Korean Pop Culture

I can't think of nothing but young idol groups. I don't remember since when cute, beautiful, and sexy girls and tall, pretty, and well-built boys swept the stage. I asked several people around me, "What comes to you first when you think of Korean pop culture?" All the men's answers were "Girl Generation"
What's the required talent of the singers? Powerful voice, outstanding singing ability, or attractive looks?
Kids and teenagers are crazy about the young idol groups. When I ask my students why they liked them, almost everyone said, they're cute, pretty, handsome, and cool.  Good looking apprearance is everything. What about the music?

TED-Changing Education Paradigms by Sir Ken Robinson

Watch this video if you like.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html

Creativity expert Ken Rovinson explains the change of education paradigms.
It reminds me of our first lesson of "Critical Pedagogy".
However, 'magic hand' made me distracted. What is it?
Click it and you'll get to know it.

His other talk in 2006 "School Kills Creativity."

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

His recent talk in 2010 "Bring on the Learning Revolution!"

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

About the possibilities for critical Pedagogy in my class

If I had read Shin's case study 2 years ago, I would have thought that she might have chosen one of the prestigeous high school which has good English speaking students, and wouldn't have thought much of it.

Shin had two-part case study to explore the possibilities for critical pedagogy in Korea. One case  was the 14 hours after-school program with 12 ninth graders. The other case was 16 class meeting with 28 eleventh graders. 
Critical dialogue helped students identify the issues, and learn collaboratively, had them engaged, and promoted communication in English. Teacher tried to help students develop arguments,  still maintain a certain level of authority, and  eventually foster learner autonomy. Students chose the topic by themselves, develop their ideas and express them. They dealt with the topic about cultural, economical, political, and social problems. I enjoyed reading her experiment and I think it was successful.

I'm co-teaching with a native teacher. We're teaching students in Grade 5, and 6 mainly focusing on listening, and speaking skills. We have about 30 students of varying proficiency in English in one class.

I think it's possible to adapt Shin's method to my class but it might be less 'critical' or not really 'critical'. Having critical dialogue with the students who can't answer right away to "How's it going?" is too much for them. Shin's students also reported that the biggest challenge was how to express their thoughts in English. At least those high school students could developed their own ideas or opinion. But what if the students had nothing to talk about the topic even in their native language.

So, first I would try to have this critical discussion about cultural, educational, social, and political issues in the L1 class such as Korean, Do-duk, or Social studies class. My students are too much accustomed to the multiple questions or simple CCQs so they need time to think harder and practice to make their own perspectives. 

This year my Korean-American co-teacher and I aim to let our students talk a lot in English. When I reflected on my class, the one who speaks more is the teacher not the students. Let students use English not just study or learn about English. We're using the pattern drills, memorizing the model dialogue, building up vocab, reading the paragraphs, and performing the role play in order to have them talkative. Sometimes, through the role play students have a chance to produce their own meaning. They are put in the specific situations. They don't memorize the script and recite it. They make their own lines and perform it.

So far students' performance or produce is not satisfying but I will encourage them with confidence. Basic language skill should precede the higher thinking ability, I think.

"What do you think?" sounds like easy question but it's not to the person who may be given that question. It's still one of the uneasy questions to me.

Response to Elliot Patton's "Korea's Proofreading Woes"

   I read the editorial written by Elliot Patton in 2012 edition of The English Connection. He's a teacher at the University in Korea and I think he has lived in Korea for a good while enough to understand the details about Korean culture. In his editorial, he was shocked by our using incorrect English all around us. He pointed that sloppy Konglish and grammatical errors can be found easily around us. He made a list of many factors which can be blamed for that and he was concerned that those sloppy and awkward errors might potentially influence the foreign visitors, the foreign investors or even Korean parents who make the enormous investment on their children's English education. At the end he questioned what native English teachers can do to clean up "Konglish".

   I wonder why he's so upset and frustrated about it, though  his editorial didn't offend me at all. He sounds a little emotional rather than logical. In some point I agree with him. When I happened to see the unappropriate English on the advertisement, T-shirts, or traffic signs, I remembered I felt ashamed. That was more than 10 years ago. Lots of corrections have been done and still going on. Our English is not perfect yet but it's getting better enough not to make the foreigners frown.

   Last year one of the TESOL professor showed me a collection of bad English signs seen around the world such as "LADIES ARE REQUIRED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR"(Cocktail lounge, Norway), "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. IF YOU HAVE ANY SUITABLE FOOD, GIVE IT TO THE GUARD ON DUTY"(At a Budapest zoo) We Korean students couldn't find the mistakes at sight but a minute later we checked them out because we knew there must be some mistakes. The fact that Norwegians, Hungarians, Romans and other people who are not native English speakers also make similar mistakes, relieved me as well as amused me.

   I know written English requires strict form, advance planning, grammar, punctuation etc.  because writing is not transient, and it's formal and logical comparing to spoken English. However, in this globalized world, so many versions of English exist such as Singapore-English, Japanese-English, Chinese-English, Korean-English. I'm not saying that it's OK to use incorrect English but it's more important to send the message appropriately and get it right.   
   In the near future who will my kids mostly speak English to? Non-native speakers. It depends on the case but our children may have more chance to speak English with non-natives in their business. Their English may not be genuine but still I can say it's authentic. Now it's time to get used to many version of English.

   It took for me several hours to organize my opinion, do the draft, self editing, correcting, and reorganize it. If I wrote this in Korean It might take one third of the time that I spent writing this. I'm not still confident with my writing. Please don't be "nit picky" when you happen to find some awkward expressions or some errors in my writing, if you once understand my point.