TEFL Newfield New Jersey

When teaching english in South Korea teachers need to take several factors into affect. There are cultural influences and language differences that play a major role in how South Korean students learn and even how they approach learning. Confucianism strongly influences the cultural roots of the South Korean students; therefore, they value quietness and being less opinionated. These characteristics do not encourage active participation in group discussions nor does the belief that the teacher is an authority figure who should lead the class, not be questions, and who's words should be listened to and written down. Koreans are also raised to respect and honor their elders so group dynamics that include students of various ages may prevent open expression and sharing. Students would not want to ask questions that they think the teacher may not know the answer to or make an elder member of the class look less intelligent due to the questions or class discussions they bring up. They also have a group centered view of their world as opposed to the American self centered view. Due to this students will do things that will benefit the group has a whole. They will express themselves in ways that are more general or less direct so that they do not say or do anything that would offend anyone in the class. Along with cultural differences english teachers need to be aware of the language difficulties that their students will have to deal with on their journey conquering the english language. One of the major phonetic differences that teachers will see is the difficulty correctly pronouncing some of the letters in the english language. Korea characters or letters each have one distinct sound that is associated with it. In the english language each letter can have multiple sounds depending on the word that it is used in. This difference can create difficulties reading, writing, and speaking. There are some sounds that native Korean students may struggle with when learning english because they do not have an equivalent sound in their native tongue. The letters R and L are a prime example of this. Korean students will frequently struggle distinguishing between the two or pronounce them the same way. The formation of Korean words have a very structured form. The consonants come first and are followed by the vowels. In the english language the make up of words can be quite varied. Frequently Korean students learning english will incorrectly insert an extra letter to better fit with the form they are accustom to. teachers must also be aware that Korean words and sentences do not have accents or stresses which may cause some problems for the students when learning the stresses and rhythms of the english language. teachers must also be aware of the difference in words order that exist between english and Korean. english sentences are formed with a subject-verb-object order where Korean word order is subject-object-verb. The placement of other forms of speech are also different including the placement of adverbs. Students may need some time to translate words and change to word order. Students may require additional time when responding in class to mentally make those changes. Being prepared for these difficulties can help a teacher handle them when they arise. teachers can also make sure they create a safe welcoming working environment where students know that making mistakes is acceptable and expected. Perfect pronunciation should not be required or expected during all activities and students interests and goals should be taken in to account when planning lessons. teachers should also take time to educate themselves on the students' culture. Learning about the Korean religions, history, and cultural background will help teachers to form a better understanding of who their students re and where they come from. This will make the teachers more well rounded accepting and understanding. References Cho, B. (November 2004). Issues Concerning Korean Learners of english: english Education in Korea and Some Common Difficulties of Korean Students. Retrieved from http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/education/eal/eal-1-2/vol1-no2-koreanlearnersofenglish.pdf Lim, H. (May 5, 2003). Successful Classroom Discussions with Adult Korean esl/efl Learners. Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Lim-AdultKoreanshtml