the blind leading the blind

[bluebonnet]

Teaching here can be fun, but I often just feel like Sisyphus pushing the stone...

And the blind leading the blind.  That's pretty much how I feel about Korean English education after having lived / taught here for a school year.  As long as English in Korea is taught (except by NETs) using grammar / translation methods, English education in Korea is hopeless.  My grade 3 middle school students are required for their exams to read and answer English writing and grammar questions that would no doubt challenge many native speakers of the same age.  Yet when I pose a simple question to the students on a subject unrelated to their textbook, the girls simply don't respond, and the boys only respond in one-word answers.

Regarding the blind leaders, two of my co-teachers are in great denial of their own English limitations.  And only one of the five is proficient enough to converse on a wide range of subjects.  Three of my co-teachers consistently misuse modal verbs, often obscuring the meaning.  And yet, this is content we (or at least I) teach to our grade 1 students.  With the eldest / head English teacher, even a simple conversation is inevitably strained.  If I were not generally patient and understanding, attempts to communicate would be very frustrating.  And sometimes they become so.  For example, when immediately after providing a detailed explanation, I'm asked the question for which that explanation is the answer.

If speaking and listening do not matter, why not teach students nautical theory or Latin instead of English?  Both subjects allow perfectly suitable content for written examinations, and both have extremely limited practical importance.  Nautical theory might even be more interesting. 

I'm being sarcastic, but seriously, Korean educators, wake up!

[fishead]

 You would also be surprised how little many of them know about teaching English here is an examples.
I put on a Spongbob movie. The English is quite easy it contains lots of one sentence simple sentences  plus at least 99% percent of what's said is supported by gestures and actually what's happening in the video.
 Despite this the KET couldn't understand why I wanted to set the video so the subtitles appeared in English. She even suggested that the students wouldn't understand the video.

 Playing a video any video with Korean subtitles amounts to Killing time. Yet they all complain when the Principal doesn't let them put on movies after exams.

[justanotherwaygook]

Ok.

[bluebonnet]

Teaching here can be fun, but I often just feel like Sisyphus pushing the stone...

I realize I posted in the wrong forum.  Can the thread be moved to 'Theory and Practice'?

[wgensel]

You would also be surprised how little many of them know about teaching English here is an examples.
I put on a Spongbob movie. The English is quite easy it contains lots of one sentence simple sentences  plus at least 99% percent of what's said is supported by gestures and actually what's happening in the video.
 Despite this the KET couldn't understand why I wanted to set the video so the subtitles appeared in English. She even suggested that the students wouldn't understand the video.

 Playing a video any video with Korean subtitles amounts to Killing time. Yet they all complain when the Principal doesn't let them put on movies after exams.

Maybe you should consider having actual class instead of showing movies then?  Of course the students won't really understand what's going on. Their English classes are taught primarily in English and their listening/speaking skills are usually elementary at best. 

[SBracken]

You would also be surprised how little many of them know about teaching English here is an examples.
I put on a Spongbob movie. The English is quite easy it contains lots of one sentence simple sentences  plus at least 99% percent of what's said is supported by gestures and actually what's happening in the video.
 Despite this the KET couldn't understand why I wanted to set the video so the subtitles appeared in English. She even suggested that the students wouldn't understand the video.

 Playing a video any video with Korean subtitles amounts to Killing time. Yet they all complain when the Principal doesn't let them put on movies after exams.

Maybe you should consider having actual class instead of showing movies then?  Of course the students won't really understand what's going on. Their English classes are taught primarily in English and their listening/speaking skills are usually elementary at best. 

...which would sort of defeat the purpose of having that actual class. My CT at first insisted I not show movies, and continue with what's been a SUPER (yes, dripping with sarcasm) successful 'conversation' class, 35 third grade middle schoolers who have no respect....  finally I just didn't care, threw on a movie with subs, and she never even noticed from her texting. Whatever. I teach the classes that still want to learn at this time of year. The others, movie.

[bluebonnet]

Their English classes are taught primarily in English and their listening/speaking skills are usually elementary at best.

You mean, taught primarily in Korean?

I've observed one KET class, taught by the English head teacher.  The students were MS grade 3, advanced level.  Over the 45 minute period, roughly 10% of the words spoken were in English.  Of that 10%, about 4% of the words were spoken by students, usually an individual student the teacher called on.  If you do the math, for a class of 32 students, that leaves each student with an average speaking time of about 3.5 seconds.

