Monday, December 12, 2005

How to improve english education in Korea

SPEAK ENGLISH!
When attempting to teach english, it is important that you speak english. Your students will better understand the verb "open" if they are told to "open" their books. This will also greatly aid them in their use of the possessive.
Shockingly, teaching vocabulary without putting it in a sentence, or even using it outside of saying "policeman" doesn't mean that kids will remember it. An english class should be, as a rule, at least 50% english. As a rule. If I (as a native speaker) can't understand what is happening in an english class, there is a problem.
LOSE THE DIALOGUES RECORDED BY PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH.
I realize that Korea does not have enough english teachers who know how to speak english, and that hiring native speakers to teach every class in Korea would lead to no native speakers anywhere else in the world. So you need to have english taught sometimes by people who have no english knowledge outside of the textbook's teachers' edition tells them to say. That is fine. You have recordings of dialogues to go along with them, to teach the pronunciation and intonation and fill in the gaps left by a teacher who is out of their element.
But here's an idea: How about you use dialogues recorded by people who can speak english? It seems groundbreaking, I know.
Running listen and repeat exercises based on these recordings is so useless, it makes my fingernails hurt. I don't even have nerves in my fingernails, people! Not only that, they might as well have me come in and teach Korean pronunciation. That is about equivalent. I swear, if I didn't have the dialogue in front of me, I wouldn't understand what they were talking about half of the time.
If I hear one more kid say "Do YOU like KIMCH'I?!" with horrible pronunciation and intonation that is PERFECTLY modelled on their instructional tapes, I will stick a pencil deep within my ear until the pain goes away.
That's all. It's an easy, two-step program.


And, by the way, no. I lied before. I hate kimch'i now.

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