Couple of things to rant about.1. Why am I here? Like seriously why? Why does the government pay all this money to bring me here and spend all this money on english learning, when no-one takes it seriously enough to make these kids learn? Like these kids have been taking English lessons since the third grade at least 3 times a week, PLUS imerison classes at least once a week. In addition, many of them go to hagwons for hours on end to learn but yet they CANNOT form a sentence to save their damn lives! Like a fully formed senence is beneath them. By the sixth grade level I expect that you should be able to express your self in at least 2 coherent sentences by now. I dont understand. It is so frustrating. I wish my home country started us on a second language that early, that many times a week. So many of us wouod be flunt or ar least be able to hold a decent conversation in that language by the time we are 12. I dont understand this place.2. For the love of God, Why do kids who hvae next to no interest in English sign up for English camp?? Like why are you here? You're making my job harder because you refuse to do or say shit. Stay home or go to another camp. I wish my school actually vetted the kids who sign up to make sure they actually want to learn so they can get the full benefits of attending. Sigh, this place.
*napping* "Eh, whatever. None of my business. -------------------------------------------------------- *napping* "What are you doing??"
"I want go home with me?" okay have fun going home with yourself.
Quote from: wynislyfe22 on July 31, 2017, 10:33:44 AMCouple of things to rant about.1. Why am I here? Like seriously why? Why does the government pay all this money to bring me here and spend all this money on english learning, when no-one takes it seriously enough to make these kids learn? Like these kids have been taking English lessons since the third grade at least 3 times a week, PLUS imerison classes at least once a week. In addition, many of them go to hagwons for hours on end to learn but yet they CANNOT form a sentence to save their damn lives! Like a fully formed senence is beneath them. By the sixth grade level I expect that you should be able to express your self in at least 2 coherent sentences by now. I dont understand. It is so frustrating. I wish my home country started us on a second language that early, that many times a week. So many of us wouod be flunt or ar least be able to hold a decent conversation in that language by the time we are 12. I dont understand this place.2. For the love of God, Why do kids who hvae next to no interest in English sign up for English camp?? Like why are you here? You're making my job harder because you refuse to do or say shit. Stay home or go to another camp. I wish my school actually vetted the kids who sign up to make sure they actually want to learn so they can get the full benefits of attending. Sigh, this place.I feel you on the first one. And it's not just because they are kids either. I've had way too many university age guys try to hit on me unable to form a sentence and who didn't know that you should not call me "sister" in English. I even went off on one before, because I was so annoyed. I asked him didn't he study English at school? And he said "yes but everyone hates English class" (filling in the blanks here, cos it was more like "yes....all student... english hate" and I said so what? I hated math but I still had to study it or else I didn't get a good grade. University students who don't know the difference between "you" and "I" and here I spent probably half the time & money studying a second language and I still know the basics. Doctors who don't know the days of the week or how to ask "what time?" Who here doesn't know how to ask "what time?" in whatever language they studied in grade school??? I'm SO happy to hop in this ranting train, because I've been meaning to call out the 20 somethings who don't know that saying "I like my sister" to a foreign girl you're trying to pick up at a club is wrong. Maybe they didn't pay attention, or maybe they really were never taught that Korean honorific rules don't apply to English. And by the way, I never ask that people speak English to me unless they advertise English services. I either get help or come prepared with Korean translations of what I need. But when people do try and speak English to me I see how much of a failure English education here really is. Sure there are a lot of people who took it upon themselves to learn English to communicate if their lifestyle calls for it... but with all the time money and effort this country puts into English it's pretty sad how many people go through the system and come out knowing absolutely nothing. "I want go home with me?" okay have fun going home with yourself.
In all fairness, many of us have taken various lessons throughout our lives and many of us are at less than stellar levels of competence. I took piano all through elementary school and into middle school because...I just did...its what kids do. I think I can play the Star Wars theme with one hand and many mistakes. If you think we'd all be fluent in a second language, you're mistaken. And at least our language is similar to the German/French/Spanish we'd be taking.
