How Can You Teach a Korean if You Don't Speak Korean?

In the world of teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) and dealing with students (in any location) who are English Language Learners the common question people have is -- how do you teach them?

The answer: by making it simplistic.

To teach English as a Second Language, think back to the basics:  How did you learn English?  By living in your home environment where when someone pointed to a vacuum they said "vacuum" and spelled out the word.  The same methods are used here.  For a child in early elementary who is beginning to learn a new language you tie the worlds in with a picture or action.  Role playing is often involved.  Ask a student:  What does "chew" mean?  If they do not know, you act out the action for them.

Once they get past the stage of "beginner" where role playing and lessons of "pictionary" are the focus, you can then branch into the next level of vocabulary by making this new word known by explaining how it is similar to a word they may already know.

Keep in mind that I am also not the only ESL teacher at the school, so there are many Korean teachers as well who have taught them how a "X" word in Korean is "V" word in English.  For this reason, the Korean teachers at my school have the early elementary students for the longest time while I only have them for about 20 minutes.

What about classroom management?  What if a kid misbehaves?  Or how do you know they misbehave?  Answer:  its instinctual.  Ninety percent of all communication is non-verbal.  If a child did something that I do not want them to do, they can tell that I am not happy with them by raising my voice or giving a facial expression that shows I do not approve.  Kids have strong instincts and pick up on those little things.  If I say "stop that" in English they will still know what I am saying even if they do not know what "stop that" means.

As far as dealing with a group of students here in Korea, you would still think that discipline could be a problem.  Within my first week though, I have had no problems mostly because of the following reasons: 1.  My biggest class has a total of 6 students, 2.  The only students that I have for a full hour are older students that I have one-on-one or in pairs (for these the school is open for me to develop my own curriculum -- which is not something many ESL teachers have, so I'm a bit fortunate in that regard), 3.  It is a very strong cultural belief to be respectful to their teachers (though I have heard of some foreign teachers who were the exception, but that can also depend on how they present themselves), and 4.  It is still legal for the teachers to hit kids as needed.

But what is likely to be the most effective way for a person to learn a language?  Be an in environment with it being spoken.  Just sitting around talking with the kids helps them become fluent, which is something that a person learning ANY language (or topic for that matter) is going to struggle with if they don't step away from the textbook and apply it.