Last updated on August 16, 2024
(Published : Feb 3, 2015 – 19:05)
English education in Korea is big stuff, as anybody who has spent much time in the country knows. Along with Korean and math, English is one of the most important subjects in school and on entrance examinations it determines life chances. But the so-called English mania is only one side of the ad hoc language education policy that has emerged in Korea since the 1970s.
All nations have language education policies that direct schools to teach one or more languages at different stages of the curriculum. Korea is a nation that has one official national language, Korean, that is taught to all students to promote native-language literacy.
Korean language is required, but strong disagreement over how to define it as a school subject remains. Korean language classes included Chinese characters until 1970, when President Park Chung-hee banned the teaching of Chinese characters in Korean classes. Those in favor of teaching Chinese characters fought back, but were forced to settle with classical Chinese elective classes that began in 1972. Classical Chinese classes focus on teaching Chinese characters in order to read poems and simple texts.
Proficiency in Chinese characters declined dramatically after this change, causing many to argue that the policy deprives students of an important base of linguistic knowledge. About 70 percent of the Korean vocabulary is based on Chinese characters and knowledge of them promotes vocabulary development. Similarly, knowledge of Chinese characters greatly facilitates learning Chinese and Japanese. Together these two neighboring nations account for about a third of Korea’s exports and about 60 percent of foreign tourists.
The controversy over Chinese characters is difficult to resolve because opponents are adept at whipping up nationalist sentiment against them. It would take strong political will to include them in the Korean language curriculum.
The foreign language situation is also complex. English is required from the third grade of elementary school through high school. Compared to Korean, students find English more difficult and spend more time on it. Eager to get a head start, some parents send their young children to English nursery schools, which double as day care centers. As the children grow older, they spend more money to send them to private institutes where English is an important subject.
The emphasis on English makes it difficult for students to learn other foreign languages. The national curriculum has detailed guidelines for German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic and Vietnamese. The ordering of the list reflects when they were included in the curriculum. German and French where taught during the Japanese colonial period and continued after liberation. Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Arabic were added as Korea began to raise its profile on the world stage beginning in the 1960s. Vietnamese was added in 2012 because of deepening ties with Vietnam and large numbers of Vietnamese women marrying Korean men. Classical Chinese is in the same group as these “second foreign languages.”
On the surface, the foreign language curriculum looks ideal. English, the dominant international language of business and research, is required, but all of the official languages of the United Nations are offered, along with Japanese, an important regional language, and Vietnamese, the language of a growing minority population. The offerings are much more diverse than in Japan, which includes a detailed curriculum only for English.
In reality, most schools only offer Chinese or Japanese, sending German and French into rapid decline. Spanish and Russian were never taught widely and no schools teach Arabic or Vietnamese. Grouping classical Chinese with modern Chinese and Japanese makes it difficult for students to choose both because of the allocation of time and credits.
Languages have been added to keep up with global changes, but this has resulted in an ad hoc policy that does not reflect Korea’s language needs well. Sitting between two larger neighbors, Koreans need to know Chinese and Japanese. Other languages are important, but these two stand out. Vietnamese will grow in importance as contacts with that country continue to deepen. The other languages are important, but starting instruction at the university level is a better use of resources.
All of this points to a pressing but difficult reform in Korean language education policy: required teaching of Chinese characters in Korean language classes. Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese all share a common vocabulary with Korean based on Chinese characters. Teaching them from day one of elementary school will reduce the burden of leaning in later years and help students learn Korean at a deeper level. Now for the political will.