Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

I'm getting a little tired of my kids using the same 3 verbs (eat, kill, play) and the same three nouns (pencil, pencil case, computer). For a 6 week course of my kids before they toddle off to middle school I decided I'm going to drill them on verbs. Each week we tackle 14 verbs and we write simple SVO sentences using those verbs. I'm a big believer that looking up a word yourself in a dictionary is a more effective way at remembering and learning the word then having the English/Korean put in front of you.

So part of the lesson is giving them a list of English verbs and they have to look up the Korean. So then armed with the English and the Korean, they can then tackle some simple SVO sentences. I even provide them the subject. I. He. She. They need to select a verb and then find a noun for the object. IT COULDN'T BE SIMPLER. Sure the prepositions can trip them up. But that's okay. They can make their mistakes. I can explain the use of prepositions with the various verbs.

A great plan.

Oh yeah, there's no textbook for this course. I let the head teacher know that all the kids need to bring a dictionary. Doesn't matter if it's electronic, paper, or they have a cellphone equipped with a dictionary. They need one. That they need a pencil goes without saying. Anyway, my head teacher puts the word out to the parents that their kids need a dictionary.

Now, my assumption is these kids have been studying english for 4 or 5 years. Their parents are paying ridiculous sums of money on textbooks and tuition. A dictionary should be a given. No?

No.

Four weeks in and maybe 70% of the kids have acquired a dictionary. The other 30% seem clueless as to why they even need such a beast when trying to learn a foreign language. And then there was the one young Einstein who finally, finally bought a dictionary .... a Korean to English dictionary. But it doesn't go the other way. Sigh. Even after 4 weeks of lessons where it's quite obvious you are presented with English words and you need to find the matching Korean. The look on his face when he cracked that book and couldn't figure out why he couldn't find the English.

And let's not even talk about the number of kids who turn up to a class with a heavy writing portion with no pencil.

So why does the state of English education suck in Korea? It really starts with the notion that the parents and students are clueless about the most basic tools for learning, even when told directly what is needed.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

For a six-week course it might be better just to make the class text a cheap paper dictionary, as for some of them it may prove far more useful in the long run than any crap hagwon textbook.

[mindmetoo]