By Bahk Eun-ji
Private elementary schools are at loggerheads with the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) over a government ban on English immersion programs.
The dispute came after the Ministry of Education (MOE) banned all private elementary schools across the nation from providing English immersion classes to first and second graders and using unauthorized textbooks on Oct. 14, 2013.
Under the Education Law, schools can only start teaching English to students in the third grade or above. However, most private schools teach most subjects in English, using textbooks published in the United States and other countries in the English immersion curriculum.
In November, Uchon Elementary School, a private primary school in Seoul, filed for an injunction against the ban with the Seoul Administrative Court, demanding that SOME suspend the implementation of the ban.
On Thursday, the court approved the injunction, stating that the ban may cause damage to the school and its students.
“Even if the order is suspended for the present, it doesn’t seem to destroy public interest” the court said.
However, SMOE said it will immediately make an appeal against the case.
“We plan to lodge an appeal because this case will possibly set a bad precedent for handling English immersion class in primary schools,” said Lee Hyang-a, a supervisor in charge of English education at SMOE.
Parents of private elementary schools reacted angrily to the government order.
“The government kept saying that the order is aiming at rooting out intense demand for private English institutes or ‘hagwon,’ but ironically, if children can’t learn English at schools, they have no choice but to go to hagwon or private academies,” said Kim Jung-yoon, a parent representative of Younghoon Elementary School.
Some parents are worried that the order may have a negative effect on English learning for their children.
“One of the main reasons I chose a private elementary school for my kid is because it offers English immersion curricula. The government ban is not likely to cool down the frenzy for private education,” said Kim Yun-chul, a parent living in Seoul.
Parents of Younghoon Elementary School also filed a petition with the Constitutional Court against the MOE at the end of December, claiming that the order violates student’s rights to education.
“The government insists that English immersion curricula hinder students from improving their ability of learning Korean. We think it’s unreasonable as there is no evidence that such curriculum actually affects the students’ ability to learn Korean,” said a leader of the parents’ delegation representing Younghoon Elementary School.
Meanwhile, few English teachers think English immersion curricula are necessary for elementary school students.
“Few students who enter college in Korea ― less than five percent ― attended English immersion programs when they were in first and second grades, yet by the time they become college students, their English is good and they continue to make it better,” said Lyman McLallen, a professor at the English Linguistics Department, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
Prof. McLallen said it is clear that there is no lack of effective English education in Korea, whether it’s conducted in public schools or at after-school institutes, or hagwon, because students at many of the foreign language high schools in Korea consistently achieve some of the highest scores worldwide on the SAT, the college test in the U.S. ― and most of them did not go through English immersion either.
“The early grades are the foundation of a child’s education. Korean children need to be immersed in Korean history and literature rather than be immersed in English so that they can understand what is valuable and enduring in culture and traditions,” McLallen added.