ESL Reform
On another website, Dave's ESL, I have seen many threads of people debating about how to 'reform' the English language schools in order to get every school child fluent in English. Since my experience is with teaching ESL to Korean schoolkids, I'll post my thoughts on the Korean ESL Industry as Korea also is one of the most problematic countries for ESL education. Since many ESL teachers are heavily dependent on the Hagwon industry for their livelihood, they're not likely to publicly support more restrictions on hagwons, or question the rationale for every child learning English. It would be like a Car Salesmen talking about Public Transportation.
I'll start by telling about my own personal experience in early 2005 at my first ESL job in Gyeongju before I taught in Pohang. It was a branch of the SISA hagwon chain and I only taught there for a few weeks, but here are a few things I observed. Every weekday and Saturday, there were classes from 3:00 to 10:00 at night. And outside class, there were always children on the streets anxious to speak English. A week after I arrived in Gyeongju, I learned one of the reasons why kids were so anxious to practice English with foreigners.
Every month, the kids at the SISA hagwon would stand in front of a group of parents to read an English story. I actually got to sit at one of these "performances" to grade the students on their speaking ability. It was a farce since the kids for the most part could not have a real English conversation outside of reciting texts. Anyway, one student struggled to read his lines and the Korean teacher had to whisper the lines to him. After going through the story, the kid was in tears. At other hagwons, the kids too often have to study English at late night hours. Based on my experience of teaching ESL to the Korean youngsters, I realized that the Korean children are under too much pressure to learn English.
Reforms
The important thing to emphasize is that the ESL Industry needs to be drastically scaled back, and the following sections illustrate that point.
1. Not every child can speak English as a second language:
By this, the Korean Society and leaders need to recognize that not every Korean child has the desire or ability to reach fluency in English. Until the Korean adults recognize the fact that the majority of people on this planet never reach fluency in a second language, there can be no meaningful reform of the ESL Industry. Any reform in education must be based in reality, not some pipe dream like sending everyone to college or getting everyone a high paying Corporate job.
2. Cut back the number of hagwon hours:
Ideally, 6 hours a day in a public school classroom would be the most amount of time that youngsters would spend sitting at a desk. Nonetheless, even in America, there are kids who take some extra lessons after school for help with difficult subjects. A good guideline here is that children need at least 8 hours of sleep every night as well as a few hours for things like exercise and homework. My recommendation is that hagwons should be required by law to close their doors 1 hour before sunset. In spring and summer, that would be 7 PM and in the fall and winter, the closing hour would be 5 PM. And opening in the morning before public schools would be prohibited. Drastically cutting hagwon hours would help the Korean public recognize that children have other needs besides studying and that ESL is not meant to be a big business.
3. Cut English from the Standardized Tests.
TOIEC and TOEFL scores should not be a requirement for any Korean student attending a Korean University unless the area of study is related to English education or International Business. Job positions for people to do language translating or foreign language teaching are quite limited in most countries of the Globe. The taxi drivers, mechanics, construction workers, restaurant cooks, factory workers, store clerks, and most other occupations in Korea don't have a high need for English speakers. For those positions, being able to do basic tasks in English such as counting change and giving driving directions will be sufficient.
4. Cut all Government funding for English villages and English Cities.
In case the reader doesn't know what English Villages and English Cities are, those places are huge camps in Korea where the Korean kids go to be immersed in English. Typically, the kids will spend between a few weeks and a month at those places and conduct their daily lives entirely in English. While immersion in a foreign language is a good way to learn the language, I've read many complaints on Dave's ESL about the way the camps are run. For starters, a teacher at an English village will sign a 1 year contract to work there. And with that, he/she will spend 1 year speaking English with Korean children but have very little time to travel to other parts of Korea or learn the language. Of course, the other problem is that these places are not "real" cities in the sense that the foreign staff would have the same rights as an actual citizen or conduct some other business besides teaching English.
As a result, the turnover rate is very high and the English villages have turned to non-English speaking foreigners to staff these places. Not to mention that some of these "English Villages" have been losing money. Having the Korean Government cut off the funding for these places would serve as another reminder that fluency in a foreign language cannot be done on a mass scale. And vacations really do need to be time for the Korean kids to be kids and enjoy things like mountain climbing and swimming at the beach.
Other ideas concerning English Reform
1. English immersion schools
With this idea, Korean children could go to a public school and be taught the different subjects by a certified teacher from Canada or America. Due to budget concerns, Korea hasn't implemented this idea yet. I think that some cities like Seoul and Busan could set up some immersion schools for English, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian, which would give the Korean children credible choices for getting fluent in a foreign language.
2. Replace the Native English teachers with (Korean/Filipino/Indian)English teachers
From time to time, some Korean education officials will publicly say that Korea should replace the Western English teachers with Filipinos or Indians, or that Korean English teachers should speak English in the classroom. And on Dave's ESL, people will then accuse the education officials of xenophobia. My take on this is that the Korean education officials have the delusion of getting every schoolchild fluent in English, and the audacity to suggest that such a feat could be done on the cheap. The other factor at play is national pride. Koreans pride themselves on being intelligent and being able to educate their own children. With this in mind, the Koreans don't want western teachers running their education system. However, if they want to get rid of most western teachers, they must first give up the delusion of getting every Korean child to speak fluent English and take appropriate steps to downscale the ESL Industry.
3. Everybody must learn English
This idea about English being the most important language of business is to a huge extent, marketing on part of the ESL Industry. Another fact that gets thrown around a lot in the Korean media is that Korea ranks near the bottom among industrialized countries for English ability, thus making it necessary to "reform" the ESL Industry. I'll repeat that before there can be any reform of ESL in Korea, the Koreans must give up the delusion of having all their kids speak English. Without any clear vision of reality, there can be no reform. My suggestion is that Korea realize that they are nowhere near Europe on the map, and that the nearby countries Japan, China, and Russia, also have poor English skills. Once they get a clear vision of reality, they can stop comparing themselves to Europe and start teaching English to the children who actually do want to learn it.
4. Americans can't learn ... (Korean, Chinese, etc)
The myth that native English-speaking Americans can't learn a foreign language, especially a difficult language, has proven to be a quite powerful marketing tool for the ESL Industry, as well as a stereotype that has hurt America's image abroad. One of the reasons I've undertaken the task of learning Korean was to help put this myth to rest and prove that native English speakers can learn a difficult foreign language. Some countries like China and Saudi Arabia have already sent over native speakers in their languages to America to set up schools where American students can learn Chinese and Arabic. Other countries should follow the same example and send over native speakers to help American students learn a foreign language. If America and some other countries can help out with the cost of such a program, it would definitely help improve the foreign language education in America as well as help reduce the pressure on foreign students to learn English.