Quote from: Mr.DeMartino on July 31, 2017, 02:53:58 PMIn all fairness, many of us have taken various lessons throughout our lives and many of us are at less than stellar levels of competence. I took piano all through elementary school and into middle school because...I just did...its what kids do. I think I can play the Star Wars theme with one hand and many mistakes. If you think we'd all be fluent in a second language, you're mistaken. And at least our language is similar to the German/French/Spanish we'd be taking.You make a point, I think the difference is that you wouldn't try to pull a girl by playing her that. hahahahahaha
It's raining sideways... I really hope the weather is decent tomorrow (aka no ferry cancellations) because after camp my vacation starts and I was gonna head to the mainland...
In all fairness, many of us have taken various lessons throughout our lives and many of us are at less than stellar levels of competence. ... If you think we'd all be fluent in a second language, you're mistaken. And at least our language is similar to the German/French/Spanish we'd be taking.My Spanish? Occasionally its 'stereotypical American bad' other times its worst.
Becoming absolutely livid with the aversion to speaking English here.My Korean is pretty elementary and while I don't expect a Korean person to speak English to me, I do expect it when I pay them to. I'm recovering from an annoying injury and chose to see a specialist, in Seoul, for treatment and rehab. The ads for the specialist brag about English speaking staff. I gave them a call and stressed the point that the doctor and therapist needed to have excellent English skills as I'm the type of person who asks many detailed questions and expects detailed answers... I don't joke around with my health.I get there and the doctor speaks passable English with bad pronunciation. Furthermore, he and the therapist (same place) contradict one another and when I enquire, I get ambiguous and vague answers. The therapist's English was much worse and while I might've been able to excuse that, she let her English skills and shyness get in the way of doing her job. She tells me to 'Youtube' how to do the specific exercises and stretches I had to do instead of even making an attempt to explain them. She giggles when trying to speak English and opts to avoid conversation as much as possible, no questions to me, no suggestions, nothing.At 100k a session, I can't believe people can be so damn childish and unprofessional.
Quote from: Mr.DeMartino on July 31, 2017, 02:53:58 PMIn all fairness, many of us have taken various lessons throughout our lives and many of us are at less than stellar levels of competence. ... If you think we'd all be fluent in a second language, you're mistaken. And at least our language is similar to the German/French/Spanish we'd be taking.My Spanish? Occasionally its 'stereotypical American bad' other times its worst. It didn't really seem to me like she was expecting fluency or stellar levels of competency from the Koreans she meets. She just thinks their level should be higher than it is. Obviously people forget things when they're out of practice, but there's a limit to that. There's a difference between not remembering the quadratic equation and not remembering basic pronouns in a language you studied for ten years. Your Spanish may well be terrible, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you wouldn't mix up the words for "I" and "you." I certainly wouldn't make that kind of mistake in German, and I only took two years of high school German and haven't been in a German classroom since 1999.And for what it's worth, I also wouldn't make those mistakes in Arabic, which is as different from English as Korean is, and I haven't been in an Arabic classroom since 2003 or had to use the language since separating from the military in 2006.As I said in that other thread recently, it's absolutely understandable that many Koreans aren't fluent in English despite studying it for so long. They don't need to use it in their lives, and the system doesn't really set them up to retain anything once they're tested on it. I get that. The issue being discussed here isn't that they aren't fluent, it's how horrendously bad many of them have turned out to be. There's a whooooooole lot of ground between "fluency" and "completely incompetent."
Quote from: CO2 on July 31, 2017, 10:37:00 AM *napping* "Eh, whatever. None of my business. -------------------------------------------------------- *napping* "What are you doing??"My similiar experience: *napping* "Eh, whatever. None of my business. ---------- *napping* *loud and sudden* "ARE YOU SLEEPING?" *giggle* Revenge will be had, oh sweet sweet revenge, cold, sweet revenge.
Korean doesn't use pronouns in the same way as European languages, that's why they make mistakes with them. Like they do with articles.
