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.
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"?
Word. I think some people might not realize what the system is like here while others are indeed frustrated with the system itself. It really truly irks me when I see a KET crush any attempt at creativity by forcing kids to say only what's in the book when they're trying to play around with the language. Sadly, I see this happen in my elementary schools and then when I'm in my middle schools I and my coTs are trying to encourage creativity but too many students want to just copy or just be told what to do.
No, but I would be terrible at verb conjugation which is pretty much the same thing.
I dunno, I had to take Spanish because it was a requirement and half the time I had earbuds in my coat sleeve and was listening to Juvenile or Master P or 98 Degrees and zoning out and I'd say my experience is pretty typical.
is this the product of an American school system that lacks discipline or a culture that doesn't value immigrants or some crap? Is that why our math scores are low? Or is it kids are kids and a lot of them find your subject boring and don't give a crap?
Not every kid is going to like English. Not every kid is going to be interested in it. Lots of kids are going to toss that out of their heads and replace it with some crap from TV, just like we have all done in various subjects we didn't give a shit about.
I knew plenty of immigrants who had varying levels of familiarity with English and still retained minor grammatical errors and so on. It's life. It's what happens in a global society. I don't understand why people get such a stick up their ass over it. Yeah, in your classroom, fine, but outside with random people? In their country? WTF do you expect?
Like I said, this is about as reasonable as some science teacher ranting that some guy he ran into didn't know the difference between Mitosis or Meiosis. Or whether Noble gases are reactive or unreactive. Or (Insert random Algebra problem we'd bomb). Or all the crap that people get wrong when Jay Leno asks them random questions on the street.
Basically what I'm saying, is that people's expectations are unrealistic and unreasonable, and aren't even applied to our kids at home.
Quote from: sevenpm on July 31, 2017, 12:29:19 pmQuote 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.How about math classes? Would we all be fine at quadratic equations? I remember of the existence of sine, cosine, and tangent. I don't remember what they deal with. I like, remember basic math, a handful of geometry formulas, PEMDAS, and the pythagorean theorem. My chemistry? Shaky at best, more likely insipid. What comes first, order or family? My Spanish? Occasionally its 'stereotypical American bad' other times its worst. I bet there's some person who knows math out there, possibly Korean, who would scream at me for being braindead and blame my education system.The point is that although we think English is special and that after all these years everyone should be just fine, we need to remember that it is essentially the equivalent of all the stuff we've learned and forgotten- math, obsessive rules of grammar, history, science, tennis, piano, how to get stuff to run in DOS, etc and has been squeezed out in favor of music by our favorite bands, Mortal Kombat codes, baseball stats, The Complete History of Westeros, the entire lineup of Sienar Fleet Systems spacecraft, Simpsons quotes, alcohol, Seinfeld references, etc. It's called teaching children and them growing up. Deal with it the same way all the other subject teachers do- Understand that for a big chunk most will forget 95%. Some will retain some more than that, and a handful will go on to specialize in whatever you teach and become just as good as you at it.Welcome to growing old. Welcome to teaching.
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.
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.
How did "desk-warming" days become a "thing"? When I first came to Korea I lived in Jeollanam-do (10 years ago) and nobody ever did a desk-warming day. Ever. We did long-ass camps (4 weeks), but we got paid for them (like double our salary). Our main co-teacher was there and helped as well. It could be fun because the schools had funds to make them so. I didn't mind doing camps, cause I was paid and I had sufficient funds to make them memorable....What the **** happened? Camps are included in our pay, and there seems to be minimal funds to aid us in our efforts to even make camps fun anymore.....I've used my own funds in my camps........what a ****** wrong-doing on all levels...
quote - I definitely agree that many people have unreasonable expectations of Korean here in Korea with regards to English. I don't think we're entitled to English everywhere we go, and I think it's absurd when people whine about things like that. I'm with you there I can't recall anyone on here saying they're entitled to English everywhere they go in Korea. What usually happens is someone complains that the people at immigration or an international hotel or tourist information don't speak English and someone like De Martino accuses them of being whiny entitled westerners with crap Korean language skills, who expect English everywhere they go. And so the cycle continues.
