A lesson about The Korean National Flag

Lesson outline

This lesson coincided with South Korean figure skater Kim Yu-na claiming the women’s title at the 2013 World Figure Skating Championships in Canada. We began our class by asking the students if they had watched her performance and the subsequent medal ceremony - to which nearly all answered "No". We therefore took the opportunity to find a YouTube clip of both her performance and the following medal ceremony where a Canadian choir sang the Korean national anthem. Watching her amazing performance, seeing her on the podium, and hearing their national anthem all helped to stir the students’ national pride. We then showed them a photograph of Kim Yu-na, taken shortly after her performance, capturing her with the national flag wrapped around her shoulders (see photo) – this was a perfect inroad to our lesson topic.

To follow on from the introduction of the lesson topic, we gave the students a quick quiz on national flags of countries that had participated in the 2012 Olympic Games.

 

A picture of the British National flag then followed this and students were encouraged to ask questions about it – to which I, the English native speaker from England, had to do my best to answer.

Upon answering their questions, it was then my turn to ask them about their flag. This was an important stage of the lesson, as it proved to highlight some of the difficulties students had in trying to explain their national flag to a foreigner:

(i) A lack of vocabulary

(ii) Difficulty in describing specific locations of things on the flag

(iii) Difficulty in translating accurately from Korean to English

(iv) Confusion over what some of the symbols stood for

We then showed them the following slide of a conversation between two people discussing the Korean national flag. Students were told to prepare answers for Mi Hyeon based on the previous q&a session with myself. Students then had an opportunity to practise the dialogue in pairs and finally, some were chosen to come to the front of the class and act out the dialogue with myself playing the role of 'Steve' and they as 'Mi Hyeon'.

I also went to the trouble of decorating the English classroom accordingly for our lesson:

That's all for now folks!