English Education in South Korea

Last week we were given a lecture by the National Institute for International Education about English education in Korea and afterwards we took a field trip to a rural elementary school to see what schools outside of the city of Seoul are like and also to observe an English class that was being taught by a U of M alumnus, Brian Lee. The presentation and the school were both very interesting. I was most surprised by the fact that the rural elementary school, which only had 36 total students and consisted of grades kindergarten through sixth, was far better equipped and much nicer than every elementary school that I have seen in the United States. It was also a lot of fun watching the English class being taught by Brian. The kids seemed to be very enthusiastic and were having a lot of fun. I was even lucky enough to have a chance to interact with the kids in one of their learning exercises :) It was a lot of fun!

I think the reason that the Korean government has deemed English education as so important and why they hire a lot of foreigners to teach the language is that the government realizes that the world is quickly becoming a globalized society. In order to prepare its future citizens to be successful in that society, it is necessary for them to know English because it is the international language and will continue to be so in the near future. Furthermore, their decision to hire foreigners I think is a result of their desire to have native speakers teach the language since they will tend to have a better accent and, more importantly, because it provides the students a chance to interact with foreigners and gives them some insight into other cultures outside of South Korea.

As someone who is fluent in English and who's first language was English, I think I have one huge advantage over those whose first language isn't English and even more so over those who aren't fluent in English, which is that my language is the international language and it makes it much easier for me to function in the rapidly globalizing world. By being fluent in English, I can go to almost any first world country and get around perfectly fine since there are more than likely going to be people there that understand and speak at least some English, especially in metropolitan cities. On the otherhand, if I only spoke French, Chinese, or any language other than English, it would be a lot harder for me to travel and function in other countries.


Everyone hanging out at Hwachon Elementary School's Library