Or an native English speaker in every school — in the KT, our very own Andy Jackson discusses the election debate on English education. Personally, I think the very fact that English education is an issue in the election shows just how ludicrous Korea’s fixation on learning English has become.
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16 Comments
Errr…
You know what’s funnier then Koreans in Korea who have an obsession with English education? Koreans who came to Korea in their teenage or college years intent on learning Korean but end up spending all their time in Koreatown and not learning a lick of the language even after 10 years.
Yes, it bothers me too…
scary isn’t it? these people are starting to notice us white folks, and think about us. i prefer to be ignored.
“…intent on learning English…” I mean.
Actually, you mean “Koreans who came to Los Angeles in their teenage or college years intent on learning English but end up spending all their time in Koreatown…”
Maybe I’m having a good day. I feel flattered that another country is willing to work so hard, even if it isn’t always the best way, to learn our language.
I think another commenter said something about teaching courses in a foreign language to actually practice in said language. I’d pay extra for my child to attend classes in that manner.
Now, if I can just get myself an Esperanto teacher that can teach me Shakespeare or Discrete Math…hmmm.
“Unfortunately, Lee’s test and competition ideas would compound the current problem of schools “teaching for the test” rather than teaching to help their students learn to speak English. That part of Lee’s plan would do little to change an education system that produces students with good English grammar skills but who can’t communicate in English.”
Exactly. Instead, they need to be totally honest with themselves. Is English seen as a language for internationalization in Korea? According to the government it is. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I won’t go into a long list of all the roles that English plays in Korea, but for most learners of English, it is something them must study for an exam.
Something needs to be done to remedy the disconnect between the stated goal and the reality. Eliminating the exams wouldn’t be sufficient. The thing is, teaching English to Koreans in Korea is not the same as teaching English to Korean immigrants in Canada or the US. They have very different communication needs, they live in very distinct sociolinguistic contexts. The Ministry of Education needs to realize that expecting to produce ‘native like fluency’ in Korea is ridiculous, even if every kid has a native speaker as a teacher. Where are the opportunities to communicate in English outside of the classroom? The English villages? Please!
The whole English thing is such a disaster in this country.
Year after year after year of absolutely nothing constructive being done. Billions of dollars being thrown around with a total lack of strategic planning, or even common sense. An utter failure from the perspective of any performance-based measure.
Ill will from every angle. Foreigners that rush to make sure you know they’re not a teacher as soon as you meet them, and when you look at the image painted by the local media it’s easy to see why. Locals that are angry enough to walk up to foreigners on the sidewalks and verbally abuse them. Hateful immigration policies are enforced, retracted, enforced again in endless cycles of opening and closing the gates on an illicit labor pool numbering hundreds of thousands of young men and women. Young people who are placed in the morally unfair position of accepting a job out of university for 2.5 mil KRW per month so they can spend a year or two paying off student loans – and finding they can earn more than double that as long as they join a barely-underground black market of shadowy language-peddlers.
And it’s been going on for decades. Decades, for god’s sake. You have to wonder if there is any way that government could possibly do a WORSE job of it. This country is the best example of why a free market in education should be given a try. It could only be an improvement over the current jaw-droppingly shocking failure. Look at the proposals in the table above Jackson’s article. 300 “special schools to nurture talents”. Good grief. The people in charge can’t even consult anyone who could help them, because none of them speak English.
Or this poor fool in today’s paper: 27 years old and he’s spent 2 years working on TOEIC before landing his FIRST job. Maybe he’s also taking a free talking class from a Canadian guy his age who earns 6 mil a month and gets laid by girls he couldn’t dream of having. Decades. Of ill will.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com.....id=2883242
Anyway, I was out and about this morning and I just want to say to some of y’all teachers: Guys, look in the fracking mirror before you leave the house. Get a haircut! Shave. Buy an iron and use it, or send your shirts out. Some of you dudes look like hell. Pick up a winter coat, too. You look pitiful shivering on the sidewalk these days in 4 layers of summer clothing.
