Don't insist on English!

Long time English teacher, Patricia Ryan asks a provokative question. You can guess what it's about from the title.

About Ngugi's article

Ngugi’s article kept reminded me of Korean history.

Korea had been colonized by Japan from the late 19th century to the end of World War Ⅱ. For more than half century, Japan had exploited Koreans, tried to eliminate Korean tradition and culture, and assimilated Koreans to Japanese. The most effective way to do so was to annihilate the Korean language. Children had to speak Japanese at school, as Kenyan children must use English at school. Achievement in spoken or written Japanese was ‘a ticket to higher realms’ and people who studied in Japan were considered modernists and intelligentsia.

Since the independence, Korean got less influenced by Japanese, unlike Kenya still get influenced by English. Japanese hasn’t been in the official or dominant status in Korea although we could find Japanese trace left in some dialects. Korean government tried to clear out all about Japan. Japanese pop culture had been banned to import until 2000.

When Japanese were suppressing Korea with the sword and the bullet, European and American fascinated Korean with the religion which focused on love and equality, with new scientific and medical technology, and with humanism and the modern education. Westerners were helpers and martyrs. When Korean War broke out, they helped Korea again. They were friendly nations on the side of Korea. While Korean has appreciated for their salvation, Western culture took the lead in Korean society.

The Koreans are living in a neo-colonized society without awareness.

Reading media texts

That’s hilarious. It made me laugh a lot at first sight.

It seems that people are having a house warming party. The hostess leads three friends to the dressing room. Her new dressing room is like a mini boutique with well-organized clothes, colorful shoes, and accessories. Friends are screaming in surprise, which is their highest praise. The hostess looks heartily satisfied. However, the men’s yelling sound from the next room puzzles them. What happens? Men are overwhelmed with joy as if their team got the championship in the World Cup. It looks that they couldn’t believe what they see now. Heineken! They are surrounded by hundreds of Heineken in the beer storeroom, which normally a house doesn’t have. Heineken storeroom is just as same as the hostess’ dressing room. The difference is that fridges are placed in all corners instead of the closets. Inside fridge, fresh green bottles are packed.

Through the clear comparison, it shows how different men and women’s interests are. Women are crazy for clothes, shoes, bags, and accessories. Men could die for beer, especially Heineken.  

This ad is telling women to understand the men’s love of beer. Men love beer as much as women love the fine apparel, or more than. Please understand men, face up to the difference, and don’t pick them on.

I don’t share the same taste with the women in the ad, but still I don’t feel uncomfortable at all. It simplifies men and women’s tastes and exaggerates them in a humorous way. This reminds me of my first trip to Europe 20 years ago. I went backpacking to the Western Europe alone. In Amsterdam, I toured Heineken Brewery, and got served free Heineken in the day time. After that tour, I got a little drunk, felt great, and I could remove all the intimidation caused by being alone in totally different culture for the first time. Since then, I became a fan of Heineken. Heineken is one of my reminiscences about my first adventure to the world.  

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.