Textbooks, tests or face in Korea?
The winner of a teaching contest in Korea, secondary school English teacher Song Jung-sun, has said that a college admissions test is to blame for inefficient English language teaching in the country.
The focus on preparing students for the tests, which “emphasise only reading skills”, means that English education is only a “yardstick for student selection”, according to Song.
She also says that many parents do not trust the school teachers, and enrol their children in private language schools where high scores in the tests are the main aim. The governement should spend its money on educating Korean teachers, rather than increasing the number of foreign teachers in the country, she argues.
One reader’s comment on the article suggests instead that the fear of making mistakes as a result of the “face” aspect of Korean culture is the biggest inhibitor to learning.
Do you teach in Korea? Is English teaching inefficient? If so, what is to blame? Post a comment below…
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July 12th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Can it really be that bad? Here in Japan people are shaking their heads because the Koreans and Chinese are well ahead of the Japanese in TOEIC scores and I read somewhere that the Koreans were well on the way to reforming their university education testing system.
If it is true, there are loads of other possible reasons:
- Very different sounds in Korean and English
- Different script
- Negative impression of most foreign countries, especially Americans, and so lack of a desire to mix and fit in by reaching a near-native level of English
-Competition from Chinese and Japanese for language learning time
TEFLtastic with Alex Case- All the truth that’s fit to teach