Quote from: eggieguffer on August 01, 2017, 06:54:41 AMKorean doesn't use pronouns in the same way as European languages, that's why they make mistakes with them. Like they do with articles.I don't really buy that as an excuse for a person who's supposed to have studied a language for ten years. Korean has pronouns. They aren't an alien concept. Ask a class of 5th graders what "you" means, and they can tell you, even if they're more likely to just use the name of the person they're talking about instead of the pronoun when they're speaking their own language.Using them properly can be confusing at first, of course, and mistakes are to be expected from anyone learning a language. Mistakes are likely to continue for things that are completely absent from a learner's language (like articles for Koreans learning English, or subject/topic markers for English speakers learning Korean), but when it's a concept both languages share even though they're used differently, the mistakes should generally becomes less egregious with time.If you knew an English speaker who had been studying Japanese for ten years and he still kept putting the verb before the object when speaking Japanese, would you shrug it off with "English is an SVO language so it uses verbs and objects differently"?
Quote from: Mister Tim on August 01, 2017, 09:25:19 AMQuote from: eggieguffer on August 01, 2017, 06:54:41 AMKorean doesn't use pronouns in the same way as European languages, that's why they make mistakes with them. Like they do with articles.I don't really buy that as an excuse for a person who's supposed to have studied a language for ten years. Korean has pronouns. They aren't an alien concept. Ask a class of 5th graders what "you" means, and they can tell you, even if they're more likely to just use the name of the person they're talking about instead of the pronoun when they're speaking their own language.Using them properly can be confusing at first, of course, and mistakes are to be expected from anyone learning a language. Mistakes are likely to continue for things that are completely absent from a learner's language (like articles for Koreans learning English, or subject/topic markers for English speakers learning Korean), but when it's a concept both languages share even though they're used differently, the mistakes should generally becomes less egregious with time.If you knew an English speaker who had been studying Japanese for ten years and he still kept putting the verb before the object when speaking Japanese, would you shrug it off with "English is an SVO language so it uses verbs and objects differently"? I feel like a significant factor is that there is very little practical application in a lot of classrooms. When I took language in school, my teachers made us practice conversation and write our own dialogue all the time. But here, the focus is on teaching for tests and regurgitation rather than producing their own sentences. And unless the students study abroad they're probably not going to talk in English at all outside of class. Most Koreans are probably better at reading/writing than speaking. Add in the shyness, fear of losing face and being put on the spot, and they just turn into giggly or just declare "sorry, no Korean."
I feel like a significant factor is that there is very little practical application in a lot of classrooms. When I took language in school, my teachers made us practice conversation and write our own dialogue all the time. But here, the focus is on teaching for tests and regurgitation rather than producing their own sentences. And unless the students study abroad they're probably not going to talk in English at all outside of class. Most Koreans are probably better at reading/writing than speaking. Add in the shyness, fear of losing face and being put on the spot, and they just turn into giggly or just declare "sorry, no Korean."
Quote from: yirj17 on August 01, 2017, 09:36:14 AMI feel like a significant factor is that there is very little practical application in a lot of classrooms. When I took language in school, my teachers made us practice conversation and write our own dialogue all the time. But here, the focus is on teaching for tests and regurgitation rather than producing their own sentences. And unless the students study abroad they're probably not going to talk in English at all outside of class. Most Koreans are probably better at reading/writing than speaking. Add in the shyness, fear of losing face and being put on the spot, and they just turn into giggly or just declare "sorry, no Korean." Oh, for sure. I don't think Koreans are incapable of becoming fluent or anything, and I really do understand why many of them don't. It's pretty hard to miss after working in the system for a few years, haha. When people complain about how Koreans who have taken English classes for ten years are still so miserable at it, I think the complaint is often more leveled at the system than at Koreans themselves. Like you said, they teach for tests, not for retention or practical application. It's often frustrating to work in that system, and that frustration can be compounded when faced with its results out on the streets.The venters don't generally go into that much detail about it, though, so it can come off as a complaint about Korean *people* when it really isn't, and I can see how that might rub some people wrong. Of course it's entirely possible that some of the people venting about it actually do think it's a problem with Koreans themselves and I'm putting words in their mouths.
