By Cho Jae-hyon
English has become a source of power in Korean society. To enter better schools and to land decent jobs, one must command high levels of English proficiency. After getting a job, one should continue to cultivate English skills to keep afloat and climb to higher posts.
Learning a second language is not easy. It requires a lot of money, energy and tenacity. The long road toward conquering English is strewn with various obstacles. Many stumble and eventually give up. Only a selected few succeed in reaching the level where they can use the language comfortably.
For Koreans, no matter how fluently they speak the language, English is not their mother tongue. Even though we may not want to admit it, many of us often feel an inferiority complex to native English speakers when it comes to English.
Most Koreans have no opportunities to live overseas long enough to become bilingual. For them English is a big burden they should shoulder for most of their lifetime. It’s a source of power but at the same time a source of tremendous stress.
As English is a decisive element for admission to top universities, parents spend huge sums of money to send their children to private institutes. Some parents create an environment where their children learn English even before they learn how to walk, putting their mother tongue on the back burner.
Fueled by this enthusiastic support, the English education industry is booming to the point of forming a bubble.
The government has also applied accelerations on boosting English education at primary and secondary schools, expanding hours for English classes at the expense of what they view as less-important subjects.
A spate of recent surveys, however, show that students and parents are not satisfied with the effects of the government’s drive to boost English education.
Although the English class hours have substantially increased they are still insufficient to make middle and high school students fluent in English.
It’s natural that most students have difficulty communicating effectively in English even after more than 10 years of public education from elementary school.
Their struggle to study English continues at universities. They have to spend an enormous amount of money and time on English. It became a must for them to take at least a one-year language course in the U.S. or other countries to learn English. This one line in their CVs to show they studied abroad is essential for job interviews. Even after a one-year stay they find themselves still under stress, stemming from English.
It’s hard to tell whether the requirement to conduct most classes in English at KAIST has something to do with the recent suicides of four students at the school.
It’s undeniable that it must have been one of the factors that drove them to make such extreme choices.
KAIST and other universities have competed to expand the portion of classes conducted in English in their curricula to pull up their international rankings and attract more students from other countries.
Having more classes in English does not necessarily mean they are truly globalized. Many professors are not capable of lecturing in English and many students are unable to proactively participate in the classes. They are just pretending they teach and learn in English.
Schools need to refrain from blindly expanding lectures in English. They should become more selective in picking courses suitable for lecturing in English.
All students don’t have to speak English as fluently as native speakers do. What’s more important is establish an environment where they can study their major field fiercely and broaden their knowledge in various areas. The lectures in English, if pushed hastily, would be only painful for both professors and their pupils.
The whole nation is overly obsessed with English to the point of collectively worshiping it. An overemphasis on the language comes at the sacrifice of other opportunities and values.
What if the deceased KAIST students were given greater opportunities to take philosophy and other humanities courses?
KAIST President Suh Nam-pyo once said students need a strong will to overcome various difficulties.
But what could lend them some leverage to cope with their anxieties wisely is not English proficiency but humanities.
The tragedy at KAIST was a rude wake-up call for the whole society brimming with an English bubble. It should be taken as a lesson to adjust the pace of the drive to expand lectures in English at all universities.
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