Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Smee]

Hi, I'm just looking for the proper way to romanize the family name 이. I'm teaching my students how to write English and I'm starting with their names. I know both Lee and Yi are in circulation. I tentatively penciled in "Yi," but this might confuse kids b/c lots of Koreans use "Lee." Thoughts?

[casey's moon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_%28Korean_name%29

I'd go with Lee.

[gang ah jee]

[Smee]

Yeah, I saw both your posts. Thanks for your replies.

I think I'll go with Lee, then, since it's pretty common.

I'm not teaching phonics. Most of my grade 3 students don't know how to read or write. Some of them sound out words, and a few can read and comprehend the basics. However most of the students are very low level.

I did an activity earlier where they basically made a picture book about favorite foods and then said "I like ________ (pizza, hamburger, kimchi,etc.)" as per the textbook. Some of them copied the English I wrote on the sample I made . . . things like "yummy," "food," etc., and many asked me to write their names in English. Many students spent the rest of the class writing their names and writing the names of their friends. Since they were interested in this, I figured I can slowly introduce writing English.

There's no time budgeted to teach them their ABCs, but I figured it'd just be nice if they knew how to write their names. After Chuseok I'm going to start them on recognizing simple words: dog, cat, pig, etc. They'll learn their ABCs from their Korean teacher in Grade 5, but I just wanted them to try this activity now.

Thanks for the replies!

[gang ah jee]

[JZer]

[Smee]

I'd love to introduce phonics to them. However, I'm required to stick to the textbook.

At this point, I'm lucky if I get English words from them, and I'm overjoyed if they attempt a sentence. For all of my students, from grades 3 to 6, speaking any sort of English is quite difficult (often impossible.) They're quite low-level. I was very shocked that they didn't know at least their ABCs, but it's not my place to judge. (I mean, with a sizable percentage of signs around town written in English, I had assumed earlier that they'd pick some up. And I think I was spoiled from my previous experience at an advanced hagwon, where many 4th graders were quite fluent.)

I've taken heat from my co-teacher on a number of occasions for trying to deviate from the textbook and teach basic English and the ABCs. I'm not exaggerating to say many students can't answer "What is your name?" or "How are you?" And in spite of my halfway decent Koeran skills, unless there's a cooperative and enthusiastic Korean teacher willing to work with the students, there's little I can do.

Besides, English isn't a phonetic language, so trying to break the alphabet down phonetically would be a challenge.

I'm taking baby steps, and I'm interested in getting them to actually use their hands to make the shapes of the alphabet. Their name is a good a place to start as any. We're not moving on to books or newspapers any time soon.

You have to understasnd that in this small corner of Jeollanam-do, English education isn't a priority----as I'm reminded constantly.

[Demophobe]

Yi.

I spell it that way, and no, it's not perfect, but I think it's better than Lee. Like Che for Choi (최)...

[Smee]

I used Choe for 최. I guess there's a lot of tension now that they want to introduce a new romanization system. I stuck with the 2000 version, save for "Lee."

Neither Choe nor Choi is close to the Koren sound, unfortunately.

Many Koreans have introduced themselves as (phonetically) "Choy," b/c as they say many foreigners mispronounce 최. It's because of the romanization, not b/c of ignorance of stupidity (necessarily).