Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

I just found this in the J-style section of the Joongang Ilbo:

We wanted a place where students can learn English as they experience and use their English ability in real life situations instead of the current method of cramming for exams," said Hong Jong-deuk, executive director of planning and marketing at the Gyeonggi English Culture Foundation, which supervises the English Village. "The educational office of Gyeonggi province will support the district schools to send eighth graders to the five-day experience of English Village, even during the school year."
By 2008, the foundation will build two more English Villages, one in Paju and the other in Yangpyeong, to accommodate most of the 150,000 eighth graders living in the province, 200 each week. But students from other provinces can't join the English Village because the facility will be funded by Gyeonggi taxpayers.
Enrollment costs 330,000 won ($284) per student, but Gyeonggi province gives grants of 250,000 won, leaving only 80,000 won for the individuals to pay. For children from extremely low-income families, however, the regional government has promised exemption from fees.
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Please tell me there is more to this program than meets the eye.

What earthly good would it do to spend W330,000 for a week of English? Especially if you are sending every student in the province, at every level of ability and interest (and lack thereof). I will bet my total income for the next 6 months that whole homerooms will be sent as a group, with no effort made to group students by ability.

I really hate being cynical, but isn't this just another example of copying something and only getting the appearance right, while screwing up the substance?

[Falstaff]

Perhaps I'll try to tackle this one.

I, along with several other members of this boards, am currently teaching at Ansan English Village. We are not attempting English mastery in a week. We realize as well as you do that it would be foolish to think we could do so. We are working on a month long immersion program, but that's a different story for a later time.

You are right, classes are currently not broken up by ability level. We have talked about ways to do this, but as of right now, we are leaving it as is.

So what are we trying to accomplish in a week? We are trying to increase exposure to the English language in an immersion environment. We are trying to mimic some real life situations so that the kids can practice English. But the biggest thing we are trying to do is to let the students have fun in an English environment. Too much of their school work is rote memorization and writing. We want to try to spark an interest in English language by letting them have fun learning English.

We are not looking for mastery. We are looking for improvement, and trying to instill a desire to learn so that when they return to their school, there will be additional motivation to learn.

Will it work? We hope so. We are constantly looking at how to make our system work better. I'd be happy to try to answer any other questions you have about the program, if I can.