Park Chang-seok,
professor at Kyung Hee University |
By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter
Korean students spend an untold amount of time and energy to learn English in school. But oftentimes, their efforts are aimed at getting high marks for standardized exams such as the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
Korean students can often get stellar scores on these standardized proficiency tests, according to Park Chang-seok, a professor at Kyung Hee University in Seoul and the founding chairman of the new English Newspapers in Education Society of Korea (ENIES).
``But when it comes to English essay writing ― critical and logical writing ― there is room for improvement,'' he said.
Park noted that during the past couple of years, the TOEFL test, often a requirement for Korean students applying to universities overseas, became an Internet-based exam. At around the same time, the test also began to incorporate a one-hour logical essay section.
``Korean students are used to multiple-choice English tests and they have been preparing for these types of examinations in their classes," he noted. ``But these new essay-type questions, where test takers are required to work on a critical essay in a short amount of time, are turning out to be a challenge for a lot of students.''
``Korean students don't have practice in preparing for essay writing in these English proficiency tests. When TOEFL started the essay-writing section, average scores for students taking these tests began to drop noticeably,'' according to the professor.
``To help boost their writing skills, using English-language daily newspapers as a teaching tool can be very effective,'' he said. The newspaper-oriented lessons could include asking students to write alternative headlines and summaries for newspaper stories.
Another exercise he suggests is writing an English summary of Op-Eds in the newspapers. ``These types of newspaper-oriented lessons could help boost essay writing skills for Korean students.''
Park has also published a book on this innovative approach to learning English. Titled ``English: Speaking Through Essays,'' it covers a number of journalism topics including the difference in news writing styles in Korean and English and editing news articles, as well as ways to spot common writing errors when reporting news in English. There are also a number of mistakes Koreans often make when they directly translate Korean sentences, he noted.
Trying to write a concise, well-constructed newspaper story takes a great deal of effort and concentration, Park said.
He certainly knows what it's like to write and publish English-language newspapers. The professor spent more than 30 years working as a reporter and an editor and had formerly served as managing editor at The Korea Times.
He advised: ``Good English-language news stories have three common characteristics: they are accurate, simple and logical.''
Park noted that Korean students are, for the most part, competent in their verbal skills, with many taking extracurricular tutoring classes at ``hagwon'' or private educational institutions outside school. The private English education business in Korea is estimated to be worth trillions of won or billions of U.S. dollars according to the professor. Students also get passing grades when it comes to rudimentary translation of sentences. But writing critical essays? ``Students still need a lot more practice, I'm afraid,'' Park said.
``Even at the university level, I've noticed that a lot of students have difficulty writing critical essays in English. Compared with the past generation, Korean students today are much more conversant but they still need to work on improving their writing skills. They should practice creative writing as well as critical and logical writing.''
Park minced no words when asked to describe the quality of English-language education in Korean public schools. ``It's really near the bottom. And this is not my own opinion. There have been a number of studies and surveys comparing English-language aptitude among students from different countries,'' he said.
One such study comparing students' aptitude from a group of countries ranked Korea 19th out of 20 nations. ``President Lee Myung-bak has remarked on the need to revise the English language curriculum for public schools and possibly add more classes that are taught in English," according to Park.
``And thanks to the advent of the Internet, the language is no longer just used in the United States or the U.K. Overall, some 80 percent of all written content on the Web is expressed in English,'' Park said. ``The language has now become a standard in the world, and also in the cyber world.''
``Whether you are creating content and building Web sites for corporations or government agencies or non-profit organizations, or even setting up personal Web sites or user created content, understanding and writing English has become an essential part of the cyber world,'' he said.
Park said the new academic association ENIES will help develop a structured curriculum for using English-language newspapers as an educational tool for school students.
michaelha@koreatimes.co.kr
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