Language Teacher Identity Reflection 1
This reflection was written after observing the conversational English class for a week, and doing introductions to the students at KyungHwa Girls High School. The prompt is as follows :
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Reflection Post 1:
Anticipatory Planning and Objectives: What are your primary concerns and goals before getting in front of the class to teach the lesson designed by the native English-speaking teacher (NEST) or your own lesson? What are some strategies and resources you need to consider when preparing to teach Korean learners of English as a foreign language (EFL)? What barriers or issues are you anticipating for your teaching experience?
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My primary goal before getting in front of the class to teach a lesson is to get the students interested and excited. People who are interested in the thing they are learning in class will almost always learn more than somebody who is not interested. In recent years kids tend to have shorter attention spans, and I’ve observed students playing games or drawing on their iPads during class. On Youtube, the most important part is the first 5-10 seconds of a video, and on TikTok it's 1-4 seconds. This measurement is the average attention span people have to determine interest in that video. Since it is the very beginning of the video where people click off the most often, it would be the very beginning of the class where the students mentally click off of the lesson. If you do not capture the attention of students early, they will also be less likely to pay attention later. Another goal is to get them ready to speak in English. I want to prepare questions about their morning, lunch, weekend, or other topics to get them started in speaking English, given it is a conversational English class.
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Some of my concerns after observing the class during our first week is getting the students in quieter classes to speak up, and the students in louder classes to be quiet. During this week I want to more consciously observe how Greg reels in the rowdy kids and coaxes out the shy kids so I can do it in the same way, since they are already used to those methods of handling the class.
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Another concern of mine is the gap of English proficiency between the students' presentations and their English skill. Most of them will translate everything rather than being able to speak in that way from their own minds. This gap can be so big it's alarming. After hearing about English Fever from an article by JinKyu Park, I understand why they translate rather than really learn and understand the material. According to the article, “​​More than half of the money is being spent on ‘English education’” and “Young children have been sent to foreign countries for the acquisition of English” which gives English proficiency a much stronger importance than other subjects. Cho and Peter’s article really highlights the importance of English as well, saying “English has undeniably become entrenched worldwide, with little chance of its power diminishing any time in the near future.” I have heard firsthand from the students about how much they study, and I’m sure they are very busy from their other classes. A lot of students might take translating shortcuts to save time for other classes since translators are so easy to use. Even in my own highschool Spanish class a lot of students would translate their assignments because they didn't have the energy or interest to learn it well. The presentations the students gave were very high level with difficult vocabulary and concepts. I’m curious what they do in their regular English class, especially when some of them have been learning English since they were 7, but still could not make a basic sentence when speaking to them. I would also like to see what vocab and grammar they have learned recently so I can incorporate that into my lesson.
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Another concern is their English pronunciation. As a learner of the Korean language and others, I have started to notice the difference in my own pronunciation in each language. I think the way you hold your mouth changes for each language. This is what produces the Korean accent and any Korean who speaks English without changing their overall mouth shape when speaking has a Korean accent. If I was to do my lesson on this, I would try to explain how to make different mouth shapes for sounds in english. For example, I have noticed that my own pronunciation of the letter “f” depends heavily on the vowel or letter that follows. F followed by an open sound like ‘a’ puts the teeth in the middle of the lips and lifts it up, but if F is followed by ‘ee’ sound, the front of the teeth are on the inside of my lip and pushing back into the ‘ee’ sound. In the article by JinKyu Park, it is mentioned that “examples of Korean parents forcing their children to undergo a frenectomy” and that “the longer and more flexible tongue produced by the surgery could better produce English sounds such as the ‘r’ in ‘rice”. I do not think Koreans need to get surgery to pronounce any English word. Since the desire to be good at English is very strong in Korean society, a lesson on ‘native-like pronunciation’ would be very beneficial.
Language Teacher Identity Reflection 2
The prompt :
Instructional Strategies and Adaptations: After doing the self-introduction presentation, assisting the NES with their lesson, and teaching the NES lesson, what instructional strategies are you thinking of incorporating into your own lesson? After spending time with the students, what are some unforeseen challenges you anticipate happening? What information are you gaining from your observations and courses readings that you expect to help you with your lesson design and implementation?
