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I have a friend who teaches ESL in Korea. One day, he asked his students what they like to do in their free time. Student 1: I like to play video games! Student 2: I like to play soccer! Student 3: I like to do YOU! Needless to say, he quickly moved on.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:48
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I once had a student tell me very earnestly about how Jesus Christ leaves eggs for the good little boys and girls. I burst out laughing very shortly into what would have been a wonderful story about the horrible thing the Jews did to the Easter Bunny.
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Dec 26, 2013 06:09
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Pollyanna posted:Yeah, but Ottawa isn't the US, is it? Stephen Harper regrets this every day.
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Dec 26, 2013 06:57
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Pollyanna posted:Yeah, but Ottawa isn't the US, is it? Wow, I am terribly sorry. I told the wrong story about the wrong university friend. A different guy, who grew up in Somerville, Massachusetts, took Japanese for all four years of high school, too.
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Dec 26, 2013 07:42
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Wow, the English teaching situation in South Korea sounds pretty bad if most of the teachers aren't actually fluent in English, but use rote memorization to teach. I can shed some light on what I went through as a native English speaker having to go through ESL classes in school in Israel, if that's of any interest to anybody. (It's much much better than what you guys describe about East Asia, most young people here can understand and speak english on a level where they can more or less communicate in English.) I don't think any of my teachers were EVER native English speakers (one of them spoke english as her 4th language). There were "native-speaker" level classes sometimes, but they were generally just filled with kids who were good at English, and maybe one or two actual native speakers.
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Dec 26, 2013 08:04
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bringmyfishback posted:Wow, I am terribly sorry. I told the wrong story about the wrong university friend. I hate to be *that guy* but I've rarely seen anyone who has taken only classes for a non-native language actually learn it successfully. I don't say that to discredit teachers, I say that because if you don't do some (intense)self-study and only do what classes tell you to do for the entire period, you won't become successful in the language. It's a skill you have to practice, and unlike math, you probably can't cram for it before hand and hope to at least get a pass in life. It's also not teachers faults all the time. Students move at different paces and to actually cover enough to bring proficiency in a reasonable amount of time would require a LOT of commitment on the part of the students. Since a lot of this has been Asian ESL stories, I'll relate learning Japanese. It was good motivation to be in a class because learning was tied to my grades, but it wasn't until I had a real chance to use it when I learned how inadequate I was. Then I buckled down, studied all the kanji I could(that's ~2000 for the common use), and practiced on my own. I still have a way to go, but had I just done what classes taught, I'd never have reached this point.
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Dec 26, 2013 08:53
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A Meat posted:Wow, the English teaching situation in South Korea sounds pretty bad if most of the teachers aren't actually fluent in English, but use rote memorization to teach. I work in a high school and university in China. It's not uncommon to walk past classrooms full of English majors...who are having A DICTIONARY read to them, with them repeating the words and definitions verbatim. That's their class. I'm at one of the best programs the country. Kids have 18 years of English instruction, often from unqualified or overworked teachers in a ridiculous system--so you end up with people who only know a few stock phrases while unable to communicate, even though they've been in school for 18 years. "I am an sunshine boy!" Student: "I donated my toy to the earthquake victims!" Other teacher: "That is nothing to you!" "I like many tings. Favorite thing is sleep. I love sleep. I like sleeping. Sleep is good for your health!"--paragraph meant to describe your favorite thing
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Dec 26, 2013 12:22
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Postal Parcel posted:I hate to be *that guy* but I've rarely seen anyone who has taken only classes for a non-native language actually learn it successfully. I don't say that to discredit teachers, I say that because if you don't do some (intense)self-study and only do what classes tell you to do for the entire period, you won't become successful in the language. It's a skill you have to practice, and unlike math, you probably can't cram for it before hand and hope to at least get a pass in life. It's also not teachers faults all the time. Students move at different paces and to actually cover enough to bring proficiency in a reasonable amount of time would require a LOT of commitment on the part of the students. Of course. If you only come into contact with a foreign language in the context of a classic educational environment, you are never going to be able to master it. You need to be immersed in it, and if that's not the case by default, you need the motivation and determination to create a situation in which you are. I had had eight years of French when I graduated high school, yet I still wasn't particularly good at speaking or writing it correctly. It's a miracle that these Korean children manage to write semi-comprehensible English at all, given that it's a completely unrelated language that uses a different alphabet to boot.
