Can Koreans Speak English

South Korea is a small but incredibly beautiful country, and during the 4 week TEFL you will have fantastic opportunities to experience the rich culture and history. Not only will you have the chance for local excursions, but based in Incheon, you will be less than an hour away from the lively city of Seoul on the express train. The first week of your program includes in-depth cultural orientations, ensuring you deeply understand the Korean way of life and culture. This includes a welcome dinner, tour of the local neighbourhood and the “Grand” Palace (Gyeongbok Palace), taekwondo class and learning South Korean cookery and language. Incheon is home to Korea’s only official Chinatown, where you can try jajangmyun (noodles with black bean sauce) at the Gongwachun restaurant and for...  [Read more]

Problems for learners in a Country of your choice: Italy In this paper I will address the issues I face as a teacher from the context of living and working in Italy, as well as the common problems my students encounter while learning and speaking English. I also want to draw attention to the input culture and society has on language, and look at how these factors influence dynamics within the classroom. Of course, it is nearly impossible to view ones self outside your own given cultural perspective, so as a result of this I will also be discussing my own assumptions on how I "imagined" people might act, compared to the reality of the situation. Often I neglect to take into account these differences, simply because I was raised in America, where I am used to a different set of cultural...  [Read more]

Pronunciation Problems for Chinese Students of English As a global language, English has been popularly taught as the second language in China for quite a few years. Now there are more Chinese people learning English on various purposes, such as applying for a higher paid job, studying and living abroad, or establishing business with western countries. According to my experience of learning and teaching English, it is harder to master English pronunciation than English grammar for Chinese students. Chinese grammar may appear quite simple compared to that of many highly-inflected Western languages (e.g. Russian, Latin, etc.), or even the low-scale verb conjugations, for instance, of English (e.g. "swim, swam, swum") because of the lack of inflections. Even though there are similarities...  [Read more]

Volunteer Teaching As I began my TESOL course in Phuket, I met all types of people wanting to be teachers. Some students needed to work immediately after graduation and others were going on to a college or university to further their academic careers. I was in the position of having to return home and finish other work commitments before I could embark on a teaching career. I soon realized that if I was going to be confident in my new found teaching skills and to have the opportunity to build on what I had learned, I was going to have to do something proactive in the area of teaching English as a second language even though I was not in the position to take a full time teaching position. In pondering my predicament, I realized that I did have an option that would serve me and people...  [Read more]

Learning Grammar - English as a Second Language Basics Several months ago during a dinner date, my friends commented on the articulation and enunciation of my speech. They said that they were not accustomed to hearing such language outside of a classroom environment. They suggested that I use utilize this natural ability to teach young children in a formal environment. However, I was deeply entrenched in the business realm and I could not fathom the thought of switching careers at this point in my life. It took a year working abroad in South Korea to reassure myself that a real need was present for my talents. I noticed the true motivation of my South Korean friends to learn the English language. They could readily identify and pronounce certain things but they were hesitant to speak for...  [Read more]

Should Students Be Allowed to Use Their Native Language in the Classroom When I first began teaching lessons during the TESOL Course I found myself almost automatically saying to the students, “English please,” after all it is an English class. However, I began to question myself about whether or not this was “correct” practice or if the students should in fact use their native language to assist them in the learning process. After doing some research I found the TESOL Law Code of Ethics. The Law of Ethics provided many vague and open-ended ideas. It suggested things along the lines of, “The foreign language teacher shall direct her whole professional effort to assist the students to develop his/her second language speaking ability.” It also mentions that TESOL teachers are to...  [Read more]