Prior to meeting the students and learning about their English proficiency, I wondered what kind of content we would be teaching. What I imagined was something more like my own language courses in highschool and college; somewhat clear grammar and vocab instruction, paired with a game or activity that helped us to practice and internalize the new language. I was also very curious about their proficiency level, given that most of them had been learning English since they were in elementary school. In my personal experience learning other languages, I was able to speak and understand about a variety of subjects and hold conversations after only two years. I was greatly surprised when some of them were unable to have a simple conversation.
I am teaching at the highschool, so I watched Greg’s lesson and did introductions the first week. This week alone was very informative about the students’ strengths and weaknesses in the language. They were finishing presentations the first week, so we got to watch their presentations. Their presentations used difficult vocabulary, and some of them discussed topics I don’t even know about. Despite this, they were clearly reading off of a translated script, and many of them didn’t know how to pronounce words in their presentations. I am also positive they would not be able to answer a follow up question about their presentation. This makes me wonder if English is really that hard of a language to learn or if it is their teacher’s fault.
The root of this failure to learn functional and communicative English is rooted in the context that English is taught in their regular English classrooms. Greg’s class is a conversational English class, focused more on getting the students to use English. I heard from students that in their regular English class, there is one vocabulary test that tests on 50 words out of a list of over 1000 words. This test only happens once during the semester, leading most students to cram for it and forget after. Learning language mainly for educational reasons creates this problem. The article “The impact of EFL testing on EFL education in Korea” (Choi 2008) highlights the main motivation to learn English, firstly to pass tests, secondly to get jobs, and lastly to communicate with foreigners. Koreans put a lot of emphasis on education and testing, as it leads to getting a better job.
Outside of English language education, they are also very strict with other subjects. I think this is what led a lot of the students to use translating apps for their presentation as it is easier to take a shortcut with language than it is with math or science. There is even a saying in Korea: Sleep 3 hours, you have a chance to enter SKY schools (top 3 universities in Korea). Sleep 4 hours, you can get into other universities. Sleep 5 hours, don't dream of going to college. Many young students are sacrificing their lives for the hope of going to college and being successful.
Given the education culture in South Korea, and the class that we are teaching here at Kyounghwa, I am concerned as to what I can teach them. As a Native English speaker and teacher, I would like to teach them texting slang. As a language learner myself I would be very interested in this topic. However Koreans learn English mainly in an educational context. Would this lesson be beneficial to them? It does no harm to try.
Teaching Greg’s lesson gave me a lot of insight into Greg's class. We taught Running Diction, where students practice the basic 4 skills of language; reading, speaking, listening, and writing. They read riddles, told them to a writer, and then the writer wrote down the riddles and then they all had to solve them. Riddles are one thing that can be very language specific: What is in Earth, Mercury, Saturn, and Mars, but not Neptune or Venus - The letter ‘R’. This activity was good for getting students to think in English and communicate in English. I want to teach a lesson that can do the same, and get the students to learn in English.
Something I have noticed while in Korea is the insane amount of loanwords. The Korean language takes many loanwords from English, and even some from Japanese and German. The English craze in Korea is probably the main reason for this. This is creating what people call Konglish. Rather than using the native Korean speech, they use Koreanized english. In the article “Teachers’ attitudes towards Korean English in South Korea” by Ahn, she mentions that “English terms (are) replacing Korean lexis (e.g. parking instead of the Korean term ju-cha); and (v) creation of pseudo loanwords, possessing semantic modification (e.g. eye shopping ‘window shopping”. These developments have come about from English fever and the increase in teaching English in schools. As generations go on, more Korean media and language turns towards English. This begs the question, as English teachers, do we reinforce their English from American English standards, or do we accept the Koreanized English words as Korean English. Given that English is being taught mostly in an educational context, the baseline for English should be from a native English standpoint. In the future as English becomes taught for mainly communicative purposes, learning to understand different dialects (similar to British English versus American English) would be a higher priority than educational usage.
Since we are native speakers of English focused on communicative English teaching and learning, we should focus on giving the students the tools to use English in a communicative style. I want to implement as much speaking and listening as possible, as well as casual speech for their own interest and practice.