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Dec 26, 2013 12:24
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Honestly, thinking about it, the description you guys give of how English is taught in Korea and China is similar to how bad the teaching of Arabic is in Israel. (Only without some of the baggage teaching Arabic has in Israel) Sort of a disclaimer: I only studied Arabic for one and a half years, while most kids have at least three years of it. Not that there were any classes divided by skill level or anything, everyone studied together, and I missed a year and a half in the middle. I learned only the Arabic Alphabet, how to phonetically read words (very slowly) and some basic Arabic, some of which I knew beforehand. What was taught was either canned phrases and words, with little to no practice, or it was attempted to teach the grammatical structure of the language without any points of reference to understand it with. Nobody made any effort to practice or learn Arabic beyond the lessons which were almost entirely in Hebrew anyways. I'm sort of guessing the low-effort English teachers in some countries are sort of like my experience with Arabic in Israel. Also a question I have to you ESL teachers, do you allow (or are you even allowed to allow) dictionaries to be used in tests?
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Dec 26, 2013 13:17
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A Meat posted:I'm sort of guessing the low-effort English teachers in some countries are sort of like my experience with Arabic in Israel. Sounds like the German I learned in Australia in the 90s. I could probably go to Germany and order some food and find my way to the airport, but not do anything beyond the most basic tourist conversation. It's not like I didn't try, the class was just pretty poo poo. On the other hand, I can sing 99 Luftballons without loving the accent up too badly, so that's a definite bonus. Or something.
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Dec 26, 2013 13:41
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A Meat posted:
It depends on the class/exam. In my writing-centric courses I permit it because using a dictionary really won't make or break a performance, but having it there for spelling and word choice makes students feel a little more secure. For other courses that are speaking heavy they're not permitted one because I want their experience to be as close to a "normal" speaking environment as possible, which means they need to learn to work around vocabulary when they're unsure about something. To be clear, though, I only permit PAPER dictionaries during tests; a lot of electronic dictionaries have sentence translation options now, which isn't permissible for exams. I do allow electronic dictionaries during day-to-day class, but in my experience kids will use them like mad for a month or so before slowly getting tired of it and stopping. They're more useful as a homework/study aid than a "holy poo poo need a word right now--ohnoteachingiscallingonme" tool.
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Dec 26, 2013 13:50
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AlphaDog posted:Sounds like the German I learned in Australia in the 90s. I could probably go to Germany and order some food and find my way to the airport, but not do anything beyond the most basic tourist conversation. I couldn't even do that. The textbook we used seemed to have just the most absurdly useless vocabulary in it. Unless I'm in a situation where I need to inform someone that a horse has eaten my hamburger, I'm pretty much out of luck.
