Reflection
on one value that you think has shaped your cultural identity.
As flow of western
culture and globalization, Korean culture has been mixing with a variety of
other cultures. As time has been passing, English education is getting one of
the significant factors compared to other kinds of languages. In my family,
also, we are trying to achieve high quality of English education with various
methods for better our lives. In this reflection, I will demonstrate diverse
aspects on English education in South Korea based on my experiences.
Most of all, I
strongly believe that English education has been huge impacts on people in my
family. Since globalization andindustrialization,
as English is getting the officially universal language of the world,
overheating English education is one of the biggest problems in South Korea. As
a consequence, many adolescences feel stressful and pressured because they
study too much about English. Actually, my parents forced me to go to English
private institutes to study more and have high score on internationally
authorized English test including TOEFL. Also, at school, once a week, all
students must speak only English and we are not allowed to use Korean,
especially the day. This phenomenon has completely negative influences on
student’s mental and physical health because there is no enough and available
time to work out and to relieve the amount of stress, which has definitely bad
effects on the growth. However, in the era of globalization, strict and
concentrated English education system is good to the young students. Through
the system, the high rate of employment is provided and a large number of
chances to broaden perspectives as well as ways of realizing dreams are other
knowledge I could bring to the situation.Some
new university graduates in Korea assert that learning English and speaking it
very fluently arewell-related
to their success and the great proportion of employment and promotion
regardless of graduating from prestigious university in Korea(InnChull,
2008;
Prey, 2005). Actually, my attitude toward the education is quite positive as
English could be used as an opportunity to be successful, particularly to me
and my family and could help us to broaden horizons by providing numerous
chances.
In conclusion,
since getting harsh English education system in South Korea has been causing lot of side effects, the education needs more challenges
with Korean government and Ministry of Education to deliver long lasting
benefits.
Reference
Choi,
I. (2008).The impact of EFL testing on EFL education in Korea.
Language
Testing,25(1),
39-62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265532207083744.
Prey, R. (2005).How do
you say ‘imperialism’? theenglishlanguage teaching
industry
and the culture of imperialism in southkorea.(Order No.
MR13352, Simon Fraser University
(Canada)).ProQuestDissertations
and
Theses,, 121-121. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/305370382?accountid=15072.
(305370382)