Language Teacher Identity Reflection 3
The prompt :
Classroom Dynamics and Student Reactions: As you design your lesson plan, in what ways are the classroom dynamics you've experienced informing how you create your lesson? In what ways can you engage Korean EFL learners in your lesson implementation? How do you anticipate the students responding to your lesson and teaching style? What unexpected things might occur during your teaching? What have you learned, or gained, from teaching the NES's lesson?
One thing I noticed in the classroom is the way Greg’s teaching style affects the students. He is very animated, goofy, and has fun in his class. He chooses activities that are very interactive and interesting, which in turn gets the students to engage in class. We noticed when teaching the class that when we did not bring that exciting and engaging energy, the students did not engage as passionately, nor get super interested in the lesson. Most of Greg’s topics have been good challenges for them without being super difficult.
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Before I think about my lesson I want to think about the students and what they would be interested in, as well as what they are used to in Greg’s class. When we taught Greg’s lesson, we realized how important it was to keep track of the delivery of the lesson and rules. When we gave the directions many times, we would tend to forget certain parts and add them later. This caused more confusion than when Greg did it the same every time. Greg also adds a lot of competitive aspects in his lessons, and it engages them because they want to be the winners. I think this is a really good method I want to incorporate into the lesson.
Given the fact that some classes are rowdy and some are more reserved, I think it would be a good idea to create two possible versions of the same activity. One version to wake them up, get them warmed up in English, and draw out their energy. The other to calm them down and draw their attention into English. Another way to grab their attention in the lesson would be to incorporate their interests into the lesson. A lot of them have watched a certain K-Drama, and using the characters in the lesson would be a good way to engage them in the lesson. Mixing this with content that only we as Native English Speakers from America would be a good way to teach them a part of our culture and language.
There is a part of teaching English that can be difficult, and it is the fact that English has so many varieties around the world. English is already a difficult language, and many people are learning it from different starting points. When we understand where somebody’s first language comes from, we can better understand how and why they make the “mistakes” that they do when learning English. The biggest question is whether or not to correct their English to a native level when they still communicate effectively. This was mentioned in Canagarajah, S. (2014) and Holliday, A. (2005) articles, as well as our past articles and chapter readings.
I have also personally noticed that it is relatively difficult for the students to learn English, compared to how I feel learning other languages. Their proficiency is lower than what they are being taught most times. Although that is for college entrance exams or job interviews, the importance on their English education is much too strong for them to actually learn functional English without a study abroad/living abroad experience.
Language Teacher Identity Reflection 4
The prompt :
Lesson Reflection and Professional Growth: As you prepare to teach your own lesson, what are some of the most significant teaching and learning moments you experienced? What are some successes in the NES lessons that you taught? How would you identify the areas of improvement in your future teaching? If you are an education major, what new skills have you been exposed to regarding your own teaching practice? If you are not an education major, what skills have you tapped into that will serve your future career?
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I have experienced so many moments here at Kyunghwa that have opened my eyes to the complexity of teaching English. There are so many things to consider. For one, you must consider the classroom and the students. However many students you have for a lesson, the energy level of each class, the rewards you might give in the class, and how the students will be the most engaged, are all factors you must think about. However there are even more factors outside of the classroom to consider like the country that you are teaching, the cultural impacts of diversity in English teacher identity, the differences in their native language compared to English, and the target of learning English. I have learned how to think about my teaching in a much broader sense, and it has helped me to help the students learn better.
Some of the successful points in the time we taught the NES lesson last week was utilizing our knowledge of Korean to help engage them. When reading example tongue twisters, there were two slides of Korean tongue twisters. When classes were quiet and unengaged, we were able to bring up the energy of the class by trying those tongue twisters ourselves first. It is always more appealing to hear somebody who is learning your native language speak, rather than be the one speaking in your second language. I noticed that they use more Korean to speak English than they do English. They often converse in Korean to figure out how to say a word in English, or explain the rules to their friends who did not understand. This is great for us, because if we can use Korean to help explain, it puts the attention back onto the teachers rather than their friend, which gives them zero English input. However I believe this does hinder their learning process for English.
I have begun to notice that time seems to be the key to learning a language. A baby will learn the language in its country just by being immersed in it for some years. It should take less time for us to learn, since we already know what things are, and how they can interact. We only need to learn a new way to say things aka the second language. I think a big key to learning language is spending time developing the language profile - only talking, thinking, listening, and writing in the target language for a set amount of time will do the most good. Rather than translating everything into your native language and repeating, taking just one day out of your week to operate in a different language would hypothetically do 10x more language development and lead to fluency quicker.