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Dec 26, 2013 16:33
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Brotein_Shake posted:I don't suppose you wouldn't mind going into more detail about this test? You have me curious about since I have been trying to beat myself with learning mandarin and have overall become fascinated by language and the teaching of it. I tried to look up specific examples, but, not surprisingly, I couldn't find any in English. If you really want to get a feel for what the test entails, go buy like 5 textbooks on language acquisition, 5 on second language acquisition, and maybe 2 on basic linguistics. Memorize them all and be able to regurgitate any and all information on cue. Seriously, though, if you're really interested, pick up a book on second language acquisition. I wish I could recommend an interesting, lighthearted one, but all the ones I read were for my masters, so they were not fun reading. Teaching students and learning a language is a whole new thing after age 8 or so (the so-called "golden age" of language acquisition), and people still aren't really sure how everything gets done. There's been different methods that have come into and out of vogue through the years, and none of them have really been the magic bullet that shoots language into your brain, and people still aren't really sure what happens in the brain to make connections and switches to other languages. For example, in high school, I studied Latin, and we learned via what was called the "Prussian Method", or "Grammar Translation". Sure, even today, I can decline the noun for "farmer" and I can tell you the his sword is long, but I could never go into a bank and open a checking account because I never learned how. This is mainly the how Koreans are taught English, by the way. Later, in my undergrad days, when I learned Spanish, French, and Portuguese, we actually had to speak and practice (The Communicative Approach). Though I haven't spoken French or Portuguese in like 20 or so years, I can still read and understand it, and my Spanish is still pretty fluent despite not getting to use it often. The wikipedia article about SLA is not too bad, but I personally kinda hate Noam Chomsky, and his ideas about a universal grammar and meta language are kinda falling by the wayside. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_acquisition I think I've hijacked this thread enough, so if you have more questions, I'm sure there's some way smarter people than me in the linguistics threads that can help you or maybe point out a book or two. Feel free to email me at myusername at hotmail if you want, though.
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Dec 26, 2013 16:54
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Postal Parcel posted:I hate to be *that guy* but I've rarely seen anyone who has taken only classes for a non-native language actually learn it successfully. I don't say that to discredit teachers, I say that because if you don't do some (intense)self-study and only do what classes tell you to do for the entire period, you won't become successful in the language. It's a skill you have to practice, and unlike math, you probably can't cram for it before hand and hope to at least get a pass in life. It's also not teachers faults all the time. Students move at different paces and to actually cover enough to bring proficiency in a reasonable amount of time would require a LOT of commitment on the part of the students. Well, man, they say it takes some 10,000 hours of study and practice to master something, and most people don't spend 10,000 hours in a classroom. I mean, tons of American TV shows were super popular here, but watching them daily doesn't mean poo poo if you leave the subtitles on all the time.
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Dec 26, 2013 16:57
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the black husserl posted:Uh, I don't think US middle/high schools even teach languages like Korean or Japanese. Though I bet my 9th grade spanish essays were absolutely filled with nonsense phrases There has been a lot of change in the world language ed. world, including teaching approach (now it's meant to be 90-100% in the language, for example, with no explicit grammar lessons) and how we judge "proficiency" (standard 4 years = reaching "intermediate-mid" proficiency, which is only halfway to fluency but means you're able to move away from memorized phrases and create your own thoughts and ideas). In Japan, I was asked to help a couple high school teams prepare for a science fair competition that was being held in English against students from other Asian countries. They handed in their final presentation (a pretty hefty binder full of stuff) and I had to check the English for it. Out of nowhere was a single slide with the following: "Hello I am bug that look like stick. In Japan I am called nanafushi. I am on tree. You can look for me but can't find me." Their project had NOTHING to do with insects 
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Dec 26, 2013 17:21
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Salad Days posted:In Japan, I was asked to help a couple high school teams prepare for a science fair competition that was being held in English against students from other Asian countries. They handed in their final presentation (a pretty hefty binder full of stuff) and I had to check the English for it. Out of nowhere was a single slide with the following: "Hello I am bug that look like stick. In Japan I am called nanafushi. I am on tree. You can look for me but can't find me." Haha, what the gently caress was it supposed to be then?
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Dec 26, 2013 18:30
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A friend of mine in college was newly over from China and he had amazingly terrible English. One day we were about to leave to go study at another friend's house and my other friend mentioned that his five year old son was going to be there so my Chinese friend replies, "I hope he doesn't mind my erection." My buddy just stared at him in horror until he realized what he had said. He meant to say "accent."
