Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Koreans among lowest in English ability: report
Yonhap News (June 3, 2008)
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2008/06/03/0302000000AEN20080603008200315.HTML

Korean English Fever Betrayed by Test Scores
By Kang Shin-who, Korea Times (June 3, 2008)
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/06/117_25279.html

[Adventurer]

I don't think that it is so easy to compare Korea to other countries except maybe for Japan and China. The other countries either were former colonies of Britain or speak and Indo-European language. Korea should be able to do better than China and Japan considering the amount of English teachers present in the country. I don't understand why the Japanese score higher. Well, I understand that the teaching of English at public schools is basically a disaster in Korea. The Korean English teachers are doing horribly in general. It is not the fault of the foreigners, because the majority of teachers are Korean.

[Young FRANKenstein]

[skeeterses]

More English teachers is not going to make a difference with Korea.

There's only 2 things that Korea can do if they want more of their kids to learn English. And that is
1.) get better English teachers in, and
2.) stop pretending that every kid should learn English and instead focus on teaching English to the kids who want to learn English.

[Unposter]

At the end of the article the British Council recommends Koreans change their methodology of learning English if they want to do better. They are right.

The comment that Koreans especially do poorly in Speaking and Writing should not be a surprise, as they study these the least.

Also, they are talking about the IELTS which is a strictly British English test which would only attract a few Korean students. They might also have some difficulty with such tests because of the generally North American curriculum in Korea.

I really hope Korea decides to overhaul their public school curriculum to put more emphasis on production (speaking and writing).

[aka Dave]

I tell my students to listen to 2 hours of Npr.org or Voa (because text is provided with the listening materials) every day (and I claim to spend 2 hours listening to Korean every day to motivate them, but I've been slacking hehe). It's not fair to criticize Korean students, Korean is radically difficult from English and their culture makes their "affective filter" (that is they're nervous making mistakes in the adolescent/late adolescent phase of their education) is high.

However, the public school program of GTM (grammar translation method) is pure BS and should be thrown out the window. 2mb wanted English immersion, which is a radical step - instead they should walk away from GTM in public schools and take baby steps to a more communicative approach.

[skeeterses]

2 hours a day of listening to authentic reading material is a great way to improve both reading and listening skills.

Dave, I don't know if you spend 2 hours a day listening to the Korean material, since the listening materials for Korean seem to be more limited. But if you do spend more time listening to Korean material, over time it will help you understand what your students are saying to each other in Korean.

[aka Dave]

[skeeterses]

Thanks for the links.

[aka Dave]

[teachteach]

Japan has like 100,000 or so EFL foreigners, compared with 10,000 some odd in Korea.

[Young FRANKenstein]

[Chicoloco]

[blaseblasphemener]

[IncognitoHFX]