Dear and wonderful class,
You did a great job in your reflective essay writing and peer-editing exercise in our last class. Please post your reflective writing on the class blog.
Look forward to another productive class with you all,
Dr.Seloni
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ReplyDeleteIn these days, the tendency is toward more and more foundation for English Villages. There are already many English Villages in South Korea. The purposes of foundation for English Villages are good.
ReplyDeleteFirst, English Villages can offer the opportunities for an English language immersion experience without travel overseas. Second they can minimize the gap of cost between learners who can and cannot afford studying abroad. Finally the village visitors can speak English with foreigners with confidence.
I've never been English villages so I don't know how the English villages run and how they are. However according to Mi-Young Kim's writing, it is difficult to keep the purposes.
From her experience in English village, the actual experiences seem far from being authentic nor impressive. In addition, it costs a great deal to found one English Village in comparison with its effect.
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ReplyDeleteNowadays Many Koreans think that learning English and being fluent in English are important throughout their lives. As the author Mi-young Kim, doctoral student in university of British Columbia, mentioned in her article that "English proficiency has become a nessessity for practically evertone". Erom reading this article, I happen to think about this new phenomenon called 'English village' and came up with several related thoughts as well.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought the intention of English village which is "to provide an opportunity for an English language immersion experience without the need to travel abroad"(Mi-yooung Kim, 2006) is a extremely good idea for learning English. And if we manage it properly, we could really get some advantages during learning English.
However like her experience as an observer, when I visited one of those villges a while a go I found out many EFL teachers who work in English village weren't seem to be proficient teachers at all. Instead I noticed that most teachers in that village look like what we usually imagine so called "stereo typical N.E.S". There are lots of English institutions including English village throughout this country and we have so many unqualified N.E.S teachers. A lot of institutions tend to hire peaple sho just look like N.E.S and this is becoming as a problem because most of them are not fully trained to teach English to Foriegn students. This is why I think we need to have some kind of regulations in hiring N.E.S teachers. So that we can provide more effective environment for learning English.
Lastly, to make this English village promote, I think, we need a connection between public education, for example schools and English villages. By having this connection, the school teachers and staff memvers of village can work together as a team to make learning English more effectively. For instance, they could share what they teach in schools or in villages and have students learn the contents at school and then in village they could have an athentic experience related to the contents xhich they have learned at school.
Since many of us think that learning English is essetial in our lives, I think the most important thing is that we should first consider more about how to provide English learning surroundings in more effective way then organize and imply to students, not the other way around.
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ReplyDeleteAs the author, Ms.Kim mentioned, it costs arms and legs to maintain that huge Enlish village. However, the boom of building new English town is not just caused by one influencing person but from desire of most Korean and that is the outcome we've made.
ReplyDeleteWe have preference of American culture to our own Korean culture. As we see neon signs and names of apartments everywhere, those names is mixture of English, French and Korean. For examples, Lotte Kingdom, Astra, *** palace, and Renuare are for apartments and BS(Busan), NH(NongHeup) and KB(KukMin) are for banks. Because applying those names is profitable. Even if goods are shabby, when they are covered with looking good names like mixture sound of them, it would sell like hot cakes.
In a nut shell, our desire of preference of English makes English towns. Although we could remove English towns, we couldn't get rid of what we feel. Therefore, just accept the flow and the only thing we can do is modifying the towns useful. Let's follow the stream.
Will English villages remain the mimic puppet world or will evolve to the foreign land with authenticity? When I went to the English village a few years ago. I could find fake shop owners who were foreign people in the several shops. They were sitting in the fake stores and looking at me without ambition as the author said about foreign people in the English villages; 'the particular individual wore flip-flops, had a hole in one ear the size of a nickel, and sported reddish-pink hair'. They are fake and not even similar to the any other foreign shop owners. It is not quite authentic thing. What is the problem of the English village and how can we solve the problem? I think there are two main ideas for solving the problem : authentic contents and proper locations.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, contents in the English village should be authentic. The purpose of English village is the chance for experiences of foreign languages. However, if the contents are not authentic, it will be ended up with 'just another theme park with a lot of money, time, and effort wasted'.
Secondly, English villages should be a place easy to get to. If the English village is far from user' home, they cannot go there often. And, it makes the English villages to be just special places where they cannot go easily. For instance, the English village in Busan is located in the