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Problems for Korean StudentsThe purpose of this research essay is to highlight some of the challenges of learning english that are unique to the Korean people. As a result, they should be of interest to anyone seeking employment as an ESL teacher on the Korean peninsula. These educational hurdles range from being as simple and straightforward as having different alphabets, to being as complex and abstract as having a rich, historical “culture of education” that is both effective, yet very different from the educational systems and backgrounds of the native-english speaking teachers from the West. The best advice that can be given to anyone up front is simply to be open to different opinions, and eager to gain from the experience. The most obvious problem is also the easiest to address from a teaching standpoint. The Korean alphabet and the english alphabet do not share a single character. So some time must be spent with the true beginner students, going over the english alphabet, reciting the ABC’s. One thing that will help with this is perhaps the most obvious similarity between the two written languages -- i.e. both are written from left to right, top to bottom. The Korean language does not make use of capitals, nor do they make as much use of punctuation, in particular contractions -- like “I’m”, “it’s”, “don’t”, etc. -- as we do in english. So the rules of capitalization and punctuation need to be taught shortly after or alongside the ABC’s, in order to allow them to understand something as basic as the Level 0 introduction “I’m John, and I’m from America”. The next likely stumbling point is going to be the fact that english is not phonetic, whereas Hangeul, the Korean name for their language, is. Many students, even at the University level who have been studying english for 10 years or more, will still be unable to shake the habit of pronouncing the letter “o” as “owe”, using only the long-o sound. The fact that english vowels can have up to 5 or more different pronunciations is probably the first major put off for any adult Korean beginner ESL student. It is a simple fact that written Korean is much easier to pronounce, or read out loud, because it sounds the way it looks. Since we are now on the topic of the spoken language, we come up against what is perhaps the most daunting task facing any ESL teacher who must teach an adult Korean beginner-level student. Hangeul does not have as many consonant sounds as the english language. From a strictly pronunciation standpoint, the letters ‘r’, ‘f’, ‘v’, and ‘z’ simply have no equivalent construction. Therefore, significant time must be dedicated to drilling these sounds into their phonetic vocabularies. Everything up to this point can be taught simply by rote memorization and mimicking of pronunciation. Grammar, however, requires us to get more mentally involved, because it is the knowledge that enables the student to begin creating meaningful sentences on their own. The following table illustrates some of the basic differences between Hangeul and english: english Korean (Hangeul) uses articles (a, an, the, etc.) does not uses pre-positions uses post-positions uses S-V-O word order uses S-O-V word order While the pre- vs. post-positions and word orders are at least equivalent between the two languages, the fact that articles simply do not exist in Hangeul represents another major challenge for the beginner to intermediate Korean ESL student to overcome. The final category of challenges to be mentioned in this essay are also the factors that ESL teachers in Korea are the least equipped or even able to address. These are what can only be described as “cultural differences”. In Korea, students who do not perform at a “passing” level do not “fail”. They are pushed into the next level of education, regardless. In addition, by the time they reach university levels, they are not grouped according to level -- they are grouped according to major. So anyone teaching a university level class of Koreans studying english will have a wide range of skill levels in each class. Finally, due in part to the pervasiveness of Confucianism throughout their culture, Korean students expect to be “taught”, rather than to “develop a skill” in the classroom. Perhaps more than any single factor, such as teacher skill or student potential, this ‘barrier to speech’ impedes the Korean student’s ability to improve. The way to overcome this obstacle is to endure generations of change. Fortunately, those kinds of changes are already occurring and gaining momentum.