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Dec 26, 2013 21:52
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A Meat posted:Honestly, thinking about it, the description you guys give of how English is taught in Korea and China is similar to how bad the teaching of Arabic is in Israel. (Only without some of the baggage teaching Arabic has in Israel) The big difference between that and learning English in Asian schools is that Hebrew and Arabic are very similar in a lot of ways. Then again I don't remember what little of it I learned in school and I am really good with languages so maybe you'e got a point after all  (well that and I was a very bad student and probably skipped half of the classes)
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Dec 26, 2013 22:47
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Post your favorite quotes, please.
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Dec 27, 2013 05:59
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Some compositions from my 5th graders. I have reproduced them as faithfully as I could. They had to use ten target vocabulary words to write a story: "Stinky Trash love swim in supermarket. He never wear clothes, never brush teeth and never shampoo hair. He always wear rain coat. It 10 meters tall and It like eat people. please you see This stinky trash. call me [redacted] re turn to me I want you trash" "My Day I wore a raincoat and went to super market. And bought shampoo and tooth paste. 11'o clock, ate a mango for lun ch. 1'o clock I went to swimming and then swim in the water. Finally, washed my hair to shampoo and brushed my teeth. I thought I love swimming. Before go outside trash a shampoo and tooth paste, At 6'o clock, I ate stinky duck with my friends and drank al chol too lot so I need to give fine police officer. Today was so crazy and interesting." "Mr. Duck was so stupid. He thought people use shampoo to brush their teeth. His teeth were stinky, so he went to supermarket and bought a bottle of shampoo. He also bought two mangos, because he loved mangos. He came home and ate a mango but their was a worm. He trash it. He went swimming and he tried to go to his home. It was rainy but he didn't bring his raincoat. He was wet, so he was stinky." "King Kong's life Along time ago, when the tiger smoke, King Kong was born. His family love him. His family eat trash. One day, King Kong see hyoung woo. King Kong have to wear rain coat and gas mask. because hyoung woo is very stinky. So King Kong say to him 'stinky duck.' hyoung woo eat mango two days ago. King Kong say, "You have to wash your hair!" "I will go supermarket. to buy shampoo for you." hyoung woo wash his hair with Shampoo. Oh my god! It doesn't work. So King Kong and hyoung woo go their way." Hyoung Woo is a kid in class. He was very amused.
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Dec 27, 2013 07:27
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bringmyfishback posted:"Mr. Duck was so stupid. He thought people use shampoo to brush their teeth. His teeth were stinky, so he went to supermarket and bought a bottle of shampoo. He also bought two mangos, because he loved mangos. He came home and ate a mango but their was a worm. He trash it. He went swimming and he tried to go to his home. It was rainy but he didn't bring his raincoat. He was wet, so he was stinky." Not bad at all. He misspelled 'there', but that's a common mistake among native speakers as well.
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Dec 27, 2013 07:52
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My stepmom's first language was japanese, second being self-taught english. There were many wtf moments, my favorite being the time she noticed my cat begging for food in the kitchen while she was cooking, and she loudly announced "Candywife, it is time to eat the cat!" I was pretty horrified until I realised she meant that she wanted me to feed the cat.
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Dec 27, 2013 08:23
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Teaching a bunch of secondary English teachers in Korea, all women. Apparently in some other class they learned a song about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. One of the lines goes "First you take the peanuts and you crush them, crush them," with accompanying hand movements. Of course, when they pronounce "peanuts" it sounds exactly like "penis." So, unaware of this, one day I walk into my classroom and there is a circle of middle-aged ladies sitting in a circle, solemnly chanting "First you take the penis and you crush 'em, crush 'em." While making crushing gestures with their fists.
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Dec 27, 2013 09:37
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^^ Ha ha ha! Let's see, we were doing free speaking and one student described himself as a "great lover." After some questioning, it turned out he meant lover of alcohol. That same day, another student insisted on describing children as "sexy." After some questioning, it turned out he meant... sexy. 
