Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Hey Korea Times, quit plagiarizing.
In my last post I made fun of the preventative measures against swine flu suggested by the Korean Center for Disease Control, since habits like handwashing with soap and mouth-covering are rarely practiced by Koreans. Thanks to commenter sonagi92 who points out that the Korea Times actually lifted all that information from a page on US's Center for Disease Control website titled "Swine Influenza and You," while attributing the information to the KCDC.
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6 comments:
Hey Brian,
This is Wendy in gunsan, South Korea....I want to "hook-up" someday...I printed out your list of ideas for lessons...Boggle, did not go over well with the co-teachers. I was told "I expect you to teach. The students do not learn playing Boggle.They do not know the words or the meanings" I am teaching High School. Hard to believe they do not know the word "top" "spot" or "stop" ha ha....anyway...you can reach me at 010-3975-7704
Ah, what a bastion of journalistic integrity, the KT...
Wendy,
blogspot is blocked at school so I can't check your profile to figure out who you are. Are you a new teacher? Not that I know any teachers in Gunsan, just curious. If you are, it will take some time to figure out what your coteachers expect of you, and what you should do with your students. It will also take some restraint to keep from putting your coteachers through their desks at times.
Anyway, consider what they say, but don't put too much stock in it. Some coteachers will complain about everything. They have no clue about what you're supposed to do in class, so they'll just hit you with a string of "I think you should . . . " or "Maybe you should . . ."
How did the students respond to boggle? How long did you play boggle? What other activities did you use? Take a look at waygook.org for other HS lessons to see what others have done.
For me, I teach thematically basd on the textbook (for middle school). I quit teaching exactly from it (for reasons too numerous to get into here), but will instead adapt activities based on the main ideas from each chapter. For example, if Chapter 2 is about gerunds and "do you like + gerund" I will create a powerpoint to review that, will practice some dialogues with the class, will give them some pair work or information gap activities, will give them some incorrect sentences to fix, and then will close with some type of speaking activity with a group or a partner. That way I don't have to create a whole new unit on my own, and that way I also cover my ass by at least teaching a little to what's on the test.
Anyway---and this is really off-topic---I'd encourage you to continue this on waygook.org. We have too few contributors there, and too few people sharing their experiences. Soon we'll be going to a registration-only format in order to encourage people to post and share more, so please write there so other teachers can see what you're going through.
Perhaps it was the KCDC that plagiarized the information from the US Center for Disease Control, and the Korea Times just printed the info that was passed on to them.
Just maybe.
But that would be assuming a lot, wouldn't it?
Okay, so you're saying I'm assuming alot by accussing the KT of plagiarizing. Fair enough. Maybe it was the KCDC.
I could not find the recommendations in either Korean or English at the KCDCP website although I did find other information on swine flu, and that information was cited as being sourced from the US CDC. I suspect the KT 'reporter' plagiarized the information directly from the US CDC website since there was, as of yesterday, very little posted at the Korean CDCP.
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