I want to create something to help people learn languages, and it is one of the main reasons I participated in this program. I am so grateful to have come here. Every moment is adding to my knowledge of language learning, as well as teaching. If I had not learned the knowledge from these readings, I doubt I would be able to create anything about learning language that is anywhere near to the most perfect and well thought out version that is possible. The critical thinking skills I have seen demonstrated in the readings remind me of my second semester English class. “Everything explodes”. The idea is that nothing is simply anything. A chair is not just a chair, it is a design, a place to sit, a piece of artwork; you can explode it socially, economically, globally, scientifically, literally, and many other ways. Teaching is the same. It explodes socially, globally, scientifically, artistically, and in many more directions. I can’t wait to blow up language.
Final Reflection
The prompt :
Backward-Looking:
1. How much did you know about the practicum before we started? How did you feel about
teaching English in a foreign country and working with EFL secondary students before the
practicum?
2. What process did you go through to understand EFL teaching in Korea and get to know
Kyunghwa students?
3. Have you done a similar kind of work in the past?
4. In what ways have you gotten better at working with Korean secondary students?
5. In what ways do you think you need to improve?
6. What problems did you encounter while you were working during the practicum? How did you
solve them?
7. What resources/support did you find useful while participating in the practicum? Which ones
were especially helpful? Which ones would you use again?
Inward-Looking:
8. How do you feel about your overall learning/teaching experience in the practicum? What
parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about the practicum
experience?
9. What was especially satisfying to you about either the process or the finished work (e.g.,
lesson planning)?
10. What did/do you find frustrating about it?
11. What does this practicum experience reveal about you as a learner and as a teacher?
Outward-Looking:
12. Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently?
13. In what ways was your work or process similar?
14. If you were the instructor/faculty advisor of the practicum, what comments would you make
about your overall performance in the practicum? What grade would you give it? Why?
15. What the one thing you particularly want people to notice when they look at your
participation in the practicum?
16. If someone else were looking at your portfolio, what might they learn about who you are?
Forward-Looking:
17. What would you change if you had a chance to do this practicum over again?
18. As you look back, what's one thing that you would like to try to improve upon? What have
you learned from your classmates during the practicum?
19. What might you want next year's practicum participants to know about the program? What
advice you would like to give them?
20. Overall, what have you learned from this practicum? To what extent have you experienced
personal and professional growth during the practicum? Based on your experience in Korea,
what's one goal you would like to set for yourself as a learner and a teacher for the future?
I wanted to do this program last year, but was rejected. There were a lot of applicants and my first semester grades were not the best, so I understood why I did not go at that time. After hearing about the horrors of the program from my friend Keely, I was glad I didn’t go and after last year when I discovered what I want to do in this world I was glad I did not go last year. I know I would not have been ready for this and the information in the readings would not have been as helpful to me as they are now. I knew a lot about the program, but I had no idea what it would look like to teach these students. I was curious about their English proficiency since many of them learn English from a young age, and I was curious as to the cultural differences between American and Korean classrooms.
After first interacting with the students I could really see the difference in their speaking level compared to the vocabulary they were learning. While we were not in their grammar class and more in a speaking class we were able to talk to them a good amount. In most classes we were in groups with them talking about random things to get to know them and have them get to know us. It was kind of awkward at first, since we didn't know what they knew how to talk about. We learned quickly how to talk with them and would talk to them a lot at lunch. I have never done anything like this before other than in my own language courses, and we normally have a structure about what we are talking about with our peers.
I think we have all really improved with speaking with them, especially when it comes to rephrasing things to make more sense or relate with them about Korean media. I still feel awkward and unsure of what to talk about now, since many of them have talked to us about the general things already yet generally have more trouble understanding more complex English. This is one of the problems I have experienced with the students as well. They are unable to speak at the level of the words they learn and they have very little confidence to speak. They have asked us very complex questions, but struggle to understand our answers. I have really simplified my speech while I have been here to accommodate for it, despite it being a complex question.
