English Royal Road to Pukyong U.’s Globalization
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
BUSAN ― Pukyong National University (PKNU) aims to be listed among the world's top universities under the leadership of its current president Park Maeng-eon.
In order to realize the ambitious goal, Park believes the English capabilities of students as well as faculty members are the prerequisite to achieving the feat. This is why the state-run university in the country's largest port city, Busan, has been geared to upgrade its language education center, with Park Mae-ran, director of the language institute, at the center of the mission.
Park Mae-ran, who is also a professor of English language and literature, said her language center will mainly be devoted to two tasks; one is to improve the English abilities of students and another is to help foreign students at the university speak better Korean.
The female linguist headed the center for three years from 2003. At that time, the center used to offer life-long education programs for residents and children in the region.
She returned in February 2009 and the center has specialized in educating its domestic and foreign students through language programs.
"I agreed with our school president that English is a must for us to advance into the world of top 100 universities. We aim to increase the English level of our students enabling them to study overseas with little difficulty," she said.
The language institute has continued to set a variety of English programs. Mandatory English courses for freshmen, as well as foreign students whose mother tongue is not English, are designed by the center.
The center has also started to operate four-week intensive English camps for 120 students.
Park stressed that Korean universities need to offer better English curricula so that students can communicate in the language for business after graduation.
She also pointed out the lack of English conversation capability of professors.
"More practical English is needed for university students. There are still many (English-teaching) professors who have to improve their teaching ability. They tend to stick to the ways they have learned from old professors in the past," she said.
"The level of internationalization can be determined by the number of professors who can lecture in English. But many professors of subjects like engineering usually don't speak English well."
Park also mentioned the importance of quality native English lecturers equipped with teaching licenses. "We also need to evaluate foreign English lecturers in detail and offer thorough feedback to them. This is the way to offer quality lectures and satisfy our students." The center holds workshops and orientations as often as possible to this end.
Park, who majored in applied linguistics, is also serving the Busan Metropolitan Office of Education as an advisor and she is in the center of renovation of English education for elementary and secondary schools in the southeastern city. At the same time, she has developed many English programs for children.
However, she was pessimistic that public education can meet the education demands of parents.
"I believe private education is inevitable as public education has a limit in satisfying parents who want to offer a higher level of English education," she said.
Her center is extending Korean language courses facing an increasing number of foreign students at the university.
About 500 foreign students study Korean at the center every year and other language courses, including Japanese and Chinese, are also offered.
About 70 percent of the courses at the center are for English language, 25 percent Korean and the last five percent for other foreign languages, she said.
Graduating from Pusan National University with a degree in English education, Park flew to the U.S. and gained degrees and a Ph.D. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Afterwards, she has taught as an English professor at PKNU since September 1990.