By Paul Maurer
I have worked for more than four years in the ``land of the morning calm.'' And during this time, I have heard many negative comments expressed by teachers with regards to Koreans` lack of English skills.
Though they are many, they generally are as follows: ``Oh, Korean people cannot pronounce English words properly.'' Not only that, ``they cannot even string together a single sentence properly.'' And, they must be ``dumb,'' since they have studied English for so many years, yet still cannot speak it. On and on I could go.
But, ask these natives whether they speak Korean or not and all you invariably will get are blank looks. Hey, Koreans may not speak English well, but at least they can speak it. If you are going to criticize someone, at least back it up. The fact that most natives who uttered the above comments cannot just goes to show how hypocritical they are.
It is important for native English teachers to gain some knowledge of Hangeul. If they did, then they could better understand why Koreans speak English the way that they do. You want to know why it is hard for Koreans to put together a single, coherent English sentence? Well, it could be because Korean sentences are not ordered in the subject, verb, object sequence, but rather in the subject, object, verb sequence.
You want to know why Korean people cannot pronounce some English words properly? Well, it could be because Hangeul does not have characters for certain English sounds such as ``f" or ``v." The more one learns about Korean, the more one can understand why Koreans make the mistakes that they do when speaking English ― it is because the gap between the two languages is too great.
Unfortunately, most native English speakers make no attempt to learn Korean; and even if they did, they probably could not, anyway. Look around you. Does the typical English native teacher strike you as being someone who is of high sophistication? Not! The sad fact is that the typical native teacher graduated near the bottom of his/her class from a lower-tiered university, and probably could not hold down anything better than a minimum wage job in his/her home country. The creme de la creme do not come here, I am sorry to say.
You cannot believe some of the strange people that I have met during my journeys here. One guy who claims to have multiple degrees, including an education degree (from a very low-grade university, it might be added), refuses to teach anyone but adults! Another individual drinks practically late into the night all the time, even though he has to teach a class the next day at 6:30 a.m.
And yet another guy puts cotton balls into his ears each times he boards a subway. With guys such as this, is it any wonder why Koreans speak English the way that they do!
It should now be understandable why I titled this piece in the manner that I did.
The writer teaches English at Global Institute in Geuman-dong, Jeonju. He can be reached at maauerr@hotmail.com.