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Dec 27, 2013 09:40
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"When I grow up, I will marry a chair. That way when my legs get tired, I can sit on my husband's face." Never gets old. Also "Welcome to Stadium! Tonight Show is Hitler 1,2,3!" I still don't entirely understand what that means. I just really want to know what Hitler 1,2,3 sound like. Is it J-Pop? I bet it's J-Pop and their moustaches are sugoi. On the other end of the spectrum, there's this horrible song CD for the little kids we have. It's pretty obvious somebody in upper management has a friend who's "totally a musician and will work for free, dude!" who they hired to make it. There's one particular song that's supposed to be sung by a friendly dog, but the dude singing sounds like an alcoholic Brooklyn cab driver. The lyrics are: BALLS BALLS BALLS I LOVE BALLS IN MY MOUTH I LOVE BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS AND BONES! I LOVE BONES! BIG JUICY BONES! IN MY MOUTH! BONES AND BALLS! YAY! Imagine that being spat out by Tony Soprano with a throat infection and you've got some idea of how horrible that song is. There's also a song done by a guy doing a really convincing Hank Hill impersonation, that includes the line "no! that's just not right!" We have some weird materials at my school. SurreptitiousMuffin has a new favorite as of 10:41 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 10:20
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:"When I grow up, I will marry a chair. That way when my legs get tired, I can sit on my husband's face." My younger kids are really into this song where the guy sings, "I have two green balls" repeatedly. I made them change up the adjectives: I have two blue balls I have two nice balls I have three big balls I'm a bad person.
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Dec 27, 2013 12:12
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Quincyh posted:My biggest facepalm is one I get pretty often! Tell them you can't just ask why you're white! 
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Dec 27, 2013 15:21
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I'm really jealous, I teach English to French adults and all of their mistakes are boring and not at all funny
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Dec 27, 2013 15:48
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I've had some funny ones from adult students. A Burundan man told the class that one difference between Canadian culture and his own is that in Canada, you are not allowed to fight your baby.
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Dec 27, 2013 17:50
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Soviet Commubot posted:I'm really jealous, I teach English to French adults and all of their mistakes are boring and not at all funny Are they sexy at least?
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Dec 27, 2013 18:16
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*said by 20yo French girl with a strong accent* Ze south of France 'as the most beautiful beaches in ze world
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Dec 27, 2013 20:05
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^^^^ I've been here for about 3 years, I'm way past French or French accents in any language being sexy. Mad Wack posted:Are they sexy at least? My average student is a 45 year old businessman, which isn't really my type. The funniest things any of them do are just slight vocab mistakes, like a 50 year old guy telling me his wife was 16 when he meant his daughter.
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Dec 28, 2013 08:01
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New Coke posted:I've had some funny ones from adult students. A Burundan man told the class that one difference between Canadian culture and his own is that in Canada, you are not allowed to fight your baby. It's true.
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Dec 28, 2013 08:07
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Recently, I've had very young students (5-8) doodling pictures of the Slender Man in their books. I also overheard one of the older kids telling the others the spooooooky story about the tall man with no face, who lives in the woods and makes scary noises on your cell phone. It's so weird seeing an urban legend being born. edit: forgot one. I was talking with a class of older students about the social aspects of fashion, and this happened.  so [male student], do you think you'd look good in a bright pink dress? No, I wouldn't. that's my p- I'd look FABULOUS.SurreptitiousMuffin has a new favorite as of 12:39 on Dec 28, 2013 |
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Dec 28, 2013 09:44
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I grew up Mormon (didn't go on a mission) and the church has always been prideful of it's Missionary Training Center's ability to teach new missionaries a foreign language in like a month and a half. Does anyone know what method they use? I'm sure part of the success is that the 18 year olds they ship off to foreign countries have no option but to learn since they start knocking on doors right away. As a side note: growing up rumor was the military was so impressed with LDS missionary language skills that they asked them to share their teaching methods, but it turned out to not work for them. Naturally the church said it was because the Spirit of the Lord wasn't accompanying the solders. Or something.
