Well, I and a couple others have started a little mini-project, a little site that offers something familiar in a very unfamiliar package: a little audio show/podcast that offers fresh and frank talk for free, and offers itself as just the content that might supplement many people's English education diet here.
We've been going for a week and the response from Koreans has been very, very positive. As I have long suspected, I think there is a real desire for this kind of English education content, but without the condescending and pedantic style of much of the ESL content available on television and radio. In short, we want to make content that isn't just "interesting for ESL", but just plain interesting.
It's basically an English "talk show" with a different topic each week, with a full transcript available for download with each episode. The idea is that there's a lot of English "conversation" on the TV and radio that is just plain useless or insulting to one's intelligence as a thinking adult. There's some good stuff for sure, but there isn't much oomph! in terms of the content of the discussions.
And for those of you who teach English conversation out there, feel free to let us do some of the work for you. Use our conversations and transcripts as supplementary material for your class, or make them the jumping off point for your own discussions, with our conversation as a start.
The transcript, combined with our crystal-clear recordings and effort to speak as clearly as possible, makes this the perfect material for intermediate-to-advanced Korean students, often found in 20/30-something Koreans taking conversation classes.
And for those of you doing weekly conversation privates, our weekly show might really be able to help you out: assign the previous week's show and transcript as homework, and continue the conversation with your own class, while likely having many questions to answer and things to cover right off the bat, which can be a welcome change from the draaaaaag of certain conversation classes in which you have to come up with new things to discuss every week, materials are annoying to distribute, and the conversations often lackluster and forced.
What do we get out of this? We want listeners – that's all. Since this is audio, a team effort, and hence easier to produce, we will be able to get them out weekly as we build a body of listeners enough to pick up a sponsor, which will make our offerings all the stronger.
And the upside? Fresh, frank discussion of a lot of the things we foreigners discuss, but aimed at the Korean audience. It's a way of finally getting people talking, riding the ultimate trojan horse into the fray: the indomitable fervor to learn English in Korea.
The attitude of the show is frank and challenging, but light and polite – we have a Korean co-host with us to keep us honest, and many of the shows are going to be based around "special guests" around whom we will broach topics, instead of being a rant from a couple of Americans.
The overall goal, after all, is to get people talking. And that should include Koreans, right? So check out the site and listen to our shows – they're a little slower, like NPR for ESL – but they won't be boring.
And if you'd like to help out, the best thing you could do would be to recommend your students go to the site, take a listen, or download the MP3's of the shows directly. They can stick them in their phones, domestic Korean MP3 players, and of course, subscribe directly through iTunes.
As for me, I'm trying to make a new media show that can develop to the point that it can start paying the bills, while bringing people closer together, and in the end, helping me get the other shows I've been neglecting into shape, namely SeoulGlow and my own audio podcast.
So if you think this is a good idea, valuable resource, or something worth passing along, please help out and spread the word. We've got something good here, and we just need to let people who need to know – your Korean students, friends, and colleagues – that we're out here.
Thanks a lot!
