[OP9] Teachers Open the Door. Students Enter by Themselves.

A noted professor of English Education in Korea uses this motto in his email signatures: “Teachers open the door. Students enter by themselves.” What do you think is meant by this? Do you agree or disagree with it? Use reasons and examples to support your opinion.


Dr. Edward Finch, a professor of English education at Kyungbuk National University, believes that the success of language teaching depends on the utmost autonomy of students. His belief is well reflected in his motto: "Teachers open the door. Students enter by themselves." His teaching career at the university also manifest this principle, and have really worked out with university students. Despite his success at the university, however, I doubt that his methods will be equally successful with younger Korean students in the public education setting. This is mainly due to lack of students' motivation and inefficient approach of the method.

The biggest problem of Dr. Finch's teaching approach is that it depends on students' autonomy and spontaneity without considering their overall propensity. Most of the Korean students are already burdened with too much education. Undoubtedly, high level of students' motivation and autonomy facilitate learning process to the great extent, but just opening the door is never enough to make exhausted Korean students enter for more challenge. For two years, I have worked as a part-time teaching assistant in a private language institute. From my dealings with the students, I have learned that an average Korean student spends over 8 hours each day in a variety of educational institutes, and 1 or 2 more hours on completing a series of homeworks. It would too irresponsible if a teacher as a "doorman" stands by the door, and waits for ragged students to walk into it on their own.

Another problem with Dr. Finch's approach is that it is enormously time-consuming. An average Korean student at secondary schools has four English classes in a week, one of which lasts for 45 to 50 minutes. Besides, Korean students barely have time and opportunities to study English out of the classroom boundary. Certainly, knowledge acquired through the process of trial and error is retained longer than the one that has been just pushed into. But if we consider that it takes a lot more time to make self-discoveries than traditional instruction-based learning, three and a half hours are not just enough to implement Dr. Finch's inductive strategy. Learning through self-discovery may be an effective way of acquiring any language, but it is not just feasible in this country.

As we have observed, Dr. Finch's method is not entirely without merits. Unfortunately, however, the present educational environment in Korea is not ready to accommodate such an innovative pedagogical approach. Most of the Korean students are over-burdened with academic demands both in and out of the schools, so the chances of them "walking through the door by themselves" are significantly low. Moreover, learning through self-discovery takes too much time to be adopted into Korean public school system. Therefore, the inductive teaching method that requires high level of students' autonomy and spontaneity is not an appropriate way of teaching Korean students in secondary education, at least for now.

I agree, as you mentioned, that this motto seems impossible to be implemented in current secondary schools. It was the partial reason all example classes were from the university. This quote seems more adoptable for the university classes. But what just occurs in my mind is that you'll probably get some ideas how to apply this teaching approach, although you show this strong objection. It's not quite feasible strategy to be adopted for our students but I think the basic belief underying this motto is right way we have to pursue as a teacher at any situation.