Innovator creates new way to teach English: Kids read paper daily
Published: 06 Jan. 2010, 20:58
Kim Jae-yeub, an English teacher at Haksan Girls’ High School, teaches English using his own developed materials excerpted from the JoongAng Daily last month in a classroom. By Song Bong-geun
In fact, the zeal for English education is considered almost overheated. Many parents and their kids have turned away from public education and rely heavily on private tutoring. The public distrust of public education has been exacerbated because students studying at hagwon, or private academies, tend to get better scores on English tests than those who can’t afford to enroll.
But Kim Jae-yeub, an English teacher at Haksan Girls’ High School in Busan, said there’s a way for students to improve their level of English proficiency and raise their college entrance English exam scores without taking private lessons. It’s simple, but needs continuous effort for college hopefuls, he added. His advice? Read the JoongAng Daily every day.
“Many students were stunned at last year’s English section of the College Scholastic Aptitude Test because it was much more difficult than the one the previous year,” Kim said. “Students who mainly focused on improving problem-solving techniques for questions on the test are doomed because they overlooked improving their overall English level.
If they had read an English-language newspaper on a daily basis and learned that a word could be translated and used in several ways in different contexts, they could have gotten higher scores even though there were new types of questions on the test.” To erase the disparity between students who receive private tutoring and those who do not, Kim has been using the JoongAng Daily as his main teaching material for his after-school and regular classes for over eight years. He also uses JoongAng Daily articles to make midterm and final exams.
Kim, 52, who has been a teacher for 25 years, excerpts articles by Joong-Ang Daily reporters as his reading comprehension materials. He has divided them into 10 categories that range from politics, economics, culture, art and science to sports.
In his class, Kim gives one-page handouts on English reading to his class as assignments. One class is usually packed with between 30 and 40 students. He asks students at random to read a paragraph in English aloud and translate it into Korean. Kim then gives feedback on each student’s presentation.
“Because prices of TVs are dropping, larger companies are focusing on the premium market .?.?. ‘In the second half of this year, large TVs that are 50 inches or bigger and high-definition models will be leading the market,’ said Jeong Se-hee, a senior official at Danawa, an online price-comparison Web site,” Kim read from a JoongAng Daily article.
“Here, definition means clarity. So a high-definition TV means it’s a high-resolution TV. But another sentence in the reading material says: ‘Write a clear definition for the word deep.’ In this case, ‘definition’ involves meaning, right?”
In last year’s CSAT English section, if students knew how the word “definition” was used in different contexts, they would have won a point for question No. 18 on the English test.
“Unlike other teachers who use English textbooks and books published by test-prep companies, Kim uses self-developed materials in his classes and that really helps us to understand the material deeply because he’s created the content himself,” said Jeong Yeong-shin, a third-year student. “We also have more opportunity to speak in class.”
Other students echoed Jeong’s sentiment. They said usually students who prepare for college exams don’t have time to read newspapers because they have to cover too many subjects on the CSAT. “His materials are filled with fresh, up-to-date JoongAng Daily news, and that means we’re killing two birds with one stone - learning about current issues and improving our reading skills while seeing how words are used in actual English from the newspaper,” said Kang Ju-yeon, Jeong’s classmate.
Of the some 40 students in Kim’s after-school CSAT English test prep class last summer, some doubted that the newspaper would help boost their English capability. Reading the stories wasn’t easy for many students.
“My friends and I complained so much that his assignments took too much time because we had to translate and summarize the articles,” Lee Sol-ji said. “It took me two hours to finish an article the first time. But by the end of the class, I was surprised to find that it took less than 30 minutes.”
Kim said he refused job offers from hagwon because he wanted to assure students that they can go to a college without taking intense private education courses.
“I’ve read other English-language newspapers published in Korea since I entered college, but I decided to switch it to the JoongAng Daily because I sensed phrases and expressions used by JoongAng Daily reporters were more precisely used than ones in other papers,” Kim said, adding that he likes more than the technical expressions.
“By reading the JoongAng Daily, I can access excellent, high-quality reports from its mother paper, the JoongAng Ilbo, in English, along with a copy of the New York Times’ international edition [the International Herald Tribune],” Kim said.
“This is a main strength of the JoongAng Daily. This is something that other English-language newspapers don’t have,” he added.
Students who took Kim’s after-school English class said they have a simple wish for their younger peers.
“We’re hoping that the class becomes open to second-year students,” Yoon Ji-yeon said. “His class begins in the summer for students in their third year. If we’d taken the class earlier, we could have more quickly learned that reading English is interesting.”
