What English means for children
Many elementary students find English to be difficult and stressful.
By Isaac Kim
“Hell, torture, obstacle, something I don’t want to do, why do I have to learn this, trash, demon, lifetime of prison, stress.”
“Future, happiness, fun, important in my life, hope, success, energy, progress, global communication.”
These are some of the responses elementary students gave when they were asked to answer the following: “What is English to me?” Students responded both negatively (34 kids) and positively (33 kids) to the question.
The Kyunghyang Shinmun surveyed 95 sixth grade students from a primary school in the Seoul area about English for 11 days from July 10 to July 20. To compare and contrast, they surveyed one school each from Gangnam-gu and Gangbuk-gu, and two in central Seoul.
Out of 98 students, only eight have not had private English lessons. Those who have had private lessons prior to third grade exceeded half the group (57).
The forms of private English lessons included English academies (63 kids), private tutoring (23), home-schooling (19), English kindergartens (11), and online classes (10). Gangnam students made up the majority of those enrolled in English kindergartens (61.5 percent) and academies (34.4 percent).
Nearly half the respondents (43) said “I don’t want to study English.” The biggest factor was, “English was interesting at first, but I lost interest because it required too much work.”
When asked about why they study English, 27 students answered, “My parents forced me to.”
Most students (12) said they felt stressed or alienated when comparing their English scores with friends.
Complaints such as “Can’t you even score one 100?” or “How can you possibly get this wrong?” from their parents and teachers belittled more than several students. Children felt much stress when “teachers discriminate between those who are good at English and those who aren’t so adept.”