As a person who wants to be an English teacher someday, I want to say about English Education in Korea. As you know, this is globalization ages and English is used as an official language in the world now. So far, actually, Korea government insisted students to study English from elementary to high school. To make people be able to have conversation with foreigners; they made the curriculum for that. But compared to the period that we've learned English for many years, almost Koreans can't speak English. I've considered the reason why we can't speak even though we spent many years studying.
In my point of view, there are some problems in English Education in Korea. Actually, Korean is a special alphabet and we can't change same pronunciation with English. Moreover, the unique language has different sentence structure with English. To speak by translation is too hard. That's why many Koreans have difficulty in learning the language.
I also… from being a middle school student, I've learned English in my school. But my previous English teachers also couldn't speak English well. We'd learned English the hard way. (There is an easy way which my tutor in the Philippines used to me as her own method…) And there was no chance to talk with friends in English. And in addition, if even teachers can't speak English well, then how could the students speak English too? I think that language can be useful when we have to use it for conversation. If we can't use the language, we couldn't say we've learned it.
But the English classes were studying all about English grammar. It was hard time for us to catch up. Imagine that we have to study same hard thing for many years. So, many friends were telling me that they were sick of studying English. “Why we didn’t study from young age?” If it's evident that we can't still speak it, we don't need to study. Then, what should we do first? We have to look for the reason why we are studying English.
Actually most of classes in Korea are the cramming education unlike other country. While teacher teaches his or her students, they are just listening to their teacher. Many Koreans can't express themselves well even in Korean. Teacher ought to give them the opportunities to participate and express themselves in class. I prefer the teaching method focusing on student's activities than listening.
In my case, I've studied in the Philippines for 6 months as an exchange student. I could notice that almost students took part in their classes. That's because professor also gave us many activities and questions to answers. I also, attended that kind of classes. So I participated in role playing, speech choir, teaching and presentation…etc. So we had to think, move and enjoy the activities in classes. Therefore, teachers make students become interested in their classes. Without interest, I think studying will be harder.
I hope that English Education in Korea will be changed to interpersonal thing. And then, students can have conversation with their friends and teachers. We have to consider about this to make this education be worthier than what we've been taught. I believe that it will happen soon.
by: Mejung Sat, December 6, 2008 10:54:41 PM
( Writing project of Mejung during 6 months of session)
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