I would like to use my blog to teach my students languages. Right now, I am teaching Korean at U of M and can't wait to use my blog to teach my students. It seems that there are hundreds of way to use it for langauge teaching but I may need to figure out the best way for my class.One thing that I can think of the benefit of using a blog is to promote my students's natural use of lanaguge. Most of my students learn Korean to meet Korean friends and learn more about its culture. However, due to the tight schedule and our program goals (which are not same as my personal goals), I felt that I have not met my students’ need and interests. For example, when my students meet Korean friends, they will have to use plain form of langauge more than polite forms. However, in the classroom, students are required to learn polite forms first and use it. It seems that many lessons in the classroom are not helpful for students’ reali life situation and do not meet theri need or interest. My blog will be useful to solve this problem. My students will use my blog to share their thoughts and ideas in Korea. They will be allowed to use and practice casual forms of Korean.Also, they can use blogs to share their findings and resources. The interest in Korean pop-culture has been one of the most strong motivation to study Korean for my students. I will use this blog to teach Korean pop culture as well as Korean language.One thing I would like to know in the classroom is how blogs can be effectively used for the langauge development. I felt that sometimes we have too much information to digest in the internet but it does not garauntee studnets’ learning. It can motivate students and make learning pleasant. Or blogging itself is not even fun or new to my students any more.How can we direct students learn languages with using a blog or other types of technology?
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About Me
- slteacher
- I am a ph.D student in the Second Langauge and Culture program at the University of Minnesota
4 comments:
I thought I commented on this post on your old blog, but when I checked there, to copy and paste it here, my comments did not show up! So I'll try to recollect my thoughts here.
I remember commenting on the fact that your personal goals for the class do not match the program goals. I think this is very common--probably to all teachers, in any subject area. There are things about the subject area that we want to teach, but those things are not in the official course description. So what do we do? Teach them anyway, in addition to the official course objectives? Or not teach them at all? I think we have to share with our students our interests in the subject area, even if those things are not in the course description. We need to show our students how and why we are interested in what we teach!
Also, I remember being surprised by your students' motivation to take your course--that they were interested in Korean popular culture so they took a Korean language course. When I took my Spanish courses, my interest in Spanish, or Latin American, popular culture developed along the way, but it wasn't the reason I took the course. And, at the community college where I teach, the foreign language department offers "culture classes" for the different languages (Spanish, French, Chinese, etc.), but those classes are taught in English, not in the language of the culture being studied!
Finally, I remember having a question for you ... and this question will immediately reveal my ignorance about the Korean language: Can your students write in Korean on their blogs, or does the Korean language use other characters, similar to Chinese characters, that are not found on your typical keyboard?
Yes. You can write in Korean.
You need to remember the position of each Korean alphabet, though.
I have taught my students it and they were actually very good at learning it. They started writing e-mails in Korean to me.
한국말을 쓸수 있어요.
I also am very excited about using blogs to teach English. I think it is a great place where students can share ideas and interact. Since language is sometimes difficult, pictures can lead the way. I enjoyed your pictures of Korea and I am certain this will also give your students a lot of motivation too. I am wondering if you are teaching the Korean language here in the U.S? Tell me more about your students when you have a chance.
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