I don't know how representative this lesson was KET English lessons in my school (or in Korea more broadly).  But what is the point of holding a class like this except to prepare students for written exams?  And again, if the primary aim of English education in Korea is preparation for written exams, why teach English and not some other abstract subject?  What this approach primarily tests for is a student's willingness to be a grind.

[englishpuppet]

Their English classes are taught primarily in English and their listening/speaking skills are usually elementary at best.

You mean, taught primarily in Korean?

I've observed one KET class, taught by the English head teacher.  The students were MS grade 3, advanced level.  Over the 45 minute period, roughly 10% of the words spoken were in English.  Of that 10%, about 4% of the words were spoken by students, usually an individual student the teacher called on.  If you do the math, for a class of 32 students, that leaves each student with an average speaking time of about 3.5 seconds.

I don't know how representative this lesson was KET English lessons in my school (or in Korea more broadly).  But what is the point of holding a class like this except to prepare students for written exams?  And again, if the primary aim of English education in Korea is preparation for written exams, why teach English and not some other abstract subject?  What this approach primarily tests for is a student's willingness to be a grind.

Maybe this is putting too sharp a point on it but I often have a hard time separating what I see as an educational culture that molds people into a  compliant state of being for corporate culture. Neither the educational system or Confucian culture is looking to create a lot of free thinkers with their own ideas.

In this regard, the system my be working a lot more like people want it than westerners (or free thinkers from anywhere) can see?

[wgensel]

Their English classes are taught primarily in English and their listening/speaking skills are usually elementary at best.

You mean, taught primarily in Korean?

I've observed one KET class, taught by the English head teacher.  The students were MS grade 3, advanced level.  Over the 45 minute period, roughly 10% of the words spoken were in English.  Of that 10%, about 4% of the words were spoken by students, usually an individual student the teacher called on.  If you do the math, for a class of 32 students, that leaves each student with an average speaking time of about 3.5 seconds.

I don't know how representative this lesson was KET English lessons in my school (or in Korea more broadly).  But what is the point of holding a class like this except to prepare students for written exams?  And again, if the primary aim of English education in Korea is preparation for written exams, why teach English and not some other abstract subject?  What this approach primarily tests for is a student's willingness to be a grind.

Ahh yes sorry, I meant Korean there.

[wgensel]

Their English classes are taught primarily in English and their listening/speaking skills are usually elementary at best.

You mean, taught primarily in Korean?

I've observed one KET class, taught by the English head teacher.  The students were MS grade 3, advanced level.  Over the 45 minute period, roughly 10% of the words spoken were in English.  Of that 10%, about 4% of the words were spoken by students, usually an individual student the teacher called on.  If you do the math, for a class of 32 students, that leaves each student with an average speaking time of about 3.5 seconds.

I don't know how representative this lesson was KET English lessons in my school (or in Korea more broadly).  But what is the point of holding a class like this except to prepare students for written exams?  And again, if the primary aim of English education in Korea is preparation for written exams, why teach English and not some other abstract subject?  What this approach primarily tests for is a student's willingness to be a grind.

Maybe this is putting too sharp a point on it but I often have a hard time separating what I see as an educational culture that molds people into a  compliant state of being for corporate culture. Neither the educational system or Confucian culture is looking to create a lot of free thinkers with their own ideas.

In this regard, the system my be working a lot more like people want it than westerners (or free thinkers from anywhere) can see?

I sometimes wonder if it may be that foreign language studies are just still alien to this country.  Yes, rote memorization is important in most subjects, including language acquisition.  Mastery of those subjects is usually tested and proven through written tests.  Rote memorization basically means mastery in most school subjects.  Korea is historically (and arguably still) a hermit country.  Does anyone know when foreign language classes started in schools in this country compared to Western countries?  Personally, I have studied 3 different spoken languages (and one dead language) and every teacher I had except one was a native speaker.  The non-native speaker was fluent, had a PHD, and spent a number of years abroad in said country.  All of these classes were primarily taught in the foreign language with English being the exception rather than the rule.  Isn't this the norm in most of the Western world? 


I don't mean to make it sound like it's an East vs West thing, but I don't really know why they do it they way they do.  I haven't been studying Korean intensely for very long, but I already speak more Korean than 90% of my students speak English.  And the worst part is I don't doubt that they have a more diverse vocabulary, but they don't know how to listen and use it.

[Paul]

It may be worth clarifying whether the discussion is centred around Primary/Elementary level or Middle School and High School levels, because from everything I hear they're practically night and day.

