Barbara TS#6

This session was very informative because I asked Dojun what had helped him the most in learning English.  His response was that the best way to teach was to consider the student’s level of achievement in English.  For example, if a student’s level was too low, he/she could not follow the conversation.  If the level was higher, then it was important to direct the training accordingly. He said that he liked everything about learning – speaking, listening and free talking. He also said that learning about culture was very important and that it was helpful to learn about American culture or traditions particularly in the areas of political issues, movies, pop songs, American celebrities, drama and day-to-day readings. As an example of culture, Dojun told me about funerals in S. Korea.  He said that the people are loud and that they drink a lot of alcohol.  They talk about the (dead) person to each other and don’t want the person to be sad.  The family serves a meal and people eat and enjoy.  This concept gives me pause because I just attended a funeral this week-end and this type of response was not the case.  I hadn’t really thought about it but after the memorial service we went to the home of the deceased.  There was a lot of food but the talk was muted and not happy.  There was sadness everywhere yet we called it a celebration of life. 

Dojun then went on to say that American culture is more excited than English culture.  We talked about the differences and he said that Americans are more eager to talk and explain things to listeners.  He thinks that American jokes are childish, particularly knock knock jokes.  I couldn’t stop laughing at this comment because I had never thought about it having been raised on these jokes. Dojun cannot understand why they are funny.  (I still think they are.)

We then switched to teaching grammar and discussed some verb forms that he found confusing:  have to, want, should and shall.  I gave him sentences with each verb and explained how each is used.  We then ended our session with a discussion of idioms and euphemisms.