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Dec 28, 2013 09:46
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Tiggum posted:I couldn't even do that. The textbook we used seemed to have just the most absurdly useless vocabulary in it. Unless I'm in a situation where I need to inform someone that a horse has eaten my hamburger, I'm pretty much out of luck. Feuerwerk? Oh my god, the flashbacks! I'm not terribly fantastic at German, after learning it for 3.5 years, admittedly almost 8 years ago. My level of vocabulary is greater than my ability to form good sentences, so I would probably end up sounding like.. "Where Prison and How Long Man in it for Big Heap Sentence?' But I am more advanced than "Heh, mein Hamburger!" which is always good. My mother's half German, but was born in and grew up in Australia and so doesn't exactly get the opportunity to use her German skills. While on a train in Germany, she tried to ask a woman "where did you grow up?" and ended up asking her "where were you killed?"
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Dec 28, 2013 10:15
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Nuts and Gum posted:I grew up Mormon (didn't go on a mission) and the church has always been prideful of it's Missionary Training Center's ability to teach new missionaries a foreign language in like a month and a half. Does anyone know what method they use? I'm sure part of the success is that the 18 year olds they ship off to foreign countries have no option but to learn since they start knocking on doors right away. Mysticism at its best, folks. Actually, the 'secret' is plain ol' immersion. And I doubt it's actually just a month and a half, for that matter. The only time 'a month and a half' is sufficient time for learning is when the person involved already knows the basic material (e.g. programming at a fairly advanced level) and is just changing gears (to a new language/framework, to continue the programming analogy). No way someone's going to pick up a language fluently in a month and a half.
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Dec 28, 2013 10:22
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Nuts and Gum posted:I grew up Mormon (didn't go on a mission) and the church has always been prideful of it's Missionary Training Center's ability to teach new missionaries a foreign language in like a month and a half. Does anyone know what method they use? I'm sure part of the success is that the 18 year olds they ship off to foreign countries have no option but to learn since they start knocking on doors right away. I've come across a number of Mormon kids on mission here in Korea and not one of them has anything but rudimentary skills. The ones in Japan had a much better command of the language. Your Mormon mileage may vary. ME: “Okay, who knows what ‘to dispose of’ means?” STUDENT 1: “I know. It’s when you throw someone out.” ME: “SomeONE?” STUDENT 1: “Oh! Oh, no!” *laughs* “SomeTHING!” STUDENT 2: “But if it is a dead body, then you are still correct.” STUDENT: “We had an exchange student once. He wasn’t a normal American….he was kind of darker!” STUDENT ONE: “What do you think about working mothers?” STUDENT TWO: “I’m very attracted to them.” STUDENT: “My friend was so happy when she got tan. I guess she wants to be a black person, because she like R&B music.”
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Dec 28, 2013 12:34
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bringmyfishback posted:ME: “Okay, who knows what ‘to dispose of’ means?” This somehow reminded me of a great instance from my old eikaiwa days. The only people in Japan with enough time AND money to regularly attend are invariably retirees and some of them have quite the sense of humor. Me: "What did you do last weekend?" Student: "I bought something!" Me: "Oh, what did you buy?" Student: "Let's guess! It's expensive... It is made of stone... It's my home in the future.. Can you guess?" Me: "I give up!" (Because stone house seemed like a stupid guess.) Student(with the biggest rear end grin on his face): "It's a grave!" Me: 
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Dec 28, 2013 12:55
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RillAkBea posted:This somehow reminded me of a great instance from my old eikaiwa days. The only people in Japan with enough time AND money to regularly attend are invariably retirees and some of them have quite the sense of humor. I generally do not miss eikaiwa at all, but quotes like this were definite highlights.
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Dec 28, 2013 13:14
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