Day 472 - State of English in Korea

It sucks.

Okay, so I have a bunch of time on my hands, so I've been looking through some lesson plans and getting organized for future classes. I came across another foreigner's blog and read through his rant on the state of English in Korea.

To summarize, it sucks. I'd say the average person in Korea has spent at least 10 years studying English through their public education. This isn't like your high school Spanish class though, this is intense studying that involves going to after-school tutoring classes and nation-wide standardized testing.

And yet, nearly every student I meet is completely incapable of interacting with me.

Why?

In your high school Spanish class, you probably studied all the aspects of Spanish. Vocabulary quizzes, grammar tests, listening exercises, writing essays, speaking tests, end-of-semester skits, Spanish food and culture. In Korea, however, English learning stops at the "listening exercises" part. Speaking tests are rare, writing essays or performing skits is nearly unheard of. Production of English is not taught -- it's assumed to develop on its own through all the vocab quizzes and grammar tests.

Enter the native speaker.

The government, educational boards, and schools assume that the native speaker is inheriting however many years of ability that the student has spent studying English. For me, this is about 10 years, as my high school kids started in elementary school. They're translating excerpts from novels and studying words like "abate", "prevail", "salvage", but they're unable to tell me what they did for summer vacation. No production skills.

Why can't they produce English? They're never taught how. They never need to learn how. Their standardize tests only measure vocabulary and grammar. Reading and listening. There's no writing or speaking section, so students are never required to show that they know English, only that they recognize English.

So back to the post on that other foreigner's website. He comes up with 4 points I completely wholeheartedly agree with.

• Make English tests related to actual speaking and comprehension ability, not the 'ability' to pass a test. These are the hardest things to test, admittedly, but there are ways to test via a neutral third-party. Someone with no connection to either student or school - perhaps a third-party test center that connects to a call-center of trained native English proctors / testers.
• Give teachers - both Korean and foreign - the flexibility and autonomy they need to do their job. Tell the parents to back off and let the teachers do what they're paid to do. If the parents can't trust a full-time working person to do their job, ask them if they think they can do better.
  
• De-emphasize the English language as an educational gold standard. Yes, I did just say that. Take the pressure off of the entire population to learn a language only a fraction will actually need. How many store clerks need the vocabulary of a college scholar to sell a Coke?
• Sponsor / support new and innovative programs - especially those started by English teachers trying to improve educational levels and standards.

My students aren't becoming the next community leaders, I'll be blunt. They don't need to know how to translate "Many people with hay fever move to more salubrious sections of the country during the months of August and September." Why force something so unnecessary on them when they could be doing something much more productive with their time?