Phonics in Korean English teaching

I don’t know what kids in America are learning these days in the way of phonics. In the early 1990s, “Hooked on Phonics” came around, but I never used it, and I honestly don’t know what they teach exactly. I remember learning things like “long A”, “short A”, “long E”, “short E”, etc. We had a set of symbols, and it worked for us. Here they teach the phonetic symbols that I’ve only ever seen in a dictionary, and never known how to pronounce.

Imagine my dismay when I was told in early November to teach 3 phonics books to 3 students in the same class at 3 different levels. I tried to explain that this isn’t what I was ever taught in America; that our phonics were different. I was told to just “teach pronunciation”. I found that funny considering that I couldn’t pronounce them myself. My students have taught me Korean phonics since then, and now I can relay that to other kids. Not a great way to make your country English proficient, if you ask me.

While I’m grateful for the chance to “try out” teaching, and to get a paycheck here when I couldn’t get a job in my own country, hiring inexperienced native speakers is just not a good plan.