August 13, 2009

  • Korean Language & Taejeon Culture

    Dear Folks,

        Today I have a chance to write a little, as my Korean teacher did not come to class.  She may have the sniffles.  About once a week, she does not show, so I get about four days a week of fairly good study.  In fact, this is the best study I've had perhaps ever, on Korean.  I am better at Korean, which makes me learn at a faster, and more enjoyable rate.  I have some good texts.  I am older and more mature ... do not expect magical leaps forward perhaps.  I have a good relationship with my young middle school aged teacher (a student of mine for the past five or six years); we get along famously, with plenty of giggles and nice asides peppering our studies.  That, and we both share a fondness for food (usually wholegrain bread and blueberry jam, and cappuccino, stick version) to spice up our study time.  She is a great pleasure to be with, and that is critical in learning a language. 

    In fact, I try very hard to focus mostly upon just this element in the classes that I teach: breaking down the affective learning barrier, which is in ESL parlance, the collection of fear-laden, anxiety-ridden, and animosity-filled psychological contents people carry in regard to their perceptions of contact with the culture(s) which represent native speakers of that language, in their unconscious.  This barrier may not infrequently present a formidable barrier to acquisition of the target language. 

    I do all I can to rub my belly and pat my head, smile, and bend over backwards to make my students feel not just comfortable, but entertained and delighted to be there with me.  This is tricky, especially when you serve such a fractured, rapidly changing, heterogeneous population, as in South Korea, as when you teach such a variety of age groups, from widely varying backgrounds, the way I do.  Hence, despite logging over 30,000 hours of actual teaching, I have continued to gain expertise in this ability to entertain South Korean students over the years. 

    I believe the advent of TV had a homogenizing effect on the population here, but there still remain virtually insurmountable chasms between various groups.  My students tell me of different types, with whom they "will have nothing to do."   I believe that would change if they were forced to work together against some common enemy, such as a natural disaster, or something.  But the way it is, they just follow their own groups in singular loyalty and do not seem to entertain the value of engaging those from different groups. 

    Speaking Korean helps me immensely in coming to understand South Koreans.  They do extremely poorly on English tests, relative to students of other nations,with the exception of perhaps Japan.  One reason I conjecture is the greater difference in the grammar structure of their native language.   Another could be their rote study methods, which unwittingly seem to engender a seething level of dread and distaste for authentic learning, represented, as it were, in their minds as being a meaningless repetition of memorization that has come to be, for them, anything but fun, perhaps solely because they did not individually "order" it.  I know I love memory work.  But then, I've nearly always focused on it as my servant, at my beck and call, utilizing it only when it suited me. 

    Another factor which clarifies my perception here is the fact that virtually all of my hours of teaching experience here has been on the free market, where you sink or swim, live or die based largely on your most recent efforts and successes.  Working on the free market is illegal for foreigners who are not married to South Koreans.  However, this type of work has zero restrictions and helps in several ways when doing polling (both formal and informal), and gathering information about the society: 

    1. I choose the content of our class discussions -- particularly as they are too shy to oppose much, but I do have an eye for what keeps their interest.  Herein, I stick to ultimately meaningful discussions, revolving primarily around moral and ethical considerations, with no topic off limits, and every slant designed to induce most fervent interest.      

    2. I do not "enjoy" the pacifying effects of working within a monopoly, as goes on in the public school system.  They have little incentive to improve their teaching methods, and little reason to maintain vibrant interest.   

    3. Working in the privacy of my own home, and with group sizes (1-4) which are so small as to be exceedingly rare in public schools and illegal hagwons (small evening schools), I enjoy far greater lattitude to speak frankly, and more important, my students enjoy far more freedom to pursue "off-limits topics" and respond candidly.  In a more formal setting, students are cowed by each other, with the heavily conformist strictures of this Oriental society, heavily influenced by Confucianism yet.   

    Love, Padooker