By Kim Mi-ju [[email protected]]
Related Korean Article
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부산 학산여고의 김재엽 교사가 영어신문 중앙데일리를 교재로 수업을 하고 있다. 영어신문으로 꾸준히 공부하면 사교육이 필요 없다는 게 그의 지론이다. [송봉근 기자]
“지난해 치러진 대학수학능력시험에서 외국어영역의 난이도가 높아 많은 학생이 혼란스러워 했습니다. 입시용 교재로 문제풀이 기술만 익힌 탓이지요. 하지만, 영어신문을 읽으며 매일 꾸준히 실력을 키워왔다면 얘기가 다릅니다. 기본기가 탄탄하면 두려울 게 없으니까요.”
부산 학산여고 김재엽(52) 교사의 영어신문 예찬론이다. ‘공교육만으로도 영어를 잘 배울 수 있게 해야 한다’는 믿음을 가진 그는 영어신문인 ‘중앙데일리’를 바탕으로 본인만의 교재를 개발해왔다.
중앙데일리는 중앙일보가 뉴욕타임스가 발행하는 인터내셔널 헤럴드 트리뷴과 제휴해 발행하는 영어일간지다. 올해로 창간 10주년을 맞았다.
김 교사는 중앙데일리 창간 독자다. 중앙데일리에 실린 기사를 활용해 영어 수업을 이끌어 왔다. 기사를 토대로 시험 문제를 직접 출제하고, 기사를 발췌해 보충수업과 방과후수업에서 활용해왔다.
“한국의 뉴스를 수준 높은 영어로 접할 수 있기 때문에 영어에 대한 흥미를 높일 수 있습니다. 수능에서 실용적 내용이 독해 지문으로 많이 나오는 경향과도 맞아떨어지고요.”
특히 고3학생을 대상으로 여름방학에 운영하는 ‘1등급 만들기’라는 수업에선 매시간 기사 하나를 과제로 내 학생들에게 미리 읽고 요약해오도록 시키고 있다. 수업시간엔 학생들에게 내용을 발표하게 한 뒤 일일이 피드백을 준다.
한글 원문 기사 보기
부산 학산여고 김재엽 교사 “영어 공부에는 영어신문이 딱이죠”
‘중앙데일리’ 창간 독자 … 신문으로 교재 제작
세련된 영어+시사상식 ＂수능 독해에도 도움”
부산 학산여고의 김재엽 교사가 영어신문 중앙데일리를 교재로 수업을 하고 있다. 영어신문으로 꾸준히 공부하면 사교육이 필요 없다는 게 그의 지론이다. [송봉근 기자]
“지난해 치러진 대학수학능력시험에서 외국어영역의 난이도가 높아 많은 학생이 혼란스러워 했습니다. 입시용 교재로 문제풀이 기술만 익힌 탓이지요. 하지만, 영어신문을 읽으며 매일 꾸준히 실력을 키워왔다면 얘기가 다릅니다. 기본기가 탄탄하면 두려울 게 없으니까요.”
부산 학산여고 김재엽(52) 교사의 영어신문 예찬론이다. ‘공교육만으로도 영어를 잘 배울 수 있게 해야 한다’는 믿음을 가진 그는 영어신문인 ‘중앙데일리’를 바탕으로 본인만의 교재를 개발해왔다.
중앙데일리는 중앙일보가 뉴욕타임스가 발행하는 인터내셔널 헤럴드 트리뷴과 제휴해 발행하는 영어일간지다. 올해로 창간 10주년을 맞았다.
김 교사는 중앙데일리 창간 독자다. 중앙데일리에 실린 기사를 활용해 영어 수업을 이끌어 왔다. 기사를 토대로 시험 문제를 직접 출제하고, 기사를 발췌해 보충수업과 방과후수업에서 활용해왔다.
“한국의 뉴스를 수준 높은 영어로 접할 수 있기 때문에 영어에 대한 흥미를 높일 수 있습니다. 수능에서 실용적 내용이 독해 지문으로 많이 나오는 경향과도 맞아떨어지고요.”
특히 고3학생을 대상으로 여름방학에 운영하는 ‘1등급 만들기’라는 수업에선 매시간 기사 하나를 과제로 내 학생들에게 미리 읽고 요약해오도록 시키고 있다. 수업시간엔 학생들에게 내용을 발표하게 한 뒤 일일이 피드백을 준다.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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