PRESENTER BIOGRAPHY
David E. Shaffer has been an educator in Korea since 1971. Most of that time, he has been at Chosun University, where he teaches EFL and where he completed his graduate studies in linguistics. In addition to teaching college-level courses, Dr. Shaffer has years of experience teaching in both elementary and secondary school teacher training programs in EFL methodology and oral and writing skills. He has also prepared elementary school teacher training materials and secondary school textbooks and test materials. His academic interests are in English semantics, ESL methodology, and Korean literature, especially the poetry of Yun tong-ju. Dr. Shaffer has had a number of language- and culture-related columns in different Korean periodicals. At present he writes On the Road to Better English and Crackin’ the Corean Code for “The Korea Herald” and Shaffer’s Native English for “Time Plus”. He is also a member of the ESL Help Center team at Dave’s ESL’s Café <http://www.eslcafe.com/help/> where he answers questions daily.

MATERIALS

                                                       David E. Shaffer
                                                       [email protected] 

     The Korean lexicon has witnessed the addition of numerous English words in recent years. Along with the many Korean-English cognates are quite a few false cognates, also known as "false friends," which often become obstacles to English learning due to the English learner's unawareness of the difference in meaning of the Korean word or term from its English language source. The most common of these problematic pairs and their semantic differences will are listed below. In addition, a number of classroom teaching techniques are presented which effectively delineate the semantic differences in the pairs of false cognates. These techniques include the use of pictorial representations by class members and a simple translation technique with interest-holding error analysis.
Korean  (Associated English)  English Meaning  

False Cognates: 
Teaching Techniques for Korean Loan-word Interference
 

A. English Duel Draw Technique
     In this technique, the teacher reads one or more of the English sentences below and has the students draw a picture which they think best represents it. (The English-Korean sentence pairs below contain false cognates and are, therefore, not identical in meaning.) The teacher then views the drawings by collecting them or walking around the room and select two drawings to be drawn on the board by their drawers -- one correct drawing matching the English sentence and another in which the meaning of the related Korean loan-word was mistakenly used. This is followed by a discussion of why the two drawings are different and how the false cognates differ.

B. English Quick Draw Technique
     This technique differs from the above in that only an incorrect picture drawer is initially selected to put their drawing on the board. The teacher then elicits discussion from the class of what might be wrong with the drawing. The teacher may then have one of the students who correctly understands the related false cognate differences put their drawing on the board.

C. Translation Turkey Shoot (Korean to English)
     This technique is especially suited for false cognates that do not lend themselves to being drawn. Read or play a recording of the Korean sentences below and have the students translate them into English. As the students are translating, the teacher looks for an incorrect translation in which the Korean loan-word was mistakenly understood as meaning the same as its related English word. A card containing the number of the sentence in given to a student with an incorrect translation. After translation is finished, the teacher calls the sentence numbers in turn and asks the student with the number to read their translated sentence. Discussion ensues on what is wrong with the sentence and the teacher, or a student, puts the correct translation on the board. (Correct translations of the Korean sentences are in parentheses below.)