Twisty turny story

Written by Kim Hyo-Jin, Jung Ji-Eun, Kim Sang-young, Son Mi-Jin, Hwang Yun-Kyung, Joo Un-Jin

Hi! It's the year 2015. I am a Korean student and I have just graduated from high school. I really have to say that I feel very proud of and confident in my English proficiency! I am not a special student. I'm average. But almost all "average" students in Korea these days like English and can use it well. That's because English education in Korean public school is very different now compared to 10 years ago.

First, the evaluation system has changed a lot. As you know, students used to be under a lot of pressure to study English in order to get a good score on the entrance exam and enter privileged universities in the past. In those days the English test in the Korean SAT was a multiple-choice one, which could measure one's test-taking ability more properly rather than one's overall English proficiency. We don't have that kind of "bizarre" English test any more. For sure we still have to take English tests to get into college, but all the major English tests now are designed to measure one's overall English proficiency including the 4 skills of English, speaking, listening, reading and writing.


And we have English classes with a native speaker three times a week. Every class, we can have a chance to communicate with him or her for around 10 minutes. Our native English teacher always prepares some topics for us and lets us practice authentic English. At first, I felt quite embarrassed and awkward because of my poor English ability, but this repeated short conversation with a native speaker helped me to get more confident in English. It seems like most of the students really enjoy this class and are looking forward to it.


Besides, we often have chances to speak in English in front of a fairly large audience. One specific example is "Teaching Day." On this day, every one is supposed to teach at least one thing, one subject in English and the audience can be the rest of the students.


Moreover, in every educational district, there is some special place where students are allowed to speak only in English. The place is usually called "The English Village" All students are obliged to attend some classes in the English Village, at least every two days, for 2 hours at a time. In that place, students can experience using authentic English under a variety of situations they might be likely to encounter - for example, hospitals, shops, banks, and something like that. It stimulates students' motivation to acquire the target language.


And at school English is not the only subject taught in English any more. If I want, I can learn all the subjects in English. Now I'm learning math and science in English and definitely I'm having fun in those classes. I believe those classes help me a lot not only to get content knowledge but also to pick up English itself.


Lastly, we often read various kinds of English texts. In the past, students used to read such a boring textbook during English class, but now teachers are trying to give us chances to a variety of authentic reading materials like news articles, novels and poems. Although we can find many English written materials on the Internet, our teachers give us only useful and appropriate ones to read and help us to develop the ability to choose a good writing.

I like the idea of reading authentic materials in class. In my opinion, it is likely that English textbooks have difficulties with grabbing students' interests because of too artificial and boring reading passages. And, focusing a lot on grammatical points in the passages is another problem. While a reversion of each textbook is published each year, it is hard to distinguish the new one from the old one. It shows little change of the textbook which is used at school. I am of the opinion that it's time to bring some innovations on a textbook. If possible, we have to get educational experts to study and research articles, magazines, novels, and so on that students can read well or include interesting contents, and then to reconstruct textbooks with the change of times. When it comes true, English textbook and class will be enjoyable enough for students as we expect.