"English Language Education is a Rudderless Ship"

English Education in Korea is a Rudderless Ship

An interesting editorial from the Chosun Ilbo about the state of English language education in South Korea.  Basically, Ahn Seok-Bae says that while Koreans throw huge sums of money at English education, it's actually largely ineffective.

I couldn't agree more with basically everything he says.  During my years in Korea, I've seen the policies with regard to learning English in public schools change seemingly as often as the seasons change.  Unis are often no better, with people who often haven't set foot in an actual classroom setting policies with regard to language education that are more often that not short-sighted.  There are no easy solutions, but here's my #1 idea:

Public schools need to "clean house" and get rid of the all the Korean English teachers who can't actually communicate in English.  Replace these teachers (often older ones) with teachers who can (often the younger ones) or with QUALIFIED native speaking English teachers.  By qualified, I don't mean the prettiest one with blue eyes and blonde hair.  But, I mean those with Celta Young Learners or Deltas or MA Tesols, or actual teaching certificates from Western countries in things like ESL or English and a few years of experience.  Pay them decently and give them their own classroom, doing away with co-teaching, which is basically a ridiculous farce.

Then, adapt the Korean Sooneung (University entrance exam) to focus on all 4 skills equally: Speaking, writing, reading and listening.  Design the test so that is focuses heavily on real communication, as much as can be done by a test.

Using a textbook like this one at the high-school level would help:



Check out this book if you want to get a University Job in South Korea

Translators

I was eating dinner with some girls in Cheonan last night who work at public schools. A newbie to teaching and to Korea was expressing her frustration at her middle school classes that were apathetic, didn't flow and were very low level. As she talked more, it was revealed that she has a co-teacher (CT) at all times, and so she speaks English and then the Korean CT will just translate what she said. I think this was very revealing at to why her classes don't interact with/respond to her. I don't like translation in a class for the following reasons:

1. I've never taught with a translater, either for kids/adults, beginners or upper levels, so it's just not what I'm comfortable with. This is the complete opposite of my public school friends, who are completely dependant on the translator so they obviously would not feel comfortable going at it alone with a group of kids.

2. Why would you put any effort into understanding another language, if someone who speaks you language is just going to translate anything of importance? In essence, the native speaker has no value within the classroom. Of course the kids have no motivation.

3. It hinders actual communication. In order to speak English fluently, a student must leave Korean behind, at least for a little bit so they can try to think in English, instead of just translating from Korean. Students who just translate from Korean will always remain at the very beginner level and never move to actual communication. If this is the model they have in class, then why would the students ever be inspired to actually learn English?

4. It breaks up the flow of the class, always having to stop to translate.

5. I'm somewhat dubious of the translation abilities of the teachers in public school here in Korea. While some of them are excellent, I've met more than a few who can't even have a simple conversation with me. Like I actually switch into Korean when talking to them, which doesn't say much at all since my Korean is somewhat pathetic.

6. There are ways to make yourself understood, in English even with someone who doesn't know a word of English. I've done it. It just takes a bit more effort and planning. Pictures/body language/speaking extremely simply with no superfluous words.
What are your thoughts? This could be quite the controversial topic I think.

If you've studied English for 10 years...

...then why can't you tell me your name, where you're from or how much money a bowl of Kimchi Chigae costs at the local Gimbap Nala? The perhaps not so simple explanation is that the Korean Confucian culture makes it difficult to learn a second language for the following reasons:

1. Shame. Unless you speak perfectly, you shouldn't speak at all. Koreans seem to like accuracy at the expense of any sort of fluency. And of course, they only way to get better at speaking is to practice speaking but this just really isn't their style. I hear rumors or teachers in Europe or South America having the problem of getting their students to STOP talking! I only wish :)

2. Shame #2. No one wants to appear better than anyone else. So even if you can speak English well, you can't really show it off in front of other people because you might embarrass them.

3. Teaching style. It seems like the older generation of Korean English teachers (and the newer generation too?) seem to prefer the grammar-translation method as opposed to a more communication-focused approach. This perhaps has its place in certain situations, such as when I was learning Biblical Greek and Hebrew because in no circumstance would I ever be required to speak these languages. But English is a living language that many people speak!

4. Tests. Korea is a test-focused culture. Tests to get into middle school, high school and universites. Tests at companies when applying for a job. So teachers teach for the test...and the more standard English tests don't have a speaking component to them.

Anyway, I was reading the following, "Teaching English as a Second Language" Edited by Marianne Celce-Murcia. In the "Guidelines for Language Classroom Instruction" the authors (Crookes & Chaudron) mention the following,

"Teachers need to remain aware that they are not in the classroom to fill up the time with the sound of their own voices, but to arrange matters so that the students do the talking.... Particulary in EFL (English as a foreign language...eg: learning English in Korea), rather than ESL (English as a second language...eg: a Korean learning English in Canada), class time is so valuable that we believe that the teacher should move on to practice phases of a lesson as soon as possible..."

And so I try to come up with games and activities that will get the students talking to each other. I will usually spend about 10 minutes or less of a 90 minute class, up at the front doing my talking thing. And I know that my students don't like it because of all the cultural barriers previously mentioned, but it's frustrating because intuitively I know it's good for them if they actually want to learn English. How to overcome this?