A Lack of Broadcasting in English
Kim Yu-ra, 20, a student of Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul, makes it a rule to view the 10:00pm newscast of Arirang TV, the only cable channel in the country specialized in English. A diplomat aspirant, she is fond of getting acquainted with current English and access to living English by viewing the English news program. But she feels there is a lack of English broadcasting on other channels. She wishes that Korean broadcasting stations could offer a variety of English programs.
Israeli Embassy information officer Ivit Bar Illan, 31, who commands excellent English, says, "I've learned English by viewing TV broadcasts at home." Though it's not an official language, Israeli broadcasting stations do have English programs. Some programs even teach subjects like mathematics in English. English films, subtitled, are shown in the original language without dubbing. "Isn't English broadcasting natural in this global age, in which English is competitiveness?" she questions.
English broadcasting is particularly hard to see in Korea, of all the non-English speaking countries that need English badly. At the end of regular newscasts, Taiwan attaches the news from NBC and ABC of the United States and the BBC of Britain. It also has an English radio broadcasting station, dubbed ICRT. NHK and other broadcasting stations of Japan air bilingual news through the multichannel sound system. More positive are Singapore and Hong Kong which use English as their official language. They have a number of English airwave channels.
Switch on to TV in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and China, and you can view quite a few English programs. Though it is true that this is a legacy of their colonial past, English as an essential language for world communication and their people have has opened their ears to English.
Related officials of Korean stations like KBS, MBC and SBS are extremely negative to broadcasting in English. "Aren't there cable and satellite broadcasts and AFKN?" they ask in unison. KBS suspended its simultaneous interpretation service for the prime-hour 9:00pm news when Arirang TV launched its news service. But population viewing cable TV still number just over 2 million. Cable facilities don't necessarily guarantee viewing CNN as regional cable broadcasting stations offer different packages. It will be one to two years before satellite broadcasting is effected in the country in earnest.
The only broadcasting in English offered by Korea's channels is a five-minute "Korean and English News" aired by KBS Radio 1 during its "Today's Live Broadcasting" program. Translation and advance recording require additional manpower and time. The work is hard, but responses are good. Applications for the repetition of the English news program reached as many as 1,412 during the "Blue Bird Service'" re-running of previous programs, aired in November and December. KBS Video Service has initiated an "E-mail English" service, providing news contents by e-mail.
Why can't we listen to English on Korean TV? "What's the use of English broadcasting in a mono-ethnicy country? In the wake of the globalization drive launched by the Kim Young-sam administration, we did it for a while. Korean viewers don't want to have broadcasting in English," argues a senior MBC programming officer.
But EBS has solicited favorable response from film fans since March 1994 when it began broadcasting English films with subtitles, without dubbing in a bid to "convey the feelings of a film as it is." At that time MBC too considered following suit positively, but to no avail in the face of strong objections from dubbing artists. The demand is on the rise that English films and documentaries are broadcast with subtitles.
More viewer requests are being filed with the SBS golf cable channel for programs to be broadcast in English only. Chung Ho-young, an EBS editor, forecasts that the problem of subtitling broadcasting programs will soon be made an issue of. "Dubbing has limits anyway in a multi-channel era. It's awkward to dub even an interview with a distinguished foreign scholar. I wish we could view at least excellent documentaries (in English) as they are," adds he.
Professor Oh Sung-bok, director of Ewha Womens University's Language Education Research Institute, argues, "The degree of Koreans' exposure to English is absolutely insufficient. It's important to access English broadcasting as a habit everyday. It's high time for us to listen to reputed figures' U.N. speeches in English."
A foreign film translator at a broadcasting station says, "It's lamentable that we can hardly listen to English news in a country whose trade volumes ranks seventh or eighth in the world. Korea is taken for a country groping in the dark. In this era of multi-channels and multi-media, we should have several good English channels. If we are exposed to English broadcasting, we would be accustomed to a foreign language, removing one of the few language barriers."