It was really helpful to use some Korean when talking to them, mostly when they are confused. They used Korean to help each other in class when one student understood the English and another did not. Instead of a student being afraid to talk to us because we might not understand one another, I can use some Korean to bring the students out of their shell. Using Papago also was helpful in some ways, although translation is still not good enough to be trusted completely.
I generally really enjoyed this program. For my own purposes I found the classwork interesting and helpful, especially the readings. I also enjoyed the food at Kyung Hwa, the students were all nice, and the house we stayed at was comfortable. The workload was a bit heavy but manageable and the excursions were fun but exhausting. I really liked getting to dip our toes into Greg’s lesson before creating our own lesson, and I especially liked talking to the students outside of class. It was also very heartwarming when students would see us outside of school and wave to us or say hi. The only part of the program I dislike is how short it felt. Time flies when you're having fun!
I cannot say I find much satisfaction in the program yet. I might feel satisfied when we have packed up, cleaned the house, and left for the airport, but not as I write this now. Something in me feels unsatisfied because of the work I have ahead of myself. I need to move into my one room, get my alien registration card, figure out my classes for Korea University and hopefully make new friends in Korea. This program feels more like my introduction to Korea than something separate that I can feel satisfied upon finishing. My only frustration has been co-teaching, I have very clear ideas about how to do things yet I can have trouble expressing and collaborating with another person. I think I find satisfaction in doing the hard things because I know it means I am growing.
The largest difference in how I did work compared to others was with my Identity Map. I decided to make a short animation rather than create a static map. This allowed me to express the vision in my mind and illustrate in a creative way that even put me a little bit out of my comfort zone. I also made a video for our lesson that was more edited and comical for the students to watch. I think leaving this video on my youtube channel and sharing it with the students would help them to review our lesson and reminisce on the time we spent with them. The others also made videos for their lessons but they were more practical for their lesson compared to our video.
If I was the instructor I think everybody deserves 100% in this class. We all participated in everything, worked hard, and contributed to every discussion for this class and for the students. There were so many extra events that we were not aware of, yet we still participated in for the sake of the students. The presentation that Seon Hui organized for us, singing at both church services, as well as all of the planned events too. We had such a packed schedule compared to most of our regular schedules, and it happened while we were thrown into a new country. Not all of us want to be teachers, or even have any experience teaching so as long as we have done our best I think there is no reason to deduct points.
The main thing I want people to notice about my participation in this program is what I have learned while being in this program. I have learned so much through experience about how to talk to native korean speakers in English, how to interact and teach high school girls, and so much about Korean culture that we don’t learn in class. I also learned a lot of valuable information from the readings about learning and teaching language that I will apply to my own language learning journey.
If somebody was to look at my portfolio, they would be able to learn a lot about me. I plan on using the website for my future affairs as well, so I have a small bio about me for general purposes. When they click on my portfolio they will be able to see all of my reflections, and even my map. My map is very personal and you can infer a lot about my identity from it even without the narrative. They would be able to see a lot about my background and innermost thoughts. Besides this I believe they might be able to infer how much I enjoyed this program.
If I could do this practicum over again I would not do it. I have gained what I needed from this program, and while the workload was challenging in a good way, I have no intention to teach in this way again. I have ideas that I want to build upon to help teach language to everybody and anybody, but those ideas do not need me to be in a classroom teaching. I am perfectly exhausted from this program and I am ready to switch it up.
The most impactful thing that has stuck with me during this program is something I believe Josh said, “Teachers are professional learners”. I love to learn many things, especially language. Being a teacher for this short time has solidified and expanded my understanding of learning language. I want to improve on my own language journey and try out new methods of learning that I have gathered from this experience as I continue my journey living in Korea.
If I could tell future participants something, it would be to stay ahead of the game. It became so easy to fall behind on some assignments because we are so focused on the students and enjoying Korea during our short time here. I would also want to tell them to enjoy every moment whether good or bad because it will all become a memory so quickly.
The biggest thing I have learned during this program is that I am an adult. Being on the teacher's side of the classroom really revealed to me that I am not a little kid anymore. I feel like I have matured in some ways yet I have revived my inner child in other ways. The only goal I keep for myself is to continue to evolve and continue to grow into a more expansive human being. I am thankful for the expansion that this program was able to bring to me.