Korean Job Discussion Forums

[PsykLaw]

Here's the article:

http://blog.esldaily.org/2008/02/18/north-korea-rocks-toefl.aspx

Surely, there is something fishy here. I suspect that only the best students in NK are allowed to even take the test. I could merely be rationalizing but it just seems to me that having access to native speakers is far more beneficial than not. Then again, who is to say that the average NK student doesn't have a better understanding of grammar while having horrible pronunciation?

Either way, I am curious about what others think.

[Smee]

Yes, that article did make me chuckle. So they eschew communicative competence in favor of tests . . . then proceed to bomb those tests.

Granted, according to the Chosun Ilbo article only 6,000 North Korean students took the TOEFL, meaning they were in fact the elite:
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200802/200802150018.html

So the results are somewhat skewed since tons of South Koreans are taking the exam. That does, however, provide an accurate assessment of the general abilities of South Korean students. It also shows thats perhaps the policy of "force English and native speakers down everyone's throat because everyone needs to speak English like a white guy" maybe isn't the best way. At least, not the best way right now since clearly South Koreans aren't ready for that.

[Hotpants]

Yes, in the complete article it admits that the North Korean TOEFL candidates belong to the civil service elite. However, money and status doesn't always equal intelligence, as we have perhaps all experienced in our classrooms. I'm suspecting that these candidates have access to materials and tuition akin to the Soviet days, whereby in places such as Bulgaria and Romania, I had met quite a few excellent speakers of English from 'top' schools, but who had never once travelled outside of the country. Their English ability and overall academic intelligence was really impressive, and it demonstrates that it doesn't necessarily need people to spend billions of dollars on overseas education to achieve competence in English. It is more about academic drive and exposure to the right learning environment. In my opinion, most South Korean students are overwhelmed with pressure to study X number of school subjects around the clock, that they have little energy left to want to go and surf English websites or magazines in their 'free' time, for example.