Crippled High School English Education
A high school senior, Im, age 19, lately devotes two hours a day to studying English as he prepares for the scholastic aptitude test (SAT), slated for November. The text he uses is a SAT reference material, titled, "English Standing on One's Own Feet." He struggles with questions likely to be given in SAT, again and again as do 50 of his classmates. "Frankly, it's uninteresting and boring. But what else can you do since our competence is judged by this?" laments Im. Asked "How well can you communicate with others in English?" he answers, "Well," though showing a lack of confidence. In middle school, Im learned English conversation at a private institute for over a year. One year into the course, he was able to talk with others in English and confident enough to begin the conversation.
Such confidence was quickly removed when he entered high school. He had to shift lessons taken at the private institute from English conversation to English reading comprehension and English grammar. From his junior year, the private institute has given English lectures persistently focused on the SAT. "English conversation is important. But to a prospective college applicant, SAT is more important. Isn't it imperative to enter a college first?" he reasons.
For the high wall of college entrance examinations constitutes a principal problem in the present "dumb" English education, turning out students unable to express themselves in English. For parents and students, whose supreme task on hand is to enter college, "English conversations studies," little related to entrance examinations, are nothing but a "luxury" at a time when examinations are around the corner. Millions of middle and high school students in the nation now allocate precious time to English studies, unrelated to a training aimed at fostering communication skills, the core of the competitive power of English. Moreover, even English conversation skills acquired inside and outside school in primary and middle school days, relatively free from entrance examinations, revert to "dumb English" during the three-year high school courses.
A veteran department director at a conglomerate, Ko, 40, a graduate from a prestigious university, is also a victim of our crippled English education focused on entrance examinations. Ko leaves his home at 5:30 every morning on weekdays for an English conversation institute near his office. Though he recites English sentences after an American instructor with his eyes half closed, he often feels self-pity. Given the restlessness he experienced a while ago at his office in the face of his seniors when he failed to utter an English sentence in business conversation with American clients, however, he has to learn spoken English. "We learn languages to be able to express ourselves in those languages," he maintains. "What's the use of English learning when you are unable to utter even an English sentence? English proficiency must be evaluated by skills in spoken English in the college entrance examinations."
It has long been pointed out that college entrance examinations are a principal culprit in the nation's sluggishness in the competitiveness of English. English tests in college entrance examinations have been given with focus on grammar, little related to conversation, for decades. Consequently, Korean middle and high school students have mechanically clung to grammar studies only, and college entrances have been guaranteed for students gaining high marks in grammar. Having got accustomed to this wrong practice for so long, they find it difficult to get out of it.
Listening comprehension has been incorporated in the English section of the SAT since 1993, when it was first introduced into the country. Late as it was, the authorities began to realize the ill effects of the crippled English education. Listening comprehension questions, accounting for 8 of a total of 50 questions until 1995, rose to 17 items out of a total of 55 items since 1997. It cannot be denied that the previous grammar-centered English education had contributed towards students disinterest in conversation as well.
But not much progress has been achieved in English conversation skills. "Thanks to the introduction of evaluation on listening comprehension, the students' listening skills have no doubt improved from the past," comments On Su-go, who chairs the National English Teachers Club. "But not much improvement is observed in their speaking and writing skills. For high school seniors who are busy wrestling with English questions, conversation is just out of the question."
Though it is claimed to be listening evaluation, listening comprehension questions in SAT are of the level of middle school senior grade. Students pay little attention to listening evaluation, because they are able to gain some marks even if they didn't denote time to listening comprehension. "The introduction of listening evaluation in SAT is aimed not so much at accurately evaluating listening skills, as guiding schools to conduct English education with due attention given it," explains Choi Jin-hwan, English research officer of the Korea Curricula Evaluation Institute. "But the reality is that confusion has arisen because of discrepancy between such direction and school classes."
The ultimate goal of English education is described as nurturing skills of free communication. Many experts assert that as such it is essential to generally review English entrance examinations. One way could be conducting interviews in English as suggested by some universities. So long as students stick to non-conversation-oriented English studies not as a means of expressing themselves in English, but as a means of entering colleges, no competitive power of English can be enhanced. English unuseable for conversation is nothing but a useless "dead" language.
