1. Teaching English to Korean Students Understanding Their Particular Problems

2.  Korean language is totally different from English in structure.  English, Spanish, French, German and most other western languages are conclusion oriented language and use Roman alphabets, while  Korean and Japanese languages are situation oriented language and use their own writing characteristics.  Chinese also have their own writing characteristics, but as Chinese language is conclusion oriented language like English. So, for Chinese students, English is easier to learn.

3.  In English, conclusion of a sentence, verb comes first in the predicate clause.  In Korean, verbs come at the end: so the structure is totally reversed.  Native Spanish speaking students can speak English without so much difficulty if they could only convert Spanish words to English words.  Korean students can not speak English well even though they know the English words, because they need some delay time to convert the sentence structure before they utter out a sentence.

4.  Here is the table of comparison;  ( English ) ( Spanish ) ( Korean )  writing characteristics Roman Alphabet Roman Alphabet Korean Alphabet  back ground/ customs Europe Europe Asia  language origin/root Greek/ Roman Greek/ Roman Korean/ Altai  language structure conclusion oriented conclusion oriented situation oriented  accent/ stress frequent frequent none/ rare

5.  So, we need to understand the difference in language structure and customs between English and Korean language. We have to be cognitive that Korean students have to learn not only the semantic and lexical English words and phrases, but also the new sentence structures which are totally reversed to their native language.  And this means that when we deal with new Korean students, we have to speak more slowly and have to have patience waiting longer time until they start to say in English.

6.  It usually takes about one year until the new Korean students start to say a sentence in English even still with much mistakes and wrong pronunciations. It would take about 2-3 years until they can speak English without so much difficulty/ hesitation but still with some mistakes. It takes about 5-7 years for Korean students to speak English fluently with immediate code switching(*) ability.  (*) code switch – ability to switch from one language system to other language system

7.  Most ELL programs and books are focused on teaching native Spanish speaking students because the majority of ELL students in America are native Spanish speaking students including Mexican students. While Spanish is similar to English in language structure, Korean language is totally different in structure.  I want the teachers who have Korean students in their classes to understand that Korean students have more difficulty than other ELL students in learning English.

8.  Thank you for your effort in  understanding and teaching  Korean students with peculiar condition.