Wow! Sounds terrible! So do the letters KK mean anything? Or are they represent anything? Just curious…
Of course KK makes sense. It’s a logical system of phonetic symbols representing sounds. It’s useful for people that know the system to be able to tell the word of a new word they’re looking up in the dictionary.
But it’s bloody stupid teaching it to kids. The problem is that it’s got ‘into the system’. My school, against my advice, always does a crash course in KK to 6th graders. The reason is that up until this year it was taught and tested in Junior High School, so my school was preparing the kids. This is the first year that they don’t test KK in Junior High. My school are still teaching the KK. Why? Some schools are used to it and are still using it, and the parents are used to it. Imagine a list of things a cram school teaches the kids: Grammar, 5000 words vocanulary, conversation, handwriting, blah blah blah, KK phonetics. And then the school down the road doesn’t offer KK? Hmm?
At least the idea of ‘natural reading’ is gaining popularity.
I try and explain to people some of the reasons why KK is bad. The kids get dependent on it. They now have to memorise two sets of spellings. It gives them awful accents etc etc etc. But it’s an uphill battle.
Brian
So they have stopped testing KK in junior high, but they are still teaching it? So it’s not a standard system or do most schools use this?
It’s not a govt requirement to teach KK in Junior High anymore. Some schools still are, and others aren;'t but the parents still want it.
Brian
It’s so hard to teach pronounciation! I have parents complain their kid’s pronounciation sucks. How am I gonna tell them that’s really not my problem. The weird thing is that during the class, the kid is doing well so I don’t know what’s wrong with him at home where is not my territory and I don’t know what his parents want me to say. It’s difficult to teach pronounciation.
Difficult to spell too, obviously…