Maybe this is the sign that the English language learning fervor in South Korea is beginning to decrease a bit:
Gyeonggi English Village, the first residential English camp in Korea located at Paju and Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi, is closing down after a decade of operation.
Gyeonggi English Village, which opened in April 2006, was created to give the public a place to experience English-speaking culture and learn the language in the context of everyday life.
The village has struggled with low attendance. Last year, approximately 22,000 people visited the English Village, or about 610 visitors per day. The village lent out ten of its 17 buildings to other organizations to augment its revenues. With the boom in private language academies and more students travelling abroad for language study, demand for the village’s more carefree classes was undercut. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link.
This editorial in the Korea Herald explains why Koreans have such a hard time speaking and understanding English despite the amount of time and money they spend to learn the language:
When I first went to the United States to study in the summer of 1998, every trip to fast food joints was full of stress. I managed to submit my order, but had difficulty understanding what the clerks said to me. Only after several repetitions and after my face had reddened did they make themselves understood. Spending almost 20 years studying English at that point including experience at an English-related workplace did not save me from embarrassment. Indeed, for many of us here, the struggle with the English language is a never-ending story. After conferences and meetings, we hear many of our colleagues saying “if only it had been done in Korean.”
Koreans spend a lot of time and money studying English, as the term “English-fever” would indicate. English is first taught at kindergarten. Tremendous efforts are then poured into learning the language through elementary, middle and high school. The efforts continue in college to get good scores on standardized English tests such as TOEFL and TOEIC, so as to impress potential employers in the job market. Even office workers flock to morning and evening sessions of private teaching institutions so as not to be left behind.
And yet, Koreans’ English proficiency does not match the resources mobilized. In terms of English ability, Korea’s global ranking falls roughly in the middle, basically in the same group as countries where English is not so relentlessly taught as in Seoul. If the so-called principle of “10,000 hours” holds true, by the time students graduate from elementary school in Seoul, English should not be a problem. And by the time they graduate from high school, they should speak like BBC anchors. What then explains this meager outcome after all the time and effort? [Korea Herald]
You can read more at the link, but the editorial goes on to explain how the focus on written tests is why Koreans do not put any effort into listening and speaking. The Korean government has even recognized this folly and decided to make the standardized test’s English section easier so parents do not have to spend so much money on English classes for their kids.
