Problems of English education in South Korean high schools

By Park Sung-ik South Korea's College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) was first implemented in 1994 and has been conducted regularly every year since then, playing an important role in Korea's college entrance exams. The English proficiency test also requires solving 17 listening comprehension questions and 28 reading comprehension questions within 100 minutes. The difficulty level of the reading comprehension questions was easy for a while — since 1994 — but at some point, passages quoted from difficult English books were used to embarrass test takers.

This is where a serious problem with English education arose. The question is whether the university professors who set the questions can really solve the English reading comprehension questions within 100 minutes. Moreover, the question is whether high school English teachers can solve the problems in the given time.



It makes no sense to ask students to solve problems when they themselves cannot solve them in the given time. What on earth is the purpose of English education? By cultivating the ability to communicate in English, the intellectual capacity of each learner is increased so that learners can grow as global citizens with the ability to actively cope with the changes of the times as future leaders. However, the problem is that the current English teachers themselves cannot communicate in English.

The most important reason why English teachers cannot speak English is because of the social system that uses English as a tool for ranking rather than as a tool for communication. Because English is used as a measure of discrimination in schools, people in our country study English to do well on tests, not to become good at English. This is the most important reason why they end up not being able to speak a word of English even though they invest a huge amount of time and money.

The problems of current high school English education can be summarized as follows. First, teachers provide knowledge-centered education. As a result, students often focus on memorizing basic knowledge such as grammar and vocabulary, and practical communication skills are relatively neglected.

Second, it is test-centered education. Because English tests mainly focus on preparing for exams such as the CSAT or school exams, students may lack the practical skills needed to actually use English. Third, there is a lack of opportunities to actually use English.

There are few opportunities to use English in the classroom and the lack of conversation-oriented activities makes it difficult for students to learn the language naturally. Fourth, there is a lack of English teacher training. Most English teachers do not participate in training on the latest teaching methods or English conversations conducted by the Office of Education, making it difficult to effectively teach English to students.

Fifth, there is a lack of cultural education regarding English-speaking countries. Because English education focuses only on linguistic elements, it may lack cultural understanding and actual contexts of use such as writing, listening and speaking. Sixth, there is a lack of practicality.

The purpose of learning English is limited, and it often fails to develop the communication skills needed in real life or an international environment. Seventh, there is a lack of resources. Because not all schools have the latest educational materials or technology, the quality of instruction may be uneven across schools.

To solve these problems, a more practical and communication-oriented educational methodology, improvement of teachers' expertise and use of various educational resources are needed. Park Sung-ik ([email protected]) is a retired English teacher from Pungmoon Girls' High School.

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