Listening/speaking vs Reading/writing.

Some learners are better with the oral language, and some with the written.

In Korean, I am definitely NOT better with the oral language.

When I was in California I picked up this book from the library:

Lo and behold - even though it's called an INTERMEDIATE (!) Reader - I found I could actually understand much of it:

Not bad, huh?

But yet ... here I am after 4 moths of living here and 10 weeks of intensive study - and I still can't carry on even a minimal conversation with most people I meet casually in shops, in my apartment building, etc.

I CAN kind of converse with Korean friends on a familiar topic; we sit down together and when we speak slowly and with the vocabulary that's familiar to me I can carry on a minimal conversation.

But not in casual encounters. I just can't catch what people say to me, and even if I do, I get so tongue-tied I usually can't get any words out. It just all happens so fast!

How frustrating.

I ran into a classmate the other day - an American who completed Level 2 (a whole level more than me) at Yonsei. She said she couldn't speak much either. We both agreed this was a problem with the Yonsei method. (Ah, it's not entirely OUR fault!!) Because everything was so controlled, we almost never had spontaneous conversation. We were taught to speak methodically, and always correctly, but not freely. We did a lot of classroom listening, and I listened to a lot of tapes - but I never heard anything like I hear in the casual encounters I have "on the street."

So now what? I'm leaving Korea in a week.

Well, I'll just have to find Korean folks back home and keep working to remedy this situation.

All of us ESL teachers have had students whose reading and writing skills far surpass their listening and speaking. Sometimes I get a student in an advanced class who writes beautifully - but can still hardly carry on a simple conversation. I now have great sympathy for such students. Maybe through my own struggles I will learn something new that I can pass on. Now that will be an accomplishment!