Korean students are being driven harder these days to learn English by their parents and Korean society. As a result, English proficiency tests are being taken more and more by Korean students, which are putting more and more stress on them. These tests are ones such as the Primary English Level Test”, “TOEIC Bridge, “Junior English Test” and the “Junior General Test of English Language Proficiency.” They are starting these tests at a very young age which Kim Young-hoon, an instructor working in Seoul said, “is very undesirable for very little children who are just beginning to study English because most students who fail to catch up with others easily feel frustrated when they are arranged in a level-differentiated class.” Classes are often put into classes based on ability and not age.

That is creating major social issues for children across the country. Younger students who show good proficiency in English are being placed in classes with other children 1 or 2 year older than them solely based on a test score. These tests often to gauge how their level is progressing as more and more high schools and universities are opening specialized English language programs. Entry into one of these programs is highly competitive and mostly based off of these test scores; hence the reason testing is beginning at such a young age. Children can expect to have to take these tests at least once or twice a year from the time they start kindergarten to when they enter high school several years later.

Many of these proficiency tests are new and have not yet been approved by anyone at the Korean Ministry of Education. To prepare for them, many children are being sent abroad to places such as Canada, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand by themselves to study English for up to 3 months at a time. There was a dramatic 10 % increase in the number of Korean children going abroad to study English from 1998 to 2004 with a much larger 30% increase for elementary students alone. If children are not being sent overseas to study, then their parents are often moving them into private English academies to study, even pulling them out of regular kindergartens or pre-schools. The parents are willing to shoulder huge financial burdens to ensure that their children are learning English.

As I’ve been working for these private academies for 3 years now, I’ve had to administer many of these tests and seen the pressure it is putting on students. If a student performs poorly on one, they are made to feel like failures and that is not a good thing for a child.

As English is becoming more and more the dominant language on the planet, Korea has decided to put an emphasis on it and more and more of these academies are opening all of the time. There are now even specialized “cram schools” where students go simply to study for the proficiency tests. One of my elementary students recently told me “I’m really tired teacher and I still have to go to study academy for 2 more hours because of test next month.” This was at 6pm in the evening and the child had gone to school first at 8:30am that morning.

It is hoped that all of this learning will allow students to gain better jobs once their schooling is finished. The students are paying an enormous physical and mental price. While I personally feel that learning English is going to be very beneficial for Korean students in the long run, I do feel that these children need to be given a bit of a break and they shouldn’t be discouraged for occasional poor performances.

Ryan O’Dowd