korean public school ESL books are the worst ESL books ever made change my mind
What would you do to make them better?Not saying you're wholly wrong. While I'm nostalgic about the songs and unintentionally hilarious vids, I'm not so about the lessons.
focus on grammatical structures (form and function) or collocations or something actually useful rather than weird, set expressions. there's barely any controlled practice activities in the booksthere's barely any production activities in the booksthere's barely any writing or reading to do in the books. actually, there's barely ANYTHING to do in the books. most is just wasted spacethere isn't enough material in the books to fill a 40-minute classwhy is there so much korean written in the books?the vocabulary they use seems to repeat an incredible amount from grade 3-6so much of the vocabulary they use doesn't even make sense or is wrongget someone to proof-read the books before publicationif you are going to make a teacher guide, put activities or ideas that are actually useful and don't write activity (20 minutes) when, in fact, you can probably only stretch it to 3 minutes, topsdon't write how to pronounce the english sentences using hangeul sentences. 라이크 디스. (this is just off the top of my head)
focus on grammatical structures (form and function) or collocations or something actually useful rather than weird, set expressions. there's barely any controlled practice activities in the booksthere's barely any production activities in the booksthere's barely any writing or reading to do in the books. actually, there's barely ANYTHING to do in the books. most is just wasted spacethere isn't enough material in the books to fill a 40-minute classwhy is there so much korean written in the books?the vocabulary they use seems to repeat an incredible amount from grade 3-6so much of the vocabulary they use doesn't even make sense or is wrongget someone to proof-read the books before publicationif you are going to make a teacher guide, put activities or ideas that are actually useful and don't write activity (20 minutes) when, in fact, you can probably only stretch it to 3 minutes, topsdon't write how to pronounce the english sentences using hangeul sentences. 라이크 디스. (this is just off the top of my head)
Bear in mind this is for every 3rd-6th grader in the nation of all abilities and aptitudes, 3rd and 4th grade being taught by a non-native homeroom teacher of limited English aptitude in Nowhere, Gangwon-do.
As for repetitive vocab, you kind of need that with students of wildly varying aptitude and interest
I do agree it's a little thin at times. I always managed but it wasn't always easy. The activities weren't 3 minutes, but they certainly weren't 20 either.
From what I gather, and this is just my impression, the goal was to teach the kids some basic phrases they might need to know if Korea again became a war zone/armed camp. They seem disproportionately concerned with directions, commerce, and sustenance. Obviously there's some lighter fare, but you definitely see the 1960-1980s mentality present. Sort of like how Sports Day and the various exercises look designed, at least in part, for military purposes and a way to keep kids calm while marching them off to evacuation trucks. The books needed a substantial overhaul for the modern era. This isn't the Cold War anymore and tech has leveled things out tremendously. But I think one also has to take into consideration the context involved in the books.
the publishers for the cheonjae book even came to my old school. we (several native teachers and the korean english teachers) sat down with them for an hour and explained what we though they could improve. when the new version came out next year....nothing had changed. in fact, it was somehow worse.
This assumes you were the only group they hot input from or that any other group they talked to said the same thing. Somewhat more likely is after they met you, they went to other schools and someone said something completely different. Maybe not, but it wouldn't surprise me. Also, wasn't Cheonjae considered superior to YBM and one of the other ones? I never used it so it might well be a hot mess, but it could well have been comparatively better. If that's the case and they were getting good sales and schools switching to them, then it makes sense business wise to stick with what they have, especially considering costs.
of course. but if they talked to anyone with any sense, other groups would have said the same thing. i just cannot believe that at the point of publication they said "yes. this is a great final product" the ybm book was equally bad. they all are. that's my point
right. so they are 50 years out of date and full of useless information
YBM was a special hell.I don't know if other groups would have said the same thing or not. If another school is seeing good results, they might not be as critical of the content. And again, it sounds like an easy thing to do in theory- Make a general education English book, but it is not that easy in practice. You will always be making tradeoffs. That's not to say the books couldn't have been improved, but I think you have to remember that this is for teaching ALL kids of ALL ability levels. This includes kids who cannot read English and have zero grasp of the Roman alphabet. I think you may be underestimating how overwhelming this can be for some rural 3rd grader of average to below-average intelligence. Heck, even intelligent kids who aren't great at language can have trouble.Yes, but well, given the erratic behavior of their neighbor to the North and various economic swings, it is not surprising they kept the undercurrent of emphasis on certain English situations.I think the big flaw with the books is not the main books, but a lack of a supplementary workbook. I think that could have alleviated a lot of the problems while still allowing for it to be taught to the entirety of the elementary school population.
