A project that my students just finished was a Video News Project. The task was to create a short, informational video in English (e.g. news, how-to, commercial, etc.). This video is worth 20% of their English grade, and the top three videos will win their creators a pizza party.
I have posted the #1 video below. You'll notice some interesting things in the video, which are very reflective of Korean culture and their English woes:
1. You can hear the students shuffling around in their house slippers. Nobody wears shoes inside, not even at school.
2. There is almost a total lack of article use (i.e. a/an/the). Articles don't exist in the Korean language.
3. The students' inflection when speaking in English is totally off. They accent the wrong parts of words constantly. Inflection in languages around the world is very different. Korean, however, is not a tonal language like Chinese, they simply uses rises in different parts of words and sentences than in English.
4. The girls frame their faces by cutting their hair straight across the bangs and tapered inward from the temples to their chin. This gives the appearance of a tapered jawline, a characteristic of foreigners that the Koreans envy.
Aren't the kids great!??
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
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