Entertaining or Teaching English

Today, I had the crazy idea that I should try to get students to speak in English. First, it was difficult to get students to understand what I was trying to say. And then it was difficult for me to get students to stop talking once they started. The trouble was that students didn't seem to be talking about the subject in English or Korean.

The trouble with finding ways to teach English in the classroom as that the ideas don't always work out so well in practice as they seem when I read about them in the book. I spent quite a bit of money on books that I purchased in America, thinking they would work well in Korea. Sometimes the ideas work well and sometimes they don't.

Even after I had students write their answers on paper for a "quiz" that I thought might work well as a disciplining device seemed to be as frustrating as getting the students to speak.

I tried showing the bulk of the movie with English subtitles and students either weren't able to see the English subtitles or if they did, they couldn't read the sentences fast enough. Or, if those things weren't the problem, it was difficult for students to understand the meaning of the sentences.

Part of my frustration was in students not understanding what I was trying to say in English or Korean. I think there must be a tendency among to students to give up on trying to understand me in either language when they don't understand what I mean to say.

Now, the dilemma seems to be that if I show most of the movie during class, it becomes "Entertainment English" rather than "Screen English". But if I try to teach students something about the movie, the method winds up not being a very meaningful way of learning English.

In some cases, I seem to be in a Catch 22, where no matter what I do, it isn't enough because students are only taking the class because they have to, or if they have the desire to improve their English, they don't have the time.

I'm also starting to reconsider my efforts of free-talking this semester. I'm not convinced that the methods I'm using are satisfactory free-talking methods in terms of improving students' English-speaking abilities.

Hopefully the next post will have some more constructive comments in this regard and that I will be able to find a via media approach that is somewhere between "entertaining" and "productive".