National and International English Education News articles

Hyun, Kim- News for English Education

<Is it enough, or not enough?>

The Ministry of Education made a formal announcement of new English education policy. According to newspaper reports, the education of English is now much more intensified than the past. Maybe from year 2010, there will be more than one or two hours of English class in a week for elementary school students ranging from third year to sixth year. However, there are two groups which have totally different opinions to this policy: the one group showing the approval and others showing the opposition.

First of all, a lot of parents of students-especially support the new policy- say ‘it is not enough.’ They assert that it is on an account of a failure of English education in secondary school that students who have learn English in school for about 10years can not speak with foreigner easily. As the importance of competence and performance on English is growing more and more, they maintain that the more, the better.

However, Korean institutes go with ‘it is enough.’ There already are a number of instances in which the Korean is relatively ignored because of the overemphasis on English. For example, our society has shown a tendency of considering English as a way to get a high repute. They say that they can hardly find signboards written in Korean on the street. Because of the recent trend, they concern about that our younger generation might not recognize the value Korean but consider English as the most necessary language. Therefore, rather than to expand English class on school, to change how to teach English properly and efficiently is the most pressing matter, they maintain.

It is necessary for each group to bring out the solution that fits to the both sides. Without the insight to nature of the issue, we can not come to a satisfactory settlement. How about you? What do you think of this issue? If you are standing at the turning point of the decision whether to expand or not, you can not easily know which side is more reasonable. The most necessary thing in this situation is to concede each opinion and to make a new policy for our students.

International English Education News.
By Eojin Lee.

In the last few decades, we have seen a marked increase in importance of English education. Now, English has become a 'must-learn' language not only in Korea but in many countries in the world. Let's look around us and find out what is happening in China and Japan!

Hello from Shanghai!
English education in China varies depending on each region that it is difficult to generalize. However, Shanghai is said to be the most international city and is known for their unique college entrance exam they changed recently. Understanding English education curriculum comes easy once you find out what college entrance exam is like. In China, all the high school seniors are required to take English interviews before the college entrance exam, which is on June every year. It is marked as A,B,C and the result affects the final grade. Then, in the actual exam, there used to be six sections; listening, vocabulary, grammar, reading, cloze test, writing. Recently, the translation has added and it changed how English is taught in high schools. To get the students prepared for the new section, teachers brought back an old methodology, which is called Audio-Lingual Method. It is applied in the way that when teacher gives a sentence in Chinese, students are told to translate in English. In addition to this, they are trained to memorize vocabularies that are often shown in sentences. Whereas the trend of English education is focused more and more on Communicative Method, Shanghai went different and it is too early to say which method is better. Reminding ourselves that English is a foreign language, isn't translation a better idea than having to write an essay which is difficult even in your own language?

Hello from Japan!
Most Korean people have trouble communicating in English when in Japan. It is often the case that Japanese working in airports are not fluent in English. Is this true that Japanese people are not good at speaking in English? There are so many who are fluent English speakers in Japan. However, English is not considered as important as it is in Korea. For example, there is not much advantage of a high TOEIC score on your application. Moreover, English is not on the curriculum in public schools until middle school in Japan. While Korea lowered even to 1st grade in elementary school, Japan is quite lenient about teaching English. However, they are planning on teaching elementary school students some English in 2010 realizing the importance of learning it at an early age. Nichiban, an office equipment maker that also handles English education materials for children, actually did a survey on this issue last year. Almost 80 percent of respondents favored the idea of teaching English at an early age. 37 percent even said children should start learning English in nursery school. The reason for this is because they thought children will be less resistant and become more familiar with English when it is taught when they are still young.

<English immersion programs popular around the world>
Countries show interest for the benefits of English immersion.

English immersion programs are really popular all over the world. Many countries in Europe are conducting the program. On September 1, 2008, France's education minister said the key of English education is speaking English better. It is expected that they would also adopt a bilingual program within a few years.

Asian countries also show interest for the benefits of English immersion. In Malaysia, teachers teach students math and science in English, and recently Malaysia start to analyze the benefits of the program. Deputy Ministers, Datuk Razali Ismail and Datuk Wee Ka Siong said,

"The Education Ministry will conduct a fifth roundtable to get more inputs before deciding whether we will continue this policy that teach mathematics and science in English."(quoted from http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/16/nation/20081116185608&sec=nation)

Korea is another stereotypical example in Asia. As an innovative approach to learning and teaching English, English immersion has recently emerged in Korea. Korean government will conduct English immersion program starting 2010. This includes teaching mathematics and science only in English.

