Teach English in Hangu Jiedao [incl. Datian Zhen] - Tianjin

Problems for learners in South Korea South Korea is a country where has an enormous population wanting to learn english. The Korean government has recently calculated that people in Korea spend 15 trillion won(their currency) on learning english every year. It is certainly a big market for english teaching and thus, we, as an EFL teacher, have a very good chance of going to Korea teaching them english. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to pre-study about Korean learners. In this article, I am going to focus on a few major problems facing learners of the english language in Korea. Firstly, one of the biggest problems many experienced teachers have found with Korean students is that they are very shy to talk first. In fact, they have trained in that way. In schools, teachers usually talk most of the times and students only listen and write. If teachers do not ask questions, students might not even speak a one word during the lessons. Therefore, it is vital that we, teachers encourage Korean learners to speak more by asking them lots of questions at least for the first few lessons. In this way, they will be unconsciously trained to speak more in english. They actually start to learn english from as young as a kindergarten student but because they are shy to speak and are afraid of making mistakes in english, their english communication skill usually improves slow. It is important that teachers give them many opportunities(activities) to speak and do not let them lose their face by correcting them too much in front of other people. Another major problem would be that many learners are not motivated to study english. Young students are forced to learn english by their parents and adults learners study english for surviving in the society. english has regarded as a must factor for ?success? and therefore it is inevitable for Koreans to learn english. It is the teacher?s role to make the class as fun as possible, so that the students do not feel so stressed and bored. Thirdly, Korean grammar is arranged almost opposite to the english one. In fact, they do not use english alphabets at all. Nowadays, even kindergarten students know english alphabets but grammar is still a problem for all levels of english learners. Many are having difficulty using articles such as ?a?,?an? and ?the? and sometimes the concept of english grammar ?S+V+O? itself is hard to be understood. It will take a little bit of time to get used to speak and write in english way and teachers should always be patient and sensitive to the students? change/improvement. Lastly but not leastly, a wrong english called ?Konglish?(Korean + english) is already widely spoken in Korea and it is hard to fix up these pronunciations and usages. They do not have ?R? sound in their language so when they say ?a ring? they pronounce it as it is ?a ling?. Likewise, they do not have ?F? sound so they speak it like ?P?. Many young people in Korea are very conscious of this problem. However, if they speak it in the correct way, they are usually rebuked for showing off their english. Above we have been discussed both attitudinal and structural problems of english learners in South Korea. They are shy to talk and afraid of making mistakes. Their grammar is different and wrong english is widely spoken. Moreover, some students study for someone else?s will or they have no other options but studying english, hence the level of self -motivation is quite low. There is an old saying ?Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will never be defeated.? We know now about the major problems Korean learners facing towards learning english. What we have to do now is to understand and accept these problems and try to help them overcome these barriers slowly. We should create an english speaking atmosphere and let them feel and appreciate english. Once they know how to enjoy english, every lesson will be a happy learning!