I am going to go teach English in Korea. Do you think it is possible or would be effective to incorporate aspects of the LingQ method into the classroom? How could this be accomplished/How might this work, and would it be effective?
That will depend a lot on what kind of class you have, and how much control you have over the class and over the students’ homework. If you are going to teach in a hogwan, you will probably have no control over what you do. You could always speak to the hogwan owner and suggest having an English library and having the kids read one book per week for homework. They may or may not receptive.
Hi,
It sounds like a great idea. But when you see how ingrained the grammar-only method is in Korea you will find it tough I think.
I have many Korean students here in London and I am constantly trying to get them to read more books, do more listening, use LingQ, but to no avail. They all want to focus on grammar.
I had an intermediate student who told me he had been studying grammar for ten years. I said to him that if he had done lots of listening and reading in those ten years he would be at a much higher level than he is. But he wouldn’t believe me and insisted on more grammar.
Anyway, I think it’s great to try it. A little at a time.
Dont think youll have much luck in a public school or even hagwon. Koreans are REALLY keen on blunt memorization, heavy grammar more so than the school systems in the west. You’ll have better luck if you private tutor koreans. Maybe you could convince one at a time…
Reason they study grammar and memorize soo much is for test scores to get good jobs after university. Most end up studying english hardcore for a year or 2 just for this score. They forget everything they memorized soon after =p.
My wife is korean and learnt english this way ( grammar and memorization). She knows a hell of alot more about grammar than most native speakers thats for sure. This method worked for her ( but i think having me around to talk everyday helped her alot aswell. Something a typical korean learner doesnt do is practice speaking everyday) however grammar/memorization doesnt work for 99% of cases =p. I do think my wife was able to learn this way because of one main reason : She loves english. Shes was determined to learn it and nothing could stop her.
I talked to her about lingq a bunch of times but shes not interested at all and not willing to give it a try. LEarning grammar, memorization , tests and taking classes with a teacher is her Idea of properly learning languages. I cant say that ive had any success learning korean with lingq ( its a work in progress) But I do know that I’ve learned ALOT with lingq. I think until i prove myself in korean with my wife she’ll keep believing its a waste of time.
Anyways, Hopefully you have some success but knowing koreans I wouldn’t hold my breadth…
I think the situation in korea is same with that of china, we chinese people learn English from the sentence structures. We indeed pay much efforts on the Grammar and vocabulary. English is a requested course in China. People will be asked to take it in any kind of test, such as the University entrance examination, the postgraduate test and so on. But, the fact proves that it is useless.people in china can not good at speaking english even after several years learning. It is a teaching problem in China. Nobody knows how to improve it. of course. it is not 100%. many chinese can speaking english well. it depends. if it possible, i’d like to communicate with you guys about english teaching. thanks
To continue a bit with the Chinese theme: things may be changing, albeit slowly. I have heard that The Dulwich College in Beijing has been allowed to take in Chinese students who will be entirely taught in English. And isn’t there a DC in Korea? Perhaps those teachers there would be interested in LingQ? I ought to talk to my friend’s daughter-in-law.
I’d link this to the entire global “school” way of teaching languages (test based, heavy focus on vocab lists and grammar rules)- Maybe it’s even more pronounced in Asia but I don’t think very many schools/universities teach languages very well at all. (some private courses/schools may differ of course)
It’s not only with the language learning that Chinese are heavy on memorization. In many other subjects we’re required to memorize a lot of things that we forget later on. It also doesn’t help that the Chinese school system has a lot of tests.
I’ve seen many of my former classmates try to achieve fluency by using the method of memorizing grammar and vocabulary, and they still can’t speak English well, even though many of them started learning at a young age. Native speakers don’t think of grammar when they speak, and people learning a language shouldn’t either. It’s nice to know about the language you are studying, though practice and using the language is the key to fluency.