"Among non-English-speaking countries, those using English are richer than other nations," said President of Korea, Lee Myung-bak. "English is a highly necessary tool for living in today's globalized world, and people will be eligible for different jobs and receive different treatment based on their ability to use English."(quoted from http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/267073.html)

According to Susan Romaine (Oxford University), English immersion is international phenomenon. She said,

"English immersion is an international issue, and this program is one of the most effective ways to learn a foreign language."

<JUHWAN PARK&bull;JUHWANESS@NAVER.COM&bull;November 19, 2008>

Hyun, Kim- News for English Education

&lt;Is it enough, or not enough?&gt;

The Ministry of Education made a formal announcement of new English education policy. According to newspaper reports, the education of English is now much more intensified than the past. Maybe from year 2010, there will be more than one or two hours of English class in a week for elementary school students ranging from third year to sixth year. However, there are two groups which have totally different opinions to this policy: the one group showing the approval and others showing the opposition.

First of all, a lot of parents of students-especially support the new policy- say ‘it is not enough.’ They assert that it is on an account of a failure of English education in secondary school that students who have learn English in school for about 10years can not speak with foreigner easily. As the importance of competence and performance on English is growing more and more, they maintain that the more, the better.

However, Korean institutes go with ‘it is enough.’ There already are a number of instances in which the Korean is relatively ignored because of the overemphasis on English. For example, our society has shown a tendency of considering English as a way to get a high repute. They say that they can hardly find signboards written in Korean on the street. Because of the recent trend, they concern about that our younger generation might not recognize the value Korean but consider English as the most necessary language. Therefore, rather than to expand English class on school, to change how to teach English properly and efficiently is the most pressing matter, they maintain.

It is necessary for each group to bring out the solution that fits to the both sides. Without the insight to nature of the issue, we can not come to a satisfactory settlement. How about you? What do you think of this issue? If you are standing at the turning point of the decision whether to expand or not, you can not easily know which side is more reasonable. The most necessary thing in this situation is to concede each opinion and to make a new policy for our students.

-hyunkim

English education, the younger children are, the better they achieve?By Youjin LeeIn Korea, most people cannot deny the power of English in this society. English skill is one of the most basic and essential elements for a way to go to success. This idea affects the market of English education so the number of private schools surpasses that of public school. Many parents send their children to English speaking countries while they should endure the difficulties of parting with them. Under these circumstances, the age of studying English is getting younger and younger. One of the examples which reflect this phenomenon obviously is English kindergarten. Nowadays, English Kindergarten becomes very popular in Korean society which target age of 4~5 children. The tuitions for English Kindergarten are about 900 thousand won a month in average. While those are extremely expensive, parents still eager to send their children to go there. They believe it is one of the most valuable opportunities for children to take high quality of English education. However, they should not overlook that there exists a couple of side effects with English Kindergarten.First of all, children are not completely perfect in their mother tongue so it may cause confusion for them about the notion for language. This confusion might result two possibilities; it is possible to be good at both English and Korean, but it is also possible to be ill at both of languages. There are even some cases that children don't speak English and use body languages and gesture to communicate with their teachers as a side effect of too intensive education from too young age. Secondly, children don't have enough time or situation to get polite manner in English kindergarten. English kindergarten only care about children's English education and teachers treat students in Western way. Therefore, children learn Western culture first, rather than they recognize their own culture. In this way, children should have problems when they go to regular public school. Thirdly, children would regard English as a stressful stuff when they are forced to study English. Actually, language is acquired most efficiently when children have interest in it. When English is compelled to study to young children, they could have bad impression with English and that goes for long time. This affection ought to bring about lowering efficiency of learning by stressful image of English even when they are grown up too. We should consider all the aspects of earlier education how that could affect to the children’s developments such as whether children like or dislike it or when could be the best time for starting English education. The most important thing to improve English skill efficiently is to motivate children to have interest in English. To sum up, in my opinion, the most effective method to accomplish high level of English skill is not related to the starting age but how much passion do the learners have on studying English.

-youjinlee

Hi eujin!
I enjoyed reading your article. Actually, I was really really surprised that kindergarten's tuition fee is more thatn 900 thousand won a month. Even though I knew that it's so expensive that many people can't afford it, I didn't expect that much.
As I want to study in child English education, this article was very interestng to me. Of course there might be some disadvantages in early education, however, I think it's better for kids to learn English in their young age. As they are young and open to their environment, they can learn English with not much reluctance. For exaple, if parents can provide children an environment which allows them to learn English unconciously, like playing songs or reading books written in English, they can get accustomed to it and interested in it. To sum up, I think early English education is good, and in order to boost the efficiency, the most important thing is how to give learner a proper guidace according to their's age.
Thanks for reading my comment :) It's very cold outside. Take care :D

Hello Hyun! I am Sangwook Park.

what you wrote hear made me think of that topic seriously.
I think, as a post-English teacher, it is necessary for us to have a lot more English classes in elementary, junior high, and high schools in Korea.
We should think of the topic for a longer time.

