Teaching English in Korea - ESL blog

James,

I think anytime a person finds someone willing to give them the opportunity to practice a foreign language with them it is a good experience. If we wanted to learn to play tennis, would we wait for someone who plays the game flawlessly to come along and teach us? Nope. We would grab a racket and a friend that has played before and hit the court. That's how we learn.

And if you could choose between the pro and the amateur who would you choose? Actually I'd choose the amateur, but in this case I can't help wondering if the native speaker would be better because the languae modeled would be superior. I guess my point is that the wait is not an issue. I can have either one.

Good question!

I agree with the poster that any conversation is better than no conversation ... and with James that the native speaker would model 'correct' language skills better.

I also commented on this at The Linguist's blog, which is right here:
http://blogs.thelinguist.com/

In the Korean case, I have an noteworthy example:

A certain teacher at my school has the typical maximum score on the TOEIC and an enviable vocabulary that he uses continuously.

However, the problem lies with his stiffly formal vocabulary. To be frank, he speaks like a newspaper. He has never studied abroad, he reads (only broadsheet?) newspapers every day and listens to the over-enunciated news on CNN. Have you heard the soulless voices, outdated idiom-heavy vocabulary and unecessarily high number of long, formal words on the TOEIC? Like that.

He's a lovely chap but, due to his intonation and his unnatural vocabulary choices, makes a dismal first impression, especially when coupled with the fact he comes up a little short on western social etiquette. But he's not the only Korean I've met hampered by the sources he's learnt from - and the inadequacies of language teaching here.