Important Things to Know Before Teaching Korean Students 🇰🇷
After the Japanese, Koreans form our next largest group of students. Besides not using -san with their name, what other things should we know to provide more targeted feedback and avoid misunderstandings?
Motivations For Learning English
While Japanese students have various reasons for studying English (e.g. watching English movies, talking to foreign friends, traveling, being sent abroad for work), Korean students’ motivations tend to fall into two categories: work and study.
From a young age, Koreans are aware that they’ll need English to be competitive. For instance, a survey found that 97% of middle school students believed that English was necessary for their future.
And they’re probably right. Most major corporations in Korea require a certain TOEIC score to qualify for positions and the country is the fourth in the world according to the number of students they send abroad every year. About half of these students go to the U.S., where South Korea is the third largest source of international students after China and India.
Korean English
While Korean English (or as Koreans like to call it, “Konglish”) shares many similarities with other East Asian Englishes, there are two main aspects that make it unique, and those are their use of “we/our” and active voice.
1. Koreans often say “we” and “our” when they mean “I” and “my.”
This leads to bizarre statements like, “This is our wife, Hyemin” or “This is our father” (even if the speaker has no siblings). You’ll also hear Koreans use we/our to refer to the environments they socialize in: “our school/company” and even “our country.” (e.g. “In our country, we eat kimchi every day” or “In our country, we start learning English in first grade.”)
This is because the Korean “we/our” in these situations means “me and the people in my in-group” instead of “me and you, the listener.”
2. Koreans often use the active voice instead of the passive voice.
When something good happens to someone, Koreans say that they “receive” it, so “I was welcomed by my family” becomes “I received a welcome from my family” and when something bad happens, you “suffer” it, so“I got beat up” becomes “I suffered a beating”. As a result, the passive voice does not come naturally to Korean students.
Make sure to point out mistakes involving “we/our” and passive voice and, explain why they sound strange. For example, you can send them explanations in the chat box like the ones portrayed in the picture below:
Don’t Be Surprised If Your Student...
1. Don’t be surprised if your Korean student asks about your age.
When meeting someone new, Koreans usually ask for the person’s age. That’s because the Korean language differs when one speaks to an older person or a peer. Koreans decide whether to use the respectful or the casual version depending on the listener’s age.
For example, if you speak to a Korean person of the same age, they will probably say that you’re “friends”. This is because the Korean word for “friend” also means “people of the same age who can speak casually to each other.” On the other hand, when two people are not the same age, the younger one has to be respectful to the older one and change their language correspondingly. Simply put, you’re not “friends”!
This aspect of Korean culture can affect your relationship with a student. As one tutor (🇵🇭) pointed out, “If you're younger than a Korean student, they don't really listen to you.”
To prevent this situation, another tutor (🇵🇭) suggested bowing to the student to show respect: “I bowed a little during greetings at the start and end of the lesson and also when I asked them questions, to show that I am asking them respectfully. And by ‘bow,’ I don’t mean a full bow, but more like a nod.”
2. Korean students may ask about religion and marital status.
In addition to age, Koreans tend to ask about religion and marital status. Religion is not a sensitive topic in Korea and marital status is simply a common conversation starter. But feel free to point out if these questions are considered too personal in your country.
However, if there’s a good reason for your student to ask these questions, you can always show them how to address these topics in a more delicate manner.
👋 That’s it for now!
We hope this gives you a better idea of how to teach Korean students. Did you find any aspects of Korean culture surprising? What mistakes have you heard Korean students make?
Make sure to bring these up next time you teach a Korean student. And stay tuned for future pieces on common pronunciation mistakes and what topics to talk about or avoid with Korean students!