Thank you for giving us a good chance to think of it. :-)

Hyun, Kim- News for English Education

&lt;Is it enough, or not enough?&gt;

The Ministry of Education made a formal announcement of new English education policy. According to newspaper reports, the education of English is now much more intensified than the past. Maybe from year 2010, there will be more than one or two hours of English class in a week for elementary school students ranging from third year to sixth year. However, there are two groups which have totally different opinions to this policy: the one group showing the approval and others showing the opposition.

First of all, a lot of parents of students-especially support the new policy- say ‘it is not enough.’ They assert that it is on an account of a failure of English education in secondary school that students who have learn English in school for about 10years can not speak with foreigner easily. As the importance of competence and performance on English is growing more and more, they maintain that the more, the better.

However, Korean institutes go with ‘it is enough.’ There already are a number of instances in which the Korean is relatively ignored because of the overemphasis on English. For example, our society has shown a tendency of considering English as a way to get a high repute. They say that they can hardly find signboards written in Korean on the street. Because of the recent trend, they concern about that our younger generation might not recognize the value Korean but consider English as the most necessary language. Therefore, rather than to expand English class on school, to change how to teach English properly and efficiently is the most pressing matter, they maintain.

It is necessary for each group to bring out the solution that fits to the both sides. Without the insight to nature of the issue, we can not come to a satisfactory settlement. How about you? What do you think of this issue? If you are standing at the turning point of the decision whether to expand or not, you can not easily know which side is more reasonable. The most necessary thing in this situation is to concede each opinion and to make a new policy for our students.

-hyunkim

International middle school is finally decided to build in Seoul By Youjin LeeIt is finally being decided to build a controversial International middle school. The aim of International Middle School is to train up students as leaders of international era and to provide better circumstances for students to learn English. Some parents and students who want their children or themselves to take advanced lessons in school expected the final decision of committee for Education in Seoul. But there have been numerous arguments between pros and cons. The supporters of International middle school insist that it could be helpful to discourage people to go abroad for studying through offering them favorable circumstances to learn English. Now, two international middle schools are running in Korea. One is Busan international middle school in Busan, and the other is Chungsim international middle school in kyunggi. In those schools, they basically offer bilingual instruction that half of the classes are lead by English and the rest of classes are operated by Korean. Moreover, there are much more native teachers than general middle schools have. In this way, students can be exposed to English everyday. Actually, there are not many native teachers in ordinary middle school. Most of the English classes are leaded by Korean teacher who explain English materials in Korean. Even though public middle schools try to reform the old style of the lecture, the change is still very slow and subtle. In addition, advocators believe that this system could offer various options for education. They insist that they have a right to take better quality of education if they are affording to take it. On the other hand, opponents warn that the foundation of International middle school would encourage private educations to prepare for entering the school. As the whole curriculum of the school is based on English, students should possess high level of English skills to gain admission to that school. There are many parents and students who already have started to prepare the entrance exam of new International middle school even which is not built yet. Also, objectors claim that it would motivate to make more serious gap between poor and rich. The tuitions for International middle school are much more expensive than general public middle schools. Therefore, it is hard to go to the International Middle school for students whose families’ financial situations are not good even they have great abilities on learning and language. One research of Chung-sim International middle school reveals that students whose parents are in high position or professional account for more than 80%, whereas whose parents are working in agriculture, forestry and fishery are only 0.7%. The opponents predict these inequalities must be intensified.No matter how many controversies are exist between pros and cons about International Middle School, two international middle schools will be open in Seoul on March in next year. The decision has already made, however, the arguments between agree and disagree might be still very fierce. Consequently, there are a couple of burden we should solve which can complement the disadvantages of International middle school; a way to keep away inequality and to improve International middle school as an effective educational institution.

-youjinlee

The international school issue is controversial. In my opinion, the main point is the possibilty that only rich students enter these schools. It can make the unfair education condition. If this possibility actualizes, the weath gaps will make the knowledge gaps. I hope that the entrance for these school opens to poor students.

Thanks for your impressive news.

Hi Chulwook. I have the same opinion about the issue. Equality is on one side of education. On the other side, there is Excellence. It is really controversial, so we should find some solutions to the problem about balancing both of the extremes.

Hello Youjin!

The international school issue is controversial. In my opinion, the main point is the possibilty that only rich students enter these schools. It can make the unfair education condition. If this possibility actualizes, the weath gaps will make the knowledge gaps. I hope that the entrance for these school opens to poor students.

Thanks for your impressive news.

-chulwookchoi