An MBC editor thinks, "I wonder if we couldn't find a niche to insert one English program early in the morning or late in the evening, avoiding prime hours." Ahn Chang-hui, ex-producer of YTN's "Korea Report" news program between 1995 and 1997, who is now a reporter at Arirang TV, opines, "English news appears to have disappeared in the course of restructuring in the wake of the financial crisis." He adds, "In view of Korea's international status, it's ridiculous that we have so few English news broadcasts. The market for English news should soon grow as such news is essential to accurately conveying our national stance to the outside and communicating with the world."
Pointing out that "the language in finance and the Internet is English," Roy Hong, investment strategy officer at Hyundai Investment and Trust Co., who used to work on the Wall Street, says, "The English media plays an important role in inducing foreigners in such typical Asian business centers as Singapore and Hong Kong. Korean finance people too use untranslated finance English. News in English helps one to learn the flow of the world quickly. Foreigners want to settle down here for a long period by learning about Korea through English media."
A business center is formed where one can listen to English freely and where foreigners gather and talent with international competitiveness is fostered, he reasons. "If you want to learn English quickly, listen to AFKN several hours a day without fail." This is advice we have often heard. "It's a high time that Korean broadcasting stations consider reflecting English in their programming," say experts who feel keenly that "English is competitiveness."
Sogang and Aju Universities
Sogang University in Seoul, reputed for strict academic administration, is famous for "efficient English education" as well. Two pillars for the latter are the English Literature Department, that takes care of English education in humanities, and the Foreign Language School, which observes its 20th anniversary this year. Since the 1960s Sogang University has conducted small classes done in English only. This is a tradition established by American Jesuit priests. The Sogang University-style English education now serves as a model for other institutes of higher education in the country.
Sogang University has taken a further step. The pioneer of the new tradition is the subject of British and American culture, inaugurated in 1999 for the first time in the country. While the established English literature departments mostly use literature texts as teaching material, the new subject teaches a wide variety of background knowledge like the history, politics and arts of Britain and the United States. Needless to say, the class is conducted in English only. "Learning a foreign language only like parrots has limitations," says Professor Chang Young-hui at the English Literature Department. "To teach cultural background too is now a world trend in language education."
Lecturers assigned to the Foreign Language School total 18. Recruited through the Internet, they are all native-speakers. "As instructors of contemporary culture of the United States and Britain, we've selected lecturers with various backgrounds including MBA holders," says Professor Choi Chug-hoon, deputy director of the school.
The Foreign Language School opens new lectures for undergraduates every three months. Lectures are divided into seven grades, depending on test outcome. Also provided by the school is practical English lecture for the Graduate School of Business Administration. It's a high-level seminar-style English conversation class using current news about economy and management and topics as texts.
Aju University has heightened the students' level of English proficiency by adopting TOEFL for evaluation since 1996. Humanities English students are given an academic point of A+ if they get a TOEFL score of 550 points or above and that of between B and A when they get between 530 and 549 points. "The system was first introduced for diplomats' children, admitted under special arrangements. But the system has contributed toward enhancing English skills on the part of ordinary students," said Professor Kim Chun-min of English Literature Department.
In addition, the size of a humanities English class has been reduced from between 50 and 60 to 20. To effect it, Aju University has boosted the number of humanities English classes from between 15 and 20 to between 80 and 90, and hired 32 American lecturers, all equipped with TESOL qualifications.
Such efforts of the university have resulted in improved English proficiency on the part of undergraduates. The rate of freshmen comprehending TOEFL listening by 70% or above in the term-end evaluation exceeded 70%. Humanities English in the business administration department is taught entirely by native speakers using a textbook compiled by the university centered on practical management.
Experiment in Spain
Spain is experimenting with English education. The Spanish government has been running experimental English classes at 43 public kindergartens (three to six years of age) and primary schools (six to 12 years of age) across the country with some 120 British teachers assigned. It's an ambitious English education reform program, starting with young kids.