Linkd:
That was music to my ears. Every single thing was perfect.
Koreans have been too occupied with image and not substance. Wasting money on ideas such as the English villages is a prime example of this.
Point: There is no leadership in the education system of Korea. Look here -
http://www.adiversity.com/maga.....=645838550
Education is too important to be left to government.
Business demands results.
Ask a CEO at a Korean company what it takes to make in the business world:
1. English skills
2. Computer skills
3. A specialty
What does education deliver, “Hi I am fine thank you and you?”
Man, I really need to send them a new picture. That thing looks like a mug shot.
I got a call from a reporter last week, asking me to contribute something for a piece KT wants to do on the election and English education. I think “OK, this won’t be too difficult.” I hammer it out in two hours to meet what I thought was the deadline and zipped it in. I didn’t expect that it was going to be a stand alone pieace.
#7, 8
You need to ask yourselves if the newspapers and politicians who criticize the TEOIC exam don’t have vested interests in doing so. What’s their solution? Replace it by a homegrown test, preferably one that they will administer? I’m sure they’ve be raking in the cash, but how could that be an improvement on the current situation?
GET OFF MY LAWN!
STOP PLAYING THAT HIPPITY HOP MUSIC!
DON’T MAKE ME TAKE OFF MY BELT!
Andy,
Your skin looks remarkably smooth. What’s your secret? Are you raiding your wife’s makeup stash?
Correction, “I’m sure they’d be raking in the cash, but how could that be an improvement on the current situation?”
I taught in a hakwon in Gwangju this past year and will teaching closer to Seoul next year. One thing that I will never be able to fully understand is the strange fixation with tests in Korea. Unfortunately, so much of English education is not devoted to communication but to doing well on the TOEIC, the TOEFL, the dreaded Suneung, among others.
I did have some students who could actually communicate. I taught a very bright 15 year old boy who had near-native pronunciation of English. He studied English because he genuinely wanted to learn to speak it and would very happily talk to any English speakers he could find. He had a great attitude towards learning and that is probably why his fluency was near perfect. He is something of an exception. There are any number of people with high TOEFL and TOEIC scores who can’t talk. A test is a good measure of knowledge. But if you can’t talk, well then what good is it?
#14,
Yes, the fixation on testing is the major problem faced by English Education in Korea. It focuses on standardized tests and the financial rewards and pitfalls associated with it one’s score on said exams. In other words, it puts a strong emphasis on extrinsic motivators (mainly punishments). Instead, teachers should strive to cultivate intrinsic motivators within the classroom. For one, allowing the students to set their own goals and praising and encouraging them throughout the process would help develop the students thirst for knowledge. Instead, they are taught in preparation for these tests; consequently, they are taught to fear failure, which stifles creativity and risk-taking.
Test taking also, unfortunately, reinforces the stereotype by some that Koreans are a very superficial people. I don’t necessarily buy that stereotype, but a good test score does not necessarily mean that you have mastered the material. A test is a measure, but it only can measure so much.
A good example is my bank in Korea. My academy had Kookmin Bank in their building. This was VERY handy, especially on payday. However, any major transaction, such as wiring money overseas or even just opening an account turned into a major headache because nobody spoke English, including the people at the foreign exchange desk. (Well, they spoke a little and they presumably took tests on it. But wiring money often turned into a major hassle.) The third in command at the academy found it hard to believe me about the struggles I had with the bank. My last day, when I was closing out my account, I had to have him come down and translate. And it wasn’t like I was wiring major amounts of cash, either. I had been going through the hassle every month and now wanted to close out my account. It took well over an hour to get everything sorted out. He was amazed, as he thought that they could understand English! Not so.
I am happy to try and speak Korean in many situations. However, when it comes to money, well, that is a different issue. There are so many people who have studied the language, but when it comes to actually communicated, they fail and fail miserably. They might even have a good score on the TOEIC!
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