Regardless, I feel grinding and rote memorisation is a necessary evil in language acquisition. The catch is that there's no need for this to be done in contact hours. I've had one co who'd insist they listen and repeat (whilst she napped) at school, then would quite literally issue them speaking activities as homework.

[englishpuppet]

It may be worth clarifying whether the discussion is centred around Primary/Elementary level or Middle School and High School levels, because from everything I hear they're practically night and day.

Regardless, I feel grinding and rote memorisation is a necessary evil in language acquisition. The catch is that there's no need for this to be done in contact hours. I've had one co who'd insist they listen and repeat (whilst she napped) at school, then would quite literally issue them speaking activities as homework.

No arguing with what you're saying per se but I guess I'd tweak some of the argument in that, yes, there's a lot of vocabulary to learn in a new language but I'm not sure people need to be "grinded" as they are here.

I've memorized and forgotten a ton of vocabulary in a second language I use - it goes up and down with the amount of use or context of certain words etc.. Some things I've "memorized" over the course of a year not a weekend. The point was it was all in context so it had some intrinsic meaning to it for me.

I think the posts here on how education serves 'testing" as much or more than the other way around are pretty much on target.

[KLM]

Personally, I have studied 3 different spoken languages (and one dead language) and every teacher I had except one was a native speaker.  The non-native speaker was fluent, had a PHD, and spent a number of years abroad in said country.  All of these classes were primarily taught in the foreign language with English being the exception rather than the rule.  Isn't this the norm in most of the Western world? 

I don't mean to make it sound like it's an East vs West thing, but I don't really know why they do it they way they do.  I haven't been studying Korean intensely for very long, but I already speak more Korean than 90% of my students speak English.  And the worst part is I don't doubt that they have a more diverse vocabulary, but they don't know how to listen and use it.

My high school French class was taught by a woman whose first language was Hungarian, but who was also fluent in English and French. After only four years of study with her, she had me reading Molière's Le Misanthrope. By contrast, my Korean co-teachers express profound skepticism that our high school's advanced-level first-grade students, who have been studying English for approximately eight years, will be able to understand an Oxford Bookworms Level 3 graded reader.

I've been studying Korean for 10 months, and I've done so pretty diligently (to use a popular word here). My Korean vocabulary is as yet vastly smaller than my students' English vocabularies, but I can communicate more effectively in Korean than my students can in English.

[bluebonnet]

Regardless, I feel grinding and rote memorisation is a necessary evil in language acquisition.

To some extent, sure.  But when students are required to memorize for some week 40 past participle verbs when they cannot even use simple past tense verbs to make a 3 - 6 word sentence about what they did last weekend?  Or when they do not even understand the semantic role of the grammar structures that use past participles?  It just amounts to grind work.  Before learning to say have swum, let's learn how to say 'I went to the PC room' instead of 'I go PC room'.   

An adjunct teacher at my school is pushing for extensive reading to be incorporated into the curriculum.  She can't articulate why she thinks extensive reading is so crucial, as she believes.  But despite her blind faith, I think she's onto something.  Lexical exposure and then continual reinforcement in context seems much more effective.

Effectiveness of second language acquisition techniques is an empirical matter, but my guess is that rote memorization out of context is not highly effective.  When I teach myself Korean, learning nouns by rote memorization is not a great challenge.  But for me, other parts of speech need context.  If that context is real life, that's usually best.  But for learners of a foreign language, I think that simulating the practical contexts of real life is essential for both learning itself and the motivational foundation to learn.

[Paul]

Oh, for sure. Primary sources should never be overlooked. I suspect the students are lacking enough reading comprehension tasks too! My comment about rote learning (I personally think of it as grinding as learning a language myself I use SRS which is a grind - as you correctly point out: with graded material, there's no need to grind that many words so quickly) of course is not to imply that it is or should be a centrepoint, but rather that it has to exist somewhere along the line as a first step if students are to get up to speed without the hours spent in an immersion environment. I just don't get it when I see students issued speaking tasks for homework and expected to rote-learn in class. It gets frustrating. Having to stop and struggle to recall a word breaks the flow of production activities. Take the course goals, divide, and conquer.

The quality of the time spent on this necessary evil depends on what they're memorising. Look at the chap who goes by "The Korean" online: he never busted out words but rather listemes and I think that's key. In learning East Asian languages, one of the emerging popular strategies is to learn postpositions alongside the verbs. No more sentence fragments when you have a post-position left hanging. In English, this can go an extra step too: teach a most common article with the noun too. If students learn words in isolation, there is no native feel for what is correct and no hint at what comes next. Recalling that knowledge does nothing to aid the flow of a sentence.

