Korea's endless grapple with English

[Harold Schiffman]

Korea's  endless grapple with English

February 14, 2008


°Even just a graduate from high school will be able to conduct a
conversation in English,¡± promised President-elect Lee Myung-bak
before his transition team presented details of a plan this month to
overhaul the country¡¯s struggling public English education system.
Lee¡¯s determination to implement his plan is causing a stir here as
teachers, more accustomed to teaching grammar, are afraid of losing
out while the private education sector is embracing the move as
another opportunity to fill their coffers.
All the while, opposition parties have seized the opportunity to
attack Lee, blaming him for trying to devise a policy that will only
benefit the wealthier classes. People think that spending on
English-language education is bound to increase, which is ironic
because Lee¡¯s aim is to achieve the exact opposite. Chun Se-young, a
professor of education at Chungnam National University, who as a
member of the transition team is involved in shaping Lee¡¯s
educational policy, dismisses criticism that the incoming
administration¡¯s policy ignores reality and is merely a political
sideshow.


¡°It¡¯s essentially a focus on elementary school-level English
education but it¡¯s not an entirely new idea. We are building on
existing foundations,¡± Chun says. ¡°Besides, the English exam portion
on the college entrance exam will be replaced by a new one in 2013
that emphasizes speaking, writing and listening skills so that the
schools can change the current emphasis on grammar.¡±
A close aide to Lee Ju-ho, a Grand National Party lawmaker, who was
appointed as the chief presidential secretary for education, science
and culture earlier this week, stresses that the new policy is
necessary for South Korea to be competitive on the international
stage.

¡°We talk constantly about globalization and English is a fundamental
tool needed. Yet, how many people on the street do you see who are
comfortable chatting with a foreigner in English and giving
directions?¡± says the aide. ¡°The current English education in place
is not helping to groom citizens for this age and time.¡± The new
administration¡¯s attempt to improve Koreans¡¯ English-language skills
is aggressively targeting the public education sector, yet past
government attempts suggest that a willingness to push through with
reforms is essential to bringing about real changes. The Seoul city
government surveyed 1,000 residents in 2003 to identify how the city
could establish itself on the international map. The results indicated
that 74.2 percent of respondents said they couldn¡¯t comfortably
communicate with foreigners. The purpose of the study was to launch
free English education classes for citizens.  At the time, 70 percent
of the surveyed people said they would take the classes if offered.


 A teacher conducts an English class in Hannam Elementary School in
Seoul in 1997, the year English classes became compulsory for this age
group in public school;  ¡°The original idea was to find areas that we
needed to improve in order to become a global city, but policy
implementation based on the survey never came,¡± says Chang Yeon-bae,
a Seoul city government official.
The new government plan calls for all English teachers working in
elementary, middle and high schools ¡ª approximately 33,000 teachers
in all ¡ª to teach English classes in English by the year 2012.
Meanwhile, the number of hours of English-language education in
elementary schools will increase from one or two to three hours per
week. The Kim Young-sam administration started English classes from
the third grade in elementary schools in 1997. Lee¡¯s policy also
requires that 23,000 additional teachers who can teach in English get
hired.

Those targeted include former diplomats, foreigners, people who have
studied at colleges in English-speaking countries, English majors and
holders of master¡¯s degrees and teaching certificates. Also, starting
in 2009, 3,000 Korean English-language teachers will be sent abroad
every year for five years for intensive training. Earlier this week,
the transition team said 4 trillion won ($4.2 million) would be set
aside to pay for these training programs. Nevertheless, current
English teachers, who are more accustomed to emphasizing grammar and
reading in their classes, haven¡¯t welcomed these new plans,
especially since school education here is geared towards college
entrance exams. The Korean Federation of Teachers¡¯ Associations
surveyed 1,000 members recently and found that more than 60 percent
opposed the idea of teaching classes in English.

Teachers are arguing that current class sizes and teaching materials
are inappropriate. ¡°Why put the blame on us? Parents and students
have been asking us to teach in a way that their kids can get good
scores in their college exams,¡± says Chung Sa-yeol, a teacher at
Namseoul Middle School in eastern Seoul. An English teacher for 17
years, he argues that other problems exist. ¡°If we want to focus on
improving the students¡¯ speaking ability, we need much smaller
classes,¡± he says.


The transition team said it will try to cut class size from 35
students to 23. ¡°That is not enough,¡± Chun argues. ¡°We need much
smaller sizes to attend to each student¡¯s needs. The people behind
the newly envisioned policy take a different view. ¡°I think there is
an underlying fear among teachers in Korea that native English
speakers may take their jobs, or that students will question the
teacher¡¯s ability to teach English,¡± says an official of the
transition team, who declined to be named. However, teachers like Hong
Wan-gi, an English teacher at Yongsan High School in Seoul, says the
issue should not focus simply on whether or not a teacher can conduct
an entire English class in English. ¡°This is not the complete
issue,¡± Hong says.Whether or not a teacher is a qualified and
competent educator is also an important factor.

