The following is the fourth in a series of articles highlighting alternative ideas on the Lee Myung-bak administration’s plan to strengthen Enblish education. ― ED.
By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
Kim Eun-jeong, 26, was an A plus student scoring 4.3 out of a maximum 4.5 grade when graduating from a prominent university in Seoul.
She was awarded a four year scholarship and did many extra curricular activities like volunteer work to fill her resume. But all this still did not guarantee her a smooth landing in the employment market.
For Kim, who long dreamed of being a producer of soap operas, English was always a major headache whenever she applied for a job.
``I think I submitted my resume to about 30 companies, including several firms not related to broadcasting. Even though I was top of my class for three semesters, I cowered due to my clumsy English.''
To enhance her academic career, she entered a graduate school in Seoul last year and is still very frustrated that she is still far from mastering the foreign language.
``I have studied English for more than six years since I was a middle school student. Compared to that period, I am almost mute.''
The social atmosphere, which tends to consider people who do not speak English well as incompetent, adds to her feeling of inadequacy.
She also spent about 600,000 won (about $630) on a two month course to elevate her TOEIC score which all of the 30 companies required.
``I would have not had tried to learn English so hard or been under such stress had I not been required to submit the English test result. Sure it may be helpful if I speak English well, but frankly speaking, I don't see that as `the key' for producing dramas,'' she added.
She is not alone in struggling with English to get a job or make her dreams come true.
The mighty foreign language is an important tool to get an admission offer from privileged universities, read academic journals or get useful information on the Internet, even though only about eight percent of the world's population use English as their mother tongue.
Thus, though Koreans invest their time, energy and money on improving their English ability, the results are not always that satisfactory.
Koreans pouring money and energy into English Learning
According to a report by the Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI), Koreans spend about 15 trillion won ($15.8 billion) on English learning per year.
The figure is three times higher than that of Japan whose population is 2.6 times larger than that of Korea.
Koreans also topped the applicant list of TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) between 2004 and 2005 as about 102,340 out of the 554,942 applicants were Koreans.
They also paid 700 billion won toward English examination fees.
Despite such efforts, Koreans just got 215 points out of 300 for TOEFL on average and ranked 93 out of 147 nations around the world.
According to a survey conducted by the Seoul City government in late 2003, 74.2 percent of the 1,000 respondents said they have difficulty communicating in the international language.
Enthusiasm for English study has also seen a large number of children, teenagers and even adults going to English-speaking countries like the United States, Australia and Britain to study.
Last year, some 250,000 under 29 years old went abroad for studying.
The English frenzy saw the coining of the term `goose father,' referring to a father who lives alone in Korea having sent his spouse and children to a foreign country to study English or some other form of advanced study.
Sometimes it's the other way round and the mother stays here. An office worker, Kim, recalled his life in London, England, in 2002 when he and his eight-year-old daughter flew to the European country so the young girl could learn English, calling it heart-breaking experience.
With his wife working in Korea, he had to struggle with financial, cultural differences and loneliness.
``One day, my daughter came to me and asked where mom is. Then, she said `this is not family.' So I decided to return to Korea,'' he said.
The goose fathers are estimated to be about 200,000 goose daddies nationwide.
Most Koreans start to learn English from middle or elementary school. By the time they graduate, they have already spent about 100,000 hours on English studying, according to the SERI report.
It may be enough time to master the foreign language but Koreans are still too shy to speak in front of English speakers.
Many people point out that what they learn in schools is just grammar.
``I learned a subject comes before a verb but I didn't learn how to express myself sufficiently,'' Kim said.
Another problem is Korea does not have environment for people to speak English frequently.
A 23-year-old university student Park Sun-joo studied in Australia and she became quite confident with more fluent English after one year.
But she confessed she almost forgot what she acquired because there were few opportunities to speak English after she returned home.
The SERI report concluded that it is necessary to improve the current high-cost, low-quality education system and expose people to an English-speaking environment.