children friendly book I have. She seems to enjoy it. I have also brought in some of my Korean coffee table books to discuss parts of Korean culture such as the hanbok or the dojang.
We are nearly finished with her textbook and I am bit desperate to find others. There exceptionally few KSL books for children and none of them seem particularly good.
It is quite frustrating. Teaching Korean requires a completely different approach than from what I know about teaching English. It also seems that I am the only one who has ever had to do this
If anyone has experience in teaching Korean or knows of material appropriate for children, your help would be most appreciated.

[Son Deureo!]

Your location says you're in Wonju, so you're in Korea. The first place I'd go to is your local bookstore and check out the kids section. I'm sure you can find some very easy kids books to help her with her reading and vocabulary.

The next thing that comes to mind for me is the Sogang online Korean course at http://korean.sogang.ac.kr/. This web site is geared towards foreign adults that are learning Korean, but it does have a lot of cartoons with dialogues, reading selections (much of it based on different aspects of K culture), and games geared to levels from rank beginner to upper intermediate.

Can she read hangeul yet? I've written a guide to reading hangeul that includes a long list of Konglish words and place names in hangeul. PM me your email address if you want it.

Those are the best places I can think of to start.

If he doesn't answer this thread himself, you may also want to try PMing tomato. He knows a lot about Korean children's songs and books, so I'll bet he can make some suggestions.

[Hyeon Een]

If you have access to a computer during class check out Teen Korean. It presents stuff that is useful and suitable for children on a day to day basis. Theres lots of activities, songs and all kinds of stuff. It's pretty interesting for adults too if anyone's looking for a new online course to try.

[Ya-ta Boy]

#1. Raid all the English sources for activities that you think are worthwhile and translate them into Korean.

#2. TPR (Total Physical Response)
Use pictures of various shops: shoe shop, flower shop, etc; post office; bank, library, gas station, school, air port.

Spread the pictures out and say: (all in Korean)
Walk/Run/ride your bike to/drive your car to...
Are you walking?
Did you walk to?
What are you doing?
What is that?
Is that a shoe?
Is that a black shoe?
Pick up/Touch/Point at...Put the black shoe under/on/next to the brown shoe.
How many...?

It's a great way to learn basic nouns, colors, question and answer forms and some verb tenses. Because it includes action, it's especially good for kids.