Korean Job Discussion Forums

Real Reality · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Location: Seoul

Korea is the biggest spender on private tutoring institutes, has the highest number of Internet users, and is among the countries with the lowest English-language skills in the world, according to a recent report ranking nations across 203 economic and social segments.

Statistics released by the Korea International Trade Association revealed that Korea topped the list in terms of its expenditure for private tutoring.

However, the report also showed that Korea ranked 110th in terms of average scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language, a test that gauges English language skills.

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2003/10/13/200310130057.asp

Gord · Joined: 25 Feb 2003

We dicussed the English test thing ages ago. Short version: In Korea, a huge percentage of the country has to take it for company work.

Going to work at Samsung? Never going to speak English again in your life? Too bad, take the test so we can mark down your level and keep it on file. While people in other countries take it primarily to show they do know English. So you have a radically different sampling pool.

Korea accounted for nearly 50% of the total tests taken worldwide.

Tiger Beer · Joined: 07 Feb 2003

I'm curious where Japan would be at? They seem to equally struggle with Korea in the English-speaking abilities as well.

komtengi · Joined: 30 Sep 2003 Location: Slummin it up in Haebangchon

koreans are great at memorising facts, but when it comes to being analytical they arent so strong..... basically test scores are high cause they just memorise everything, but then in practice they are pretty hopeless

Zyzyfer · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 8:17 pm Post subject:

helly · Joined: 01 Apr 2003 Location: WORLDWIDE

I saw this in the paper yesterday but thought I'd wait for ol' Reality to post before I commented.

I think the irony is the high spend on private education (of which only a portion is English but the numbers are still fairly high) vs. the English language ability. I think this has quite a bit to do with attitudes towards language learning (I have to do it), teaching/learning method (poor quality instruction, adult-learning models not applied, inadequate resources.)

Regarding the Samsung comment, though..... I know a lot of people at various Samsung businesses and have to say that there is a tremendously high English language ability there when compared with other Korean companies (go into the multinationals and you'll be amazed). Obviously, there are lots who can't utter a word but there are many who can. I do, however, agree that the is no real point to requiring English ability and high TOEIC/TOEFL scores among all your staff.