Some MOEs are trying to work around an inconsistent new batch of elementary textbooks by developing their own material. Great idea as a solution to variable textbooks but its still largely the same old stuff we can find online (Low level stuff like "B" is /bee/). Having an MOE develop something akin to Learning With Texts for their coursework would be an amazing resource for issuing reading homework that we couldn't get elsewhere and I hope after these projects they'll move the team onto it. Well, actually, you could just set LWT up on a server but I think it'd need a cutesy interface for the target audience and some sort of achievements/badges system tied to the specific curricula; then again, it is an open source project. Instead, at present, genuine reading comes in late. If Korea ever does go down that silly tablets-for-all route, I truly hope they cotton on to this idea actually.

The common approach I see here of rote learning sentences and phrases leaves many students unaware of what it is they're learning and what knowledge they're already building upon. What you're describing with the 40 verbs I feel shows a failure to reinforce and expect students to recall past material even mere weeks after it's been taught: the students are pushed ahead even though they lack the necessary foundation to build upon.

... Hmm... just realised that's a pretty scatterbrained post, but long story short, you can't skip any single element, and each needs to be continually revised. As you point out, extensive reading activities can provide the missing reinforcement.

[jurassic82]

This is a really interesting discussion and I agree with a lot of the points that have been made. I want to play the devil's advocate and look at it from the other side of the spectrum. I do agree that all the memorization and translation way of learning is not the best way to learn a language. Also, having a teacher that speaks all Korean in class isn't really productive either. At the same time I have to consider how important is speaking English to most of these students? When they leave the classroom there is little need for them to speak English unless they travel abroad or happen to want to work some job in the future that will require them to speak English like in a business setting or tourism. I think as teachers we often judge to harshly about how well or poorly Koreans can express themselves in English even after years of studying English.

We have to think about how much practice they actually get when they leave the classroom. We can't expect them to go out and practice English with every foreigner they see and start falling in love with Western culture. Just because some of us had many years of math instruction I doubt many of us are proficient in mathematics to become an engineer or programmer. As language teachers it is disappointing to believe but not all of our students are going to be interested in English and excel at it even after years of studying and practice. If they were in an ESL setting this would be different as studying English and learning to speak well is important when they leave the classroom as they are in an English speaking country and need good speaking skills in order to survive and get by in day to day life. As for teaching EFL this isn't as important.

When it comes to our Korean Co Teachers we need to give them a break about speaking English. I really HATE how in Korea everything is taught towards a test. It is really evil in my opinion but it isn't the teachers fault. If they are speaking in Korean it probablly has a lot to due with them trying to get a point across on some language topic that they would have a hard time explaining in English. Just because they can't speak well in English doesn't mean they don't understand the language. I have lived in Korea for almost 6 years and I understand a lot of Korean but when a Korean comes up to me and asks me a question I can often get suprised and confused because if the question isn't asked a specific way I get lost. I think anxiety has a lot to play as well and Koreans are often very shy and aren't used to foriegners. Anyways, those are just my thoughts. Feel free to to agree or disagree. 

[iggyb]

"I sometimes wonder if it may be that foreign language studies are just still alien to this country. "

They are taught from textbooks that are used in TESOL training programs (BA and MA) in the US.  If they are about 35 years old or younger, that is.  I taught Korean teachers for a 1 1/2 years and we covered a TESOL book common in the US and most of them under 35 had seen it in college. 

By and large, they said they could't apply communicative teaching methods in Korea.  They don't have enough time was one common reason.  They have to go through all of the textbook is another and tied to the first.  The KSAT demands they teach the way they do was a common answer for secondary school teachers.

I tried to tell the secondary teachers that, if students are able to communicate in the language effectively, they will have a "feel" for the language and should score fine on the SAT.  I told them even an idiot native speaker would make a fine score on the SAT -- but -- if you asked them to explain WHY the answers were correct or started using grammatical terms, they'd be dumbstruck.

After having listen to them those months, and watching a lot of TEEs, I decide the reason they teach the way they do is because it is easy.

This is not unique to Korean teachers.  More than a fair number of teachers in the US rely on handouts, SAT prep exercises, and very formulaic 5 pargraph essay writing.  Why?  Because it takes little prep time, is easy to grade, and takes up the full class...

One lesson I did with the Korean teachers was lesson planning, and it was painful each time.  Many saw it as a waste of time.  We worked on buidling a lesson from scratch, including gathering materials, and in fact, I had one or two class flat out refuse to do it.  One class of elementary school teachers told me it was pointless, because their textbook and CD-ROM material gave them everything they needed to teach.