Quote from: eggieguffer on August 03, 2017, 09:51:01 amquote - I definitely agree that many people have unreasonable expectations of Korean here in Korea with regards to English. I don't think we're entitled to English everywhere we go, and I think it's absurd when people whine about things like that. I'm with you there I can't recall anyone on here saying they're entitled to English everywhere they go in Korea. What usually happens is someone complains that the people at immigration or an international hotel or tourist information don't speak English and someone like De Martino accuses them of being whiny entitled westerners with crap Korean language skills, who expect English everywhere they go. And so the cycle continues.Not in this thread recently, no, you're right. I know I've heard people complaining about a lack English in places where I don't think there's really any reasonable right to expect it, though, both on this site and in real life. I don't mean places like immigration or government offices, I mean places/people like cashiers at convenience stores or salespeople at clothes stores. I think people who complain about it are vastly outnumbered by the people who don't think it's a big deal, but it does happen.At any rate, I said that mostly in an effort to try to meet Mr.D somewhere in the middle or add something to my post that he could agree with. I find that when you do that with people who will argue about everything, it tempers them a little and makes them a bit more pleasant to deal with than if you just stick to confrontation mode from start to finish.
Quote from: Mister Tim on August 03, 2017, 11:03:47 amQuote from: eggieguffer on August 03, 2017, 09:51:01 amquote - I definitely agree that many people have unreasonable expectations of Korean here in Korea with regards to English. I don't think we're entitled to English everywhere we go, and I think it's absurd when people whine about things like that. I'm with you there I can't recall anyone on here saying they're entitled to English everywhere they go in Korea. What usually happens is someone complains that the people at immigration or an international hotel or tourist information don't speak English and someone like De Martino accuses them of being whiny entitled westerners with crap Korean language skills, who expect English everywhere they go. And so the cycle continues.Not in this thread recently, no, you're right. I know I've heard people complaining about a lack English in places where I don't think there's really any reasonable right to expect it, though, both on this site and in real life. I don't mean places like immigration or government offices, I mean places/people like cashiers at convenience stores or salespeople at clothes stores. I think people who complain about it are vastly outnumbered by the people who don't think it's a big deal, but it does happen.At any rate, I said that mostly in an effort to try to meet Mr.D somewhere in the middle or add something to my post that he could agree with. I find that when you do that with people who will argue about everything, it tempers them a little and makes them a bit more pleasant to deal with than if you just stick to confrontation mode from start to finish.I just want to say, that although I argue with you and eggie a fair bit, both of you are top notch posters and make really good points and are good at making arguments and presenting different points of view. I'd also say that neither of you are "haters". Also, eggie and I find points of agreement on other topics so I wouldn't say we're at loggerheads or anything. Heck, even me and gogators! occasionally find ourselves agreeing.
It's not enough to register in NEIS to take a Friday vacation afternoon off, gotta go bow and scrape to the principal in his office. Forget it.
Why can't she get it through her head that some non Koreans like spicy food? Why does she have some mental block against absorbing new information?
sup dudesRegarding the soup/soap mixup, I'm really glad he clarified. My husband and I frequently reference a condition called "soup pits" because for some reason I think BO smells like Campbell's canned soup. Also, if you learn a language for ten years, you should have some vague competence. Just my opinion.byeeeee
Gotta get in one more rant before vacation!!I've told my CT several times that I like spicy food, yet every time we contemplate eating something that has even the slightest hint of spice she goes "oh but it's spicy.. I don't know if you can..." HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL THIS WOMAN I LIKE SPICY FOOD.Today she brought in that spicy ramen I guess because she thought it would be funny for me to eat it. I've tried it before, and I told her so. She talked about the videos she saw of foreigners trying it and how it's so funny. I asked her if she likes it and she said no, it's too spicy.So she's got this thing in her head about me not being able to handle spice because I'm not Korean, but our spice tolerances are about the same. She will not accept this fact, and makes me watch famous waygook in Korea youtube videos of them eating spicy foods. I told her my family members love spicy food and have really high tolerances and she looks at me with her eyes wide and asks "did you ever eat spice before you came to Korea?" She actually thinks Korea is the only country that has spicy food.Why can't she get it through her head that some non Koreans like spicy food? Why does she have some mental block against absorbing new information?