hankyoreh

April 21. (Kim Tae-hyoung)

By Lee Jae-hoon

In January 2008, then-Presidential Transition Committee Chairwoman Lee Kyung-sook, currently chairperson of the Korea Student Aid Foundation, said at a hearing on English education, “Americans do not understand when you say ‘oh-ren-jee.’ You need to say ‘ah-rinj’ for them to understand you.” Lee expressed the view that the method for writing English words should be changed accordingly. “Ah-rinj" subsequently became a symbol of the Lee Myung-bak administration’s “English immersion policy,” and a number of English education policies were implemented under the administration, including leveled single-classroom English courses. Three years later, however, the results have been poor.

The Hankyoreh acquired an unpublished Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) research report on the results of English education policy and plans for development Thursday through the office of Kwon Young-ghil, Democratic Labor Party lawmaker and National Assembly Education, Science and Technology Committee member. Middle and high school students were surveyed on five areas of English education policy, namely leveled single-classroom English courses, English-only classes, EBS English education broadcasts, weekly one-hour conversation classes, and subject-based classrooms. Of these, only the EBS program was found to have more than 50 percent of respondents answering that they believed their English skills improved after the experience. Positive response rates generally fell in the 40 percent range for the remainder.

The report was commissioned by MEST from a Korea Development Institute research committee team headed by Kim Hee-sam and contains the results of questionnaires conducted in November 2010 on the satisfaction rates of some 290 thousand elementary, middle and high school students, their parents, and teachers.

In contrast with middle and high school English education policy, satisfaction ratings were relatively high, in the 60 to 80-plus percent range, for elementary school policies such as expanded English hours during third and fourth grades, elementary English activity classes, intensive English camps during school vacations, and classes with native speaker videos.

In the case of leveled single-classroom English courses, a mere 41.0 percent of high school students taking the classes responded to a question on whether their English skills had improved as a result with affirmative responses of “Yes” or “Very much so.” Less than half of middle school students, or 49.5 percent, gave favorable responses.

In response to the same question with regard to English-only classes, only 31.3 percent of high school students and 43.2 percent of middle school students gave affirmative responses. Likewise, only 38.7 percent of high school students and 47.9 percent of middle school students answered that they believed subject-based classrooms would be helpful in improving their English ability. Affirmative responses regarding weekly one-hour conversation classes were given by 42.6 percent of high school students and 52.0 percent of middle school students.

In contrast, some 64.9 percent of high school students and 68.9 percent of middle school students responded affirmatively to a question about whether they believed the EBS program helped them develop their English abilities. In the case of expanded English classes for third and fourth graders, a total of 79.6 percent of elementary school students said they believed this would help improve their English abilities.

“This report clearly shows that the Lee Myung-bak administration’s ‘English immersion education’ is nothing more than a lot of noisy sloganeering, and that satisfaction rates at the actual scenes are low on the whole,” Kwon said.

Indeed, Oryu Middle School in Seoul’s Guro District is eliminating its leveled single-classroom English courses of several years’ standing and implementing integrated classes this year following its designation as an innovation school.

“There was broad-based agreement among English teachers that the leveled single-classroom English courses had no effect,” said Hong Je-nam, head of the school’s educational innovation department “We eliminated these courses because the concept of dividing up students according to grade ranges is opposed to the spirit of an innovation school, whose goal is to have students learn together.”

“I like it now because I can teach English to friends in my class in a pleasant atmosphere, and I can also examine my own abilities,” said a student named Gwon who studied in the upper group last year.

“The issue is how the teacher teaches,” she added. “The classes were not especially better just because they were advanced.”

Another student named Jeong, who study in the lower group said, “With the single-classroom courses, moving around from class to class is a pain, and I hate the fact that they separate out the ones who study well and the ones who don’t.”

“When your friends are teaching you, it’s more focused and fun than when the teacher teaches,” she added.

“The benefits of cooperative learning are that the students with high English marks can learn more as they teach, while the students with low marks learn better because they're being taught by friends,” said Han Su-jin, 28, a teacher who gave an open class.

“Studying together, rather than competing, brings improvement effects that are good for both sides,” Han added.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]