Now that I've been teaching elementary school and gotten to see the books, I've even more disappointed in that class.

When I see how much time Korean teachers, at least at elementary school, have free to plan during the week, it is a real shame. 

I am not saying Korean teachers are bad.  I am not saying there aren't some teachers out there who do put a lot of thought and prep into their classes and supplement the textbooks. 

Above all, I'm not saying that Korean teachers are very different from ones in the US.  In my teacher training program, in fact, the profs told us again and again we should avoid falling into a rut "like most of the other teachers" out there and how teaching should be really hard work.

It takes discipline to avoid using a common language with the students when teaching them a foreign one.  It also takes drive to spend your time building up better material and lesson plans when you have a crutch to fall back on that will take up the entire class time (the Korean textbooks and CD-Roms).

But, what I saw from the TEEs and working with the Korean teachers was that many are in that rut...

[englishpuppet]

By and large, they said they could't apply communicative teaching methods in Korea.  They don't have enough time was one common reason.  They have to go through all of the textbook is another and tied to the first.  The KSAT demands they teach the way they do was a common answer for secondary school teachers.

I tried to tell the secondary teachers that, if students are able to communicate in the language effectively, they will have a "feel" for the language and should score fine on the SAT.  I told them even an idiot native speaker would make a fine score on the SAT -- but -- if you asked them to explain WHY the answers were correct or started using grammatical terms, they'd be dumbstruck.

No beef w/ you on this but, boy, doesn't this point to the insanity of the situation? We have to hurry up and and stuff more into the kid's little heads that we know won't either be remembered or useful so we can create high test scores pointing to how well they're doing in English.

Crazy really.

The teachers know what side of their bread is buttered. Low test scores mean a visit to the principle's office. Principals don't want low test scores out of their school. Simple really.

I saw 3 classes this week get back a second, "adjusted" version of a test given a few weeks ago. Magically, the scores looked to be about 30% higher on avg than they had in the previous round. 

[iggyb]

The point, though, is that if the students are taught using methods that lead them to be able to use the language to communicate (and this includes all 4 skills), then they will do as well or better on the tests than using translation, memorization, and set sentence patterns connected to old methods.

Students who can use the language have a feel for it.

I had high school teachers give me some samples of the Korean SAT English section, and from what I could tell, what I said remains true.  It does not ask them technical questions on grammar. 

It makes no sense at all to spend 3+ years preparing for the SAT.  It is not necessary.   Even if we throw out the fact the students are studying English in middle and elementary school, 3 years is enough to develop the average student's language ability to a point they would do well on the KSAT.  I am convinced they would at minimum not do worse than the students who can't use the language after 3 years of memorizing words and doing exam practice activities.

[daveb]

when I pose a simple question to the students on a subject unrelated to their textbook, the girls simply don't respond, and the boys only respond in one-word answers.

Well, they are middle school kids. Mine are the same. Motivation goes far beyond simple questioning.

Regarding the blind leaders, two of my co-teachers are in great denial of their own English limitations.  And only one of the five is proficient enough to converse on a wide range of subjects.  Three of my co-teachers consistently misuse modal verbs, often obscuring the meaning. 

Just out of interest, can you give some examples of how they misuse modals?

With the eldest / head English teacher, even a simple conversation is inevitably strained.  If I were not generally patient and understanding, attempts to communicate would be very frustrating.  And sometimes they become so.  For example, when immediately after providing a detailed explanation, I'm asked the question for which that explanation is the answer.

Why is it inevitably strained; and what are you going on about here? My Korean colleagues (old and young) speak great English. So, I speak to them in a 'normal' manner. Yet sometimes, they just don't compute what i've said.  Don't forget, regardless of ability, they are still speaking EFL.

If speaking and listening do not matter, why not teach students nautical theory or Latin instead of English?  Both subjects allow perfectly suitable content for written examinations, and both have extremely limited practical importance.  Nautical theory might even be more interesting. 

I'm being sarcastic, but seriously, Korean educators, wake up!
[/quote]

So how do you propose speaking and listening are taught/assessed? Funnily enough, as an export economy, English education is vital to Korean stability. Whilst nobody's saying EFL education is perfect here, is it perfect anywhere else? Grammar testing is not a benchmark of aquisition, but it is at least a standardised method of testing. Of course, it's easy to shoot that down but do you actually have something pro bono to offer here as an alternative, other than than sarcasm?