¡°As a teacher, you have to be qualified to teach students of
different levels,¡± Chung Sa-yeol says. ¡°If you get a foreigner to
teach just because he or she is a native speaker, the quality of
education could suffer,¡± Chung says. ¡°Teachers here have passed a
very difficult exam to get into teaching, which should say something.
They may not be native speakers, but they don¡¯t have to be.Michael
Rudder, the regional English language officer for East Asia based at
the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, agrees. In Seoul this week as
part of a routine teacher-training visit, Rudder says being a native
speaker does not automatically make you a good teacher. ¡°Good
language teachers need not be totally fluent in the target language,¡±
he says. ¡°What is more important is the knowledge and skillful
implementation of an effective methodology. Creative and skilled
teachers can obtain very successful results, even with limited
resources.

In the face of heavy opposition, the transition team has already
backed out of a plan to conduct other subjects in English.
While teachers are concerned about the impact of the proposed new
policy, English-language institutions here are anticipating a possible
financial bonanza. ¡°Since the government¡¯s announcement, we have
seen a surge of inquiries by parents for our junior English-speaking
classes,¡± says No Ji-seon, an official at Pagoda Language Institute,
one of the country¡¯s largest English-language schools.

The school has an average of 50,000 students per month attending its
adult language classes. ¡°We haven¡¯t seen a dramatic increase in
demand yet but we think it¡¯s a given once the official stamp is put
to the policy,¡± says Cha Kyeong-shim, an official at Pre-School
Academy, an English-language institute for children that charges 1
million won ($1,058) per month per child.
In a country where parents would do almost anything for the education
of their children, the potential monetary fallout should be enormous.
A report by the Samsung Economic Research Institute a year ago said
that individuals here spend an estimated 14.3 billion won per year on
English-language education, about half of which goes on fees for
official tests like the Test of English as a Foreign Language and the
Test of English for International Communication.

Clearly, South Koreans¡¯ ability to speak English doesn¡¯t reflect the
vast amounts spent. The Political and Economic Risk Consultancy in
Hong Kong published a report in 2005 in which business executives and
expats in the region placed South Korea as the most difficult country
to communicate in English among 12 countries in Asia. South Korea¡¯s
average score for the Internet-based Toefl test from September 2005 to
December 2006 was 72 points, ranking it 21st out of 28 countries in
Asia. Only North Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Macao, Taiwan and
Cambodia ranked lower.What¡¯s more, more Koreans take Toefl than in
any other country, according to Thomas Ewing of the Educational
Testing Service. A total of 162,000 South Koreans in 2005 and 2006
took either the online, paper or computerized Toefl.

¡°We don¡¯t have volume figures for the most recent year past but
again, I¡¯m sure South Korea remains the largest Toefl test-taking
country in the world,¡± says Ewing, warning that countries¡¯ scores
should not be used to compare English-language ability. Other factors
should be considered, including the number of test-takers and the
English educational system in place. Colleges, business conglomerates
and government agencies and ministries in Korea use Toefl and the
large number of students vying for places at colleges in the United
States accounts for the high number of Toefl takers. It¡¯s not unusual
for test-takers here to buy slots to take the Toefl on the Internet or
fly overseas to sit for the exam. Chung Cheong-rae, a lawmaker from
the United Democratic Party, argues that the new policy put forward by
President-elect Lee has not been planned well and will only benefit
families with high incomes. ¡°This policy will fuel the private
education market, and those in Gangnam [a wealthy area in southern
Seoul] are the only ones who can afford to keep up. What about the
countryside and other places?¡± Chung asks. ¡°I¡¯m not saying we
should not improve our public English education system, but there are
many other considerations. For parents, these are anxious times.
¡°I¡¯m just worried what the cost will be. We have started to look at
various options to prepare our child for whatever will come,¡± says
Choi Myeong-suk, 37, whose 6-year-old daughter is preparing to enter
elementary school next year.

At the end of last month, rock singer Shin Hae-chul added his two
cents during his Internet radio show, ¡°Ghost Station.¡± He said
sarcastically that Korea should just add itself as the 51st state of
the United States or become part of the Commonwealth of Nations.
¡°First the Defense Minister and the president should conduct their
cabinet meeting in English, then the National Assembly should conduct
their sessions and votes in English,¡± Shin said.

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2886164


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