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TIPS FOR TEACHERS

 

Some Korean students may have difficulty pronouncing sound /l/ and /r/. Tongue twister practice might help. For example, let the students read this: ‘Red Lorry, yellow Lorry, red Lorry, yellow Lorry’.

 

In Korean there are many compound verbs, whereas in English there are few. The students of Korean background may have a tendency to add redundancies in the verb uses. It could be useful and entertaining to quiz the students about what the equivalent of an English verb is in Korean and then have her/him translate it literally into English.

Korean students are used to viewing teachers as authority figures in class: a teacher is a person who leads the class and speaks most; students listen and take notes. To encourage more students¯ participation, teachers may want to talk explicitly about expectations for students.

Teachers need to help students understand that they themselves are the ones who will construct their knowledge and teachers can be facilitators or helpers in the process of students' own knowledge construction.

One potential challenge in teaching Korean students may be their shyness in responding to questions. A Korean student may be unwilling to ask a question or to indicate if he/she has not understood. Comprehension checks by the teachers are important and should be done on a regular basis.

Korean students are generally very indirect in expressing their opinions, which is very different from that of Canadians. According to the tradition and influence of Confucianism, most students have become accustomed to saving their words in all situations. Some tips given by Lee (1996) below can help deal with this problem:

  • Show your concern about interesting Korean events or topics and often contrast them with Canadian ones.
  • Use interesting articles or textbooks, and avoid ones that are too difficult or too easy.
  • Lessen the time allotment given to grammar. Instead, introduce widely used 'practical' terms.
  • When some students are not confident in activities involving speaking or writing, you should gradually increase the amount of time spent practicing them.
  • Continually try to change their deeply-rooted positional type characteristics to the personal type in order to encourage them to voluntarily participate in discussions. Compliment their active participation.
  • In addition to the objectives of the English courses, consider the needs of each student.