#KELTChat returns on Tuesday with seven hour Slowburn™ chat. One of the reasons we’re a little late starting this semester is that #keltchat organizer @timothyhampson (along with #keltchat regulars @hallg and @languageonion) has been terribly busy organizing the ExcitELT conference. In order to prepare ourselves for the conference, we are adopting the conference theme — challenging assumptions — for this Slowburn™.
You can’t really avoid teaching by assumptions: Not everything is researched or researchable. And then there are the unconscious assumptions that we are not even aware of. In this chat, we invite you to discuss some of the common assumptions below, and share your own.
- If students are speaking the target language, then they are learning.
- If students are smiling and laughing the teacher is doing a good job.
- Students in Korea feel nervous about speaking in English (or another language that they are learning).
- The nervousness mentioned above in point 2 above is an inevitable result of Korean culture.
- Students in Korea have poor critical thinking skills.
- Korean high school English is simply a series of grammar lectures conducted in Korean.
- Students and admin expect lots of grammar focused instruction.
This chat is a Slowburn™ chat, meaning that it takes place over a much longer time than regular Twitter chats. We hope people will dip in and out of the chat throughout the day as their schedules allow; we don’t expect anyone to be involved for the whole 7 hours.The chat will run from 11am to 6pm Korea Standard Time.
If you would like to take part, but you are unsure how to go about it, check out the How-to section at the top of the page, or get in touch with us here or on Facebook.
We hope to see you on Tuesday!
#KELTChat 
I don’t think every Korean student is anxious about speaking target language. It depands on one’s own character. Some students are very outgoing, and they really like speaking more than reading books or learning grammar. The assumption which Korean students don’t like speaking activities is not true, I think.
Great points! I think this assumption can cause problems for teachers who think like this. Thank you so much for the thoughtful and helpful comments!