🏫찡쌤의 한국어교실 이야기10-매령이의 생활 언어와 학습 언어의 연결

Monday, March 17, 2025 Today, the new semester began. A fourth-grade girl joined the Korean language class. Her name is Li Meiling, and we decided to call her 'Maeryeong' in Korean. She said she came from Yanbian, China, and has been in Korea for nearly a year. When we first met, Maeryeong greeted me clearly. "Hello, Teacher. I look forward to working with you." Her pronunciation was natural, and her expression was bright. We shook hands warmly. However, as we talked while looking at the social studies textbook today, her expression quickly darkened. The title of the first unit in fourth-grade social studies is 'Meeting Our Region Through Maps.' When I asked, "Maeryeong, what do you think we are learning in this unit?" she looked at the textbook for a while before answering in a small voice. "Um... 'directions'? What are directions?" That short question lingered in my mind all day. She is a child who speaks everyday conversation fluently, but the language of textbooks seemed to feel like a completely different world to her. That invisible wall between everyday language and academic language. I read it in Maeryeong's eyes. I had a task to do. Monday, March 31, 2025 It has been two weeks since I started teaching Maeryeong. We meet for 40 minutes every day in the Korean class. Lately, I have been teaching conceptual terms in conjunction with her social studies lessons. Today, we covered the concepts of 'direction' and 'scale.' The textbook contains a sentence like this: "When there is no compass on a map, the top indicates North." I had Maeryeong read this sentence aloud, and she recited it fluently. However, when I asked, "What does that mean?" she stopped. She did not know what the words 'direction,' 'compass,' and 'scale' meant. Today, I prepared plenty of compass pictures and maps. Cards with arrows marking the cardinal directions (East, West, South, North), and pictures comparing actual distances with distances on the map. I explained, pointing to each one. "Words indicating direction, such as East, West, South, and North, are called 'directions.' The markers on a map that indicate direction are called compass marks. And when drawing a vast area of ​​land on a small map, the indicator showing how much it has been reduced is called the 'scale.'" Maeryeong's eyes widened as she carefully took notes in her notebook. Then she looked up and said, "Teacher, then do we have to use a scale when drawing our school map too? Because the playground is huge." Oh, this child. She is immediately applying the words she learned to her own situation. It touched my heart. Monday, May 19, 2025 Today is a time for science class integration. This unit in 4th grade science is 'Changes in the Earth,' specifically about volcanoes. Volcano, lava, granite, basalt, magma… Honestly, even I find these words a bit unfamiliar when I first say them. How much more so for Maeryeong? Before class started, Maeryeong had already opened her science textbook and was waiting. "Teacher, I read through the textbook yesterday, but 'magma' isn't in the dictionary. I don't know what it is." The child, who two months ago would just skip over unfamiliar words, now looks them up in the dictionary on her own and asks me to confirm them. Although this change might seem small, it felt incredibly significant to me. Today, we spread out a diagram of a volcanic cross-section and looked at it together. I explained that magma is melted rock deep underground, and that when it flows out, it becomes lava. Then, I placed actual samples of granite and basalt in her hands. "This is granite. It is a rock formed when magma cooled and solidified very slowly underground. The grains are large and the color is bright, isn't it? And this is basalt. It is a rock formed when lava came to the surface and cooled and solidified rapidly. The grains are small, the color is dark, and it has many holes in it, doesn't it?" Maeryeong touched the two rocks alternately and then spoke. "Granite cools slowly, basalt cools quickly. Is that why their shapes change?" "Exactly!" Maeryeong didn't let go of the two stones in her hand throughout the class. She was learning the words through physical practice. Wednesday, May 28, 2025 Today, her homeroom teacher stopped me in the hallway. "Teacher, Maeryeong has been giving presentations in Social Studies lately! Last week, I asked about economic activities, and she raised her hand high and answered." My heart sank. "What did she say?" "She said it was work her parents do." Textbook expressions. Those expressions are now coming out of Maeryeong's mouth. The science teacher added a comment as well. "There was a question on the Volcanoes unit test asking to describe the difference between granite and basalt, and Maeryeong wrote, 'Because the cooling speed is different, the size of the grains changes.' How accurate her expression is." On my way back to the classroom after a brief conversation with the homeroom ...