The Spanish speaking population in the world number about 300 million. But the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Education is conducting the experimental English education with a view to positively coping with the reality that English is the international language today.
Characterizing Spain's experimental English education is its close cooperation with the British Council. The British Council screens British teachers and develops and supplies textbooks. The Spanish government pays the teachers an average annual salary of 3 million peso about 20 million won, a sum neither excessive nor insufficient given local wages and prices. British teachers of course have to have a good command of Spanish.
A three-year-olds class at San Juan Batista Public School in Madrid. The kids raise their hands when a female teacher from Britain tells them "Raise your hands." They count one, two, three on their fingers. Opening and closing their fists, they shout loudly "open" and "closed." Raising their hands in front of them and hiding them behind them, they cry "show" and "hide." From the beginning to the end the class is conducted in English.
The teacher, raising a paper toy called "Helen", introduces "She is Helen." She then begins a play putting on the toy paper clothes one by one. Kids learn such English words as jackets, trousers and shoes. They also learn such expressions as cold and warm.
At a four-year-olds class too, a British lady teacher teaches the kids. Over ten kids begin the lesson by making rhythmic movements in tune with a song "Good morning, how are you? I am fine. Thank you." Slightly longer English sentences are mobilized for the kids who have undergone the first-year course. If kids speak in Spanish, the teacher refuses to respond. She firmly instructs them to raise their hands when they want to express themselves, saying, "Would you like to tell me something? Hands up."
Showing the kids various colors, the teacher solicits them, "Can you tell me what color it is?" Kids raise hands here and there and answer in cute voices. They answer colors, size and form in English.
"English is taught to those kindergarten and elementary school pupils who want to take the lesson," explains principal Teresa Cuinial. "At present 200 take the experimental English education." The school's senior English teacher said, "Each English class lasts an hour and a half and is followed by a repetition in Spanish by a Spanish teacher. Since language is alive, the ear should open first and then the mouth. Our program calls for the children to express themselves in English freely while learning in Spanish."
Foreign language education in Spain officially starts at the age of eight. Students select one out of a number of foreign languages to study, including English, French, German and Italian. "An overwhelming majority of students choose English, which is most useful and influential today," says Soledad de Matheo the director of the international cooperation division of the Ministry of Culture and Education. According to the latest figures he presented, no less than 97% of primary school pupils and 98% of secondary school students choose English. Primary school kids aged between eight and 10 usually study basic English three hours a week.
Private schools that collect higher tuitions send a number of 14 and 15 year olds to Britain to attend summer English language schools, according to Matheo, who added, "Our new foreign language education system calls for public school pupils to get as much education using both Spanish and English as their private school counterparts. Spain's language education is focused on fostering communication abilities. Priority is given to speaking and grammar and reading comprehension come next."
Spain's English education is traditionally centered on Britain. Lately, however, Spain's Culture and Education Ministry uses increasing US enthusiasm in teaching Spanish for training its own English teachers. Through Spanish and English teacher exchange program between the two countries, Spain trains her English teachers in the United States.
In addition, private language institutes are prospering in Spain. Popular are institutes teaching the so-called "Wall Street English." For people commanding English well enough to communicate with others in the Wall Street find it easy to land better and higher-paid jobs. The famous general language institute 'Box' in downtown Madrid runs small English classes accommodating five to ten students. "Our institute guarantees maximum effect for the minimum number of students. Accordingly, prompt application is needed for admission," an official boasted.
It's difficult to find English signs in Madrid. But most Spanish advertisements are published in the London-based Financial Times, which is readily available in news stands in downtown. Most popular in major bookstores' foreign textbook corners are English books published by the Oxford University Press. "A law school graduate fluent in English is guaranteed with success," said a student whom this reporter met in Madrid University Law College building.
English is not yet widely used by Spanish corporations. But changes are taking place in Spanish companies of late. "The more famous companies are like the IT firm Telephonica which pays subsidies to employees undergoing courses at private language institutes," said Chon Chun-woo, an official at the Korean Trade-Investment Promotion Agency.
