Last updated on August 16, 2024
A few weeks ago, a controversy erupted in Seochon, the neighborhood between Gyeongbok Palace and Mt. Inwang. The Jongno-gu Office had proposed to build an “English Children’s Library” near the spot where King Sejong was born and not everyone agreed this was a good idea.
The proposal caused a storm of controversy, with linguistic nationalists arguing that building the facility so close King Sejong’s birthplace was inappropriate. Parents, however, liked the idea of having a public facility to help their children learn English. In the end, the Jongno-gu Office backed down, borrowing from the name of the area, changed the name to “Tongin-dong Children’s Library.”
The local controversy underscored the complex emotions that English stirs in Korean society. To some, it stands as a painful symbol of foreign influence on Korea; to others, it is a tool for success in school and later in a professional career. On another level, the controversy raises questions about how Koreans define learning English.
Elementary school English education is the first form of English education to be developed after communicative language teaching became the dominant approach in second language teaching in the 1980s. In contrast, middle and high school English education emerged from the grammar-translation method that dominated foreign language education in Korea during the Japanese colonial period.
As communicative language teaching became dominant, reforms to middle and high school English education focused on reducing the influence of grammar-translation by strengthening speaking and listening components of the curriculum. Notable steps taken since the 1990s have been the inclusion of a listening component in the English section of the university entrance exam and the hiring of a large number of native-speaker assistant teachers.
Between grammar-translation and communicative language teaching sits the audio-lingual method. The audio-lingual method developed as a response to grammar-translation which was still dominant in most high schools and universities at the time. Instead of focusing on teaching knowledge of target language grammar through reading and translation into the native language, the audio-lingual method placed importance on accurate, native-like mastery of the spoken language. To achieve mastery, learners were drilled in specific patterns that were arranged order of a difficulty. As drill leaders, teachers were expected to be models of accurate language use. The language lab developed as a way to practice drills in situations where native-speaker teachers were not available and for self-study.
The audio-lingual method spread rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, but came under increasing criticism as it failed to deliver promised results. Students, particularly in high school, were bored with endless repetition of drills. Non-native-speaker teachers found that the method reduced them to simple drill masters in oral language that they were not necessarily comfortable in teaching. Schools found that language laboratories expensive to build and difficult to maintain. By the early 1970s, second language teachers were searching for something else, and communicative language teaching emerged to fill this void.
In Korea, the audio-lingual method never took hold because it did not fit with the reality in schools at the time. Korean teachers of English were comfortable with grammar-translation, few native-speaker teachers were available, and language labs were expensive. As a result, the grammar-translation method continued to dominate English education in Korea until the 1980s when a new generation of English teaching experts familiar with communicative language teaching began to push for reforms that were realized only in the 1990s.
Fast forward to the present, and many problems with English education in Korea come from the sudden jump from grammar-translation to communicative language teaching. As a method, grammar-translation developed in an environment where non-native-speaker teachers dominated and where the main purpose for second language learning was cultural literacy. Communicative language teaching, by contrast, developed in Britain where qualified native-speakers were plentiful and where the need to use language for communication was obvious. Like the audio-lingual method, communicative language teaching developed from the premise that teachers, if not native speakers, have near-native ability and confidence in the language. And like the audio-lingual method, this makes it essentially alien to Korean teachers.
The challenge for English education in Korea is to develop an approach that meets the needs of the Korean context. For all the talk of globalization, the context for English education in Korea remains much the same as it has been in the past. Koreans of varying English proficiency teach students whose primary interest in English is test scores needed to access educational and employment opportunities. Interest in early English education as manifested in the “Tongin-dong Children’s Library” and similar facilities elsewhere comes from the desire to get a competitive advantage in achieving English test scores.
The current approach toward English education in Korea could be called the “test-score approach” in which a variety of methods are used ad hoc to raise test scores. The important question here is whether such an approach is best for the nation and, if not, what should be done to change it.