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| Lyman McLallen |
By the time students in Korea start university, even those with the least grasp of English have spent years learning the language.
The result is they all enter university with a decent working knowledge of English, and despite their sometimes less-than-perfect pronunciation and the occasional awkward grammatical construction that punctuates their speech, a native speaker of English can have a conversation ― in English ― with any of them.
In spite of the difficulties students endure in making sense of the stories and books they must read in English to do their work, they still understand most of the reading. And even if they have yet to master the craft of writing eloquent and informative essays and term papers ― and even at the top colleges and universities in America, how many students can do that? ― they write readable English.
So when they come to our classrooms, we're not working with blank slates. Though they still have a long way to go with their English, they meet us more than halfway.
The commercial textbooks that Oxford, Cambridge, Pearson and other textbook publishers sell all over the world, cost too much for what they deliver.
Few of the lessons in these textbooks show any depth, imagination, or relate to the world with much relevance, and the exercises for the most part are make-work drills that don't help the students master English in valuable and lasting ways. Despite the promises the publishers make for these books, they won't hold the students' interest beyond what they're forced to suffer through just to make a grade.
You hear the cliche, "Listening, Talking, Reading, Writing," describing the most basic skills of fluency, which are obvious and don't bear repeating. Except that all too often, this worn-out catchphrase is used to prod teachers and students into wasting valuable class time mired in activities that don't engage the students to read or inspire them to write either.
Yet if students work steadily at becoming good writers, it sharpens their reading, which enhances their listening, and all of this goes to making them much better speakers. Besides, to cultivate the craft of good writing fortifies clear thinking, and what could be more valuable than that?
The writer Stephen King has often expressed the idea that reading is the key to becoming a good writer. "If you want to be a writer, then you must read," King says to audiences when asked what it takes to become a good writer. "If you don't have time to read," he says, "then you can't be a writer."
We should inspire our students to read habitually, and newspapers such as The Korea Times play an important role for students in Korea, for not only can the students immerse themselves in English every day through reading the news stories and editorials in The Korea Times and other English dailies, they can learn about issues and problems that are vital to the nation, the world, and ― most important ― to themselves.
And the pieces they read in The Korea Times are written in English by Koreans whose writing talents the students can aspire to emulate in their efforts to master the language.
The Korea Times uses only 10,000 words in the stories and articles it publishes, less than one percent of all English words, yet these are the words that students must know if they are to make the best scores possible on the TOEIC and TOEFL exams.
To make sure the newspaper is up-to-date, the editors are continually checking the vocabulary found on the TOEIC and TOEFL so the reporters will know the current words on the exams and use them in their writing.
A person who can make a top TOEIC or TOEFL score may have difficulty reading an English daily, but a student who habitually reads an English daily is preparing him or her for a top score on these exams. Beyond that, these students are mastering the English they will need so they can help make Korea in their lifetime the greatest country it can possibly be.
Lyman McLallen is a professor in the College of English at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. His email address is lymanmclallen@gmail.com.
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