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| Kwon Hyuk-jun, an English instructor at Pagoda Academy, delivers a lecture at his classroom in Jongno, central Seoul, on Oct. 16. Courtesy of Kwon Hyuk-jun |
By Lee Min-hyung
Kwon Hyuk-jun, a Seoul-based English instructor, has expressed anticipation that a customized online teaching platform will bring a paradigm shift in the education industry.
The 32-year-old teacher works at Pagoda Academy, one of the biggest private education institution chains in downtown Seoul. He said the market for online-based education is still in its infancy, and so there is enough room for growth in the area over the next few more years.
"My ultimate dream is to develop an online platform that provides total analytics and diagnostic services for students," he said in an interview, Wednesday.
According to him, a growing number of private institutions here are on track to embrace online teaching systems, but as of now, few organizations offer accurate and high-quality services satisfactory enough for each student to receive proper feedback.
"By teaming up with developers and web designers, I plan to develop a platform whereby students can train themselves by identifying what their weakness is," he said. "As far as I know, no private English training institutes in Korea have developed such customized feedback tools for their students."
Like most other instructors, he records every class he delivers and uploads them to YouTube. But he believes this is not good enough for individual students to identify their own strengths and weaknesses in an accurate way.
The young instructor tries to differentiate himself by continuously seeking to embrace the latest IT gadgets in his class and come up with the most efficient measures for students to focus on his lectures.
He dreamed of becoming an English instructor when he was a high school student. He used to teach his friends English and realized he had a talent for teaching and communicating his thoughts.
At that time, Kwon was pleased that he could be of assistance to his friends. He has since pledged to live a life of helping others under any circumstances.
Against the backdrop, he jumped into the private English education industry in 2014 after graduating from university.
"I love to challenge myself and keep looking for something new," he said. "I want more of my students to develop their English skills in an effective way, and developing such a platform is crucial to turn my hopes into reality."
"I wish to set up my own English education institution with the analytical platform before the age of 40," he said. "Regardless of how much money I make, it will be great for me to provide the most customized English education to each student."
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