Teach English in ShuAngkou Zhen - Tianjin

Problems for Learners from KoreaNative speakers of Korean face many hurdles in learning english that are unique to them. Like other East Asian languages, Korean does not use the Roman alphabet. The dominant writing system for Korean is phonetic, and the concept of learning a non-phonetic language itself can be daunting. The phonemes in Korean are quite different from english, lacking voiced frictives and a few other sounds. Korean uses a subject-object-verb sentence structure, as opposed to the subject-verb-object sentence structured used in english. In the past, Koreans have lacked communication with native speakers, with much english education coming from other native speakers of Korean. english phonemes that do not exist in Korean may pose a problem however, many students can learn to pronounce them with sufficient practice; the most challenging phonemes that are not present in Korean are 'v' and 'f' sounds. Phonemes present in Korean but more freely used than they are in english are what cause the most difficulty for students, however. 'l' and '?' sounds are not differentiated in Korean, and so Korean speakers of english have difficulty producing the two differently. Many vowels pose a similar problem, with the '?' sound (as in "bit") often being mistaken for the 'i' sound (as in "cream"). Korean lacks sentence and word stress, and this can pose a problem for Korean learners of english. Not only do english sentences contain natural rhythmic and stressed syllables, the stress can differentiate to gjve a sentence new emphasis and meaning. The Korean education system is very rigorous; scores on standardized tests play a large role in a student's likelihood of enrolling in a prestigious university or finding a good job. Since parents and students place such an emphasis on grammatical structures and rules necessary for high test scores, students often have a weakness in fluency that negatively impacts the practicality of their learning. This, coupled with cultural expectations to be outspoken, make teaching spoken english difficult. It is therefore important to give speaking and fluency emphasis above and beyond what learners might normally feel comfortable with. There are many lingual-cultural language issues that a teacher may need to address as well. For example, when asked a interogative sentence, such as "Are you going to the store?", many native speakers of english respond by affirming the subject and omitting the object, stating "Yes, I'm going." In Korean the inverse is usually true, where the object is often the affirmed element. A Korean speaker would therefore say "Yes, to the store", which would come across as slightly akward to a native speaker of english. The vast differences between english and Korean, and the difficiency of native english speakers to teach english has resulted in the proliferation of "Konglish", where Koreans use english words in an odd context or simply invent new words. Some Konglish, like "handphone" may be recognizable to a native speaker as a cell phone. Others like "overeat" mean to vomit, which a native speaker is unlikely to recognize. english teachers must be aware of Konglish and be quick to let students know when they make these errors. Korea is taking charge of their english education and is undergoing a major effort to bring more native english speakers into the classroom. This ever-increasing number of native speakers into english classrooms should result in a major improvement for language issues faced by Koreans.