Geoffrey Sampson

Swimming Against the Current

In 2020 I was asked to give a “keynote talk” at a conference to be held in Korea that October, to mark the annual holiday they have to celebrate the invention of the unique Korean alphabet. To my mind that alphabet holds interesting lessons for people who teach English-speaking children to read and spell, and I was particularly happy to accept this invitation because the Covid-19 situation meant that I wouldn’t actually need to travel to Korea – overseas speakers were asked to make video-recordings of their talks, which I did.

Later that summer, the pandemic situation meant that even Koreans were unwilling to meet together, so the conference was postponed for a few months in hope of better times. By October things were worse rather than better, so that I wonder now what will ever happen about that conference. But my talk was a finished product, and as said I believe it might interest primary teachers and others concerned with literacy training far beyond Korea; it would be a shame to waste it. So I have put it on the Web. You can download it either as a video-recording (1.6 Gb), or as a written text.

(If you go for the video-recording, NB that it’s in English after the opening greeting – I did that in Korean to be polite.)

Geoffrey Sampson

last changed 30 Oct 2020