By Jeffrey Gil

In today's world, English plays a central role as the language of global communication and countries the world over are attempting to implement educational programs that will enable them to participate in global political, economic and cultural affairs.

However, learning English on a national scale also creates tensions and concerns. Korea's experiences with English aptly demonstrate the desire to acquire English for participation in a globalizing world on the one hand and the concern over its potential impact on a country's native language and culture on the other.

Formal English language education began in Korea in the 1880s and has since expanded considerably. By the 1990s, English language education was seen as an essential element of the government's ``segyehwa," or globalization, policy. According to this view, Korea's prosperity and ability to play an active role on the global stage depend upon having a population proficient in English. To ensure this happens, the government has instigated a number of reforms, chief among them the 1997 declaration that English language education would be compulsory from Grade 3 of elementary school.

The National Education Curriculum (NEC) specifies that students in elementary school should receive one hour of English instruction per week in Grades 3 and 4 and two hours in Grades 5 and 6 while middle school students should receive three hours in Grades 7 and 8 and four hours in Grades 9 and 10. High school students can study up to five English courses in Grades 11 and 12, each consisting of four hours of instruction per week. Meanwhile, at the university level, all students are expected to attain a set level of proficiency in English before they can graduate.

Private enterprise has also become a major force in English language education with exponential growth in English-medium kindergartens, after school classes, early morning classes, night classes and online courses.

Scholars Rosa Jinyoung Shim and Martin Jonghak Baik report that over 90 percent of students have had some exposure to English through such means prior to starting elementary school and once at school, students continue to receive three to ten hours of private instruction per week in addition to school-based English classes. Many working adults also attend private classes to meet their companies' English language requirements for promotion.

Many millions of Koreans have therefore been exposed to English through both education provided by the government and the private sector. An English language learning campaign on this scale does, however, have potentially far reaching consequences for a country's own language and culture. For its part, the government has tried to manage the cultural impact of English on Korea by molding English language education to promote Korean national identity at the same time as teaching the English language.

For example, in a survey of secondary school textbooks, New York University's Yim Sung-won found that many contained extensive Korean cultural content and expressed strong positive messages about Korean language and culture.

Nevertheless, there have been tensions and concerns regarding the place of English in Korea. Calls for English to become an official language, for instance, generally receive stringent criticism from the public, academics and the media, demonstrating deeply-held concerns that such a move could lead to English overwhelming the Korean language within Korea as its uses would expand and its prestige would increase.

Similarly, there are concerns over the ever-growing number of English words entering the Korean language, a trend that some fear poses a significant threat to the vitality and character of Korean language and culture. Samuel Collins, an academic at Towson University, describes in a recent journal article how many Koreans believe that English has penetrated Korean society too deeply and the nation's attempts to learn English have gone too far.

Korea's efforts to equip its people with the language competency needed for global interaction have been accompanied by a raft of cultural and linguistic challenges. These challenges cannot be quickly or easily overcome, and Korea will need to work conscientiously in order to both successfully acquire English and maintain its own language and culture.

One promising pathway has been outlined by Marilyn K. Plumlee of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, who recommends that teachers, scholars, policy-makers and journalists should closely observe developments in English language teaching in other countries. By evaluating and debating the successes and failures of language policy and planning activities of other countries, she argues, Korea will be better positioned to navigate its own path through the issues raised by a global language.

The discussions now occurring in academic journals, newspapers and internet sites show some encouraging signs and raise hopes that Korea will indeed be successful in its endeavors.

The writer is a lecturer in ESOL/TESOL in the Department of Language Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. He can be reached at jeffrey.gil@flinder.edu.au.