The Korean Model

Recently someone posted on Facebook about how standardized testing in America is not creating the brave new world that well-meaning educators had envisioned.

Children are less and less likely to enjoy unstructured liberty to play and explore what interests them and are more likely to be on strict schedules of pre-designed activities leading toward specified goals.  It's a disaster in the making, and let's hope we oldsters are out of the way when these modern children are ready to take over the world.  The results will be horrific.

This phenomenon is not just American and has not escaped the country I live in, South Korea, any more than any other country.  The Asian model has always stressed testing, so it isn't a huge cultural shift for them as it is among Western people.  However, to put it plainly, it's wrong.  Testing is supposed to measure a person's skill, to inform learner and instructor where more attention must be paid.  It's gone well beyond this simple definition now.

In today's South Korea, testing is not just a measure; it's a purgatory.  It's a trial by fire where only the hardest will come through in tact.  This has extended to my field as well: the English language.  When I was trained in San Francisco to teach English to non-native speakers, the foremost goal always was fluency.  Learners came to us in order to function better in society.  They needed to know how to ask and understand about public transportation, grocery items, weather forecasts, driving instructions, the mundane use of English most of us take for granted.  This is how it should be.

Language is to convey our thoughts to others and to understand in like manner.  What happens, though, when you must learn a language for which you see no need to master?  You end up learning how it works, like how clock wheels make the hands move.  You may be able to answer the question, "What part of a clock allows the pallets to release the escape wheel slowly thereby activating the clock train?"  However, can you take these pieces and recreate a working clock?  Probably not.  Understanding how something works is not the same as being able to use that knowledge practically.

A clock maker test will involve one thing only: Can this person assemble a clock that works?  A language test should do the same:  Can this person communicate a clear train of thought with purpose?  That's often not what we do in Korea, though.  In Korea, we chop up the language into many pieces and ask learners to answer questions about the pieces.  We do not put them in practical situations and ask them to put their skills to the real challenge of communication.  We are not measuring their real abilities to help them improve; we are defying them to produce theoretical results to theoretical questions.  This is a cruel methodology.

Korea has chosen to require all school children to study how English works.   Therefore, student numbers in classrooms are large, too large for language practice, so instructors have no choice but to present theoretical language and measure theoretical responses.  Korea has also grown frightened of the presence of so many foreign English instructors in their country.  They find new reasons to place onerous restrictions on all English teachers, not just the bad ones.  Many of the instructors that do come to Korea are either poorly informed in the field of language acquisition or oblivious to it altogether.  The schools encourage English teachers to get Masters degrees in order to teach English, but it is not necessary for the needs at hand.  A Masters degree will not magically make you a good language guide.

The Koreans are floundering in a sea of English teachers, yet their people are not mastering the language.  They blame the teachers, and in some ways, they are right to do so.  The teachers are not trained in language acquisition skills but once in Korea are given little opportunity for professional development in the field.  Koreans see no need to permit short-term visa holders any time for self-improvement in the field of English language education, and an English teacher is given only a one-year visa with a one-year contract.  This is one of the most destructive aspects of Korea's attempt to learn English.  Their immigration policy for language teachers is nothing short of calamitous.

Most teachers coming to Korea have no knowledge of a second language beyond the rudiments of textbook French or Spanish.  English teachers are not required to learn Korean while here even though knowledge of the local language can do nothing but enhance English language guidance.  "English Only" in the classroom is another ruinous policy with few to defend its continued use.  The learners are not living in an English-speaking country; 'English only' in the Korean classroom is a cop-out for lazy teachers who do not want to learn the local language, and a language teacher who is not interested in learning language raises more than one red flag.

So how do we change this dangerous trajectory?  We provide daily interaction for English-speaking residents to learn and practice Korean language so that they will better understand their learners. We stop this national fear of foreigners and stop passing laws punishing foreigners for wanting to teach here.  We give experienced teachers multiple-year visas to allow them time to settle in and adapt to Korean society. We bring in regular people from English speaking countries, people with and without degrees, families, high school exchange students, FFA boys and girls, scouts, retired people, all sorts of folks who would enjoy the country without the need of lesson plans and syllabuses.  We set up a visa for them that isn't academic-based.  We establish places where they can interact positively with Koreans in real life situations rather than in over-crowded classrooms and cram schools.   We make language learning for everyone a real communicative part of life rather than a grueling chore.