Korean Job Discussion Forums

[gochubandit]

one of my students asked me how she should study english at home, so she can improve faster. threw me off a bit and had to sit and think about it. couldn't really think of anything really. any advice suggestions to give to someone who wants to learn english and become fluent in a non-english speaking country? my ideas were:

1) carry a notebook with a daily journal and vocab words u learn everyday.

2) watch and listen to american movies and music

3) get a language exchange partner. or date a foreigner.

4) study root words, prefixes, and suffixes.

5) read english fiction, etc.

anything else? not sure what else u can do.

[poet13]

I have suggested to my students that they should not just read a book, but read it out loud. It helps them become more comfortable with making the mouth sounds of the english words. In the end, they are able to concentrate more on interpreting and understanding what they are reading, rather than prounouncing the words. I review with them the words they have difficulty with. I do not explain the meaning of words except where colloquial or the context is confusing. The few students who do it seriously have said that it helps.

[Son Deureo!]

I have always recommended to my students that they develop English hobbies that they enjoy, so that they will want to spend as much time as possible doing it.

[Ya-ta Boy]

When someone asks me I tell them what Miss Allen told us when I was in 3rd Grade. You don't own a word until you can use it.

I tell them to choose a word and then

a) learn to spell it
b) learn any forms of the word (equal, unequal, inequality etc.)
c) learn its opposites and synonyms if it has any
d) Practice making new sentences with all the forms of the word

I suggest writing a journal for 10-15 minutes a day. Bonus points for using a word from the vocab they are trying to learn. (And journals are a good place to identify words they want to learn.)

Read, read, read!

I also suggest picking out a news story and reading both the Korean and English newspaper articles, then listening to the same news story on CNN (or whatever) over and over.

I suggest watching a cartoon without the sound and practicing as many verb forms as possible...Bugs Bunny is jumping. Bugs jumped. Bugs will jump....

[Hotpants]

This is an interesting topic. As many have realized, Koreans don't learn in the same way as Westerners. Many Koreans think all they need to do is be present in a class, and English language that they receive from the teacher will automatically regurgitate from their mouths later on.

I've now realized the importance of setting aside the first lessons in actually explaining to the students HOW I think they should study. NEVER go into a new class and assume that the students will know what you want from them or that they know how to improve their ability by themselves. It may seem obvious, but there are surprising number of things that students don't consider. For example, in one of my vocabulary classes, 6 of the 8 students didn't consider bringing a dictionary to class. They just sat through the class in silence, looking at my text with a dazed expression until I labored to ask them if they had a dictionary.

I don't think there is a 'correct' way to study. It's going to depend on the individual learner. For anyone who isn't aware of the concept of multiple intelligences, it may be worth spending some time finding out how it effects English learning. But, I do think there are some starting points that everyone can try. Some of those have been listed above. I just advocate as much exposure to the English language as possible. I give the students the URLs for CNN and BBC. I encourage them to buy a newspaper or magazine and work through the articles gradually. I tell them to listen to English music and watch movies. I also encourage getting books accompanied by tape. An above poster suggested getting the student to read aloud, but for students who haven't had much exposure to native pronunciation, they need to get a feel for authentic speech patterns first. For older students, I also suggest trying to find some voluntary work which involves foreigners.

I also love some of the interactive CD Roms that are on the market. Live ABC has a great set which have lots of accompanying on screen activities.

Finally, I always tell the students that I won't study for them. Learning English is hard work, but they have to do everything they earnestly can if they really want to improve and break out of the perpetual level that many students seemed trapped in.

I'm also growing fonder of the English diary idea. I think students also need to reduce the amount of time they spend translating from Korean thought to English. I've just prepared a special English diary which I'm about to upload to lulu.com. If anyone has any interesting categories to add, then perhaps they could put some here?... Thanx

[Novernae]

One of the Korean teachers at our last school had wonderful spoken English. His secret was downloading the script to movies and watching them over and over and over again. His English sounded more natural than any other Korean I've met.

Books on tape along with the book sounds like a good idea too.

[bnrockin]

Immersion is the best key to learning. The more someone practices speaking a language, the better they will get. This is the first step. they need someone to regularly practice speaking english with-this means EVERYDAY for as much time as possible. 1 hour a day is ok but if you want to make REAL progress, you need lots of practice. One thing the english language institute does here at Texas A&M is pair up the students to be conversational partners. granted if they are from the same country, nothing will stop them from speaking their language if they really don't want to practice english. perhaps you can make some kind of a conversational club or something. Either way, encourage those who REALLY want to learn to practice it as much as possible, wherever possible. Even if it is only talking to themselves out loud! When they can start to think about things in english in their everyday life, that is when you know their really getting it. As I said, the more they can practice speaking english, they better they will get at different areas as well.

The second most important thing is a source of new vocabulary-books or movies that will incorporate new vocabulary words into their practiced spken english.

[Missile Command Kid]

http://www.robertmunsch.com/booklist.cfm

Found this on another forum I frequent: Robert Munsch books that you can freely download and listen to. The books themselves are great fun! I haven't downloaded any yet (at work), so if anybody tries them out, let me know how they sound and whether they'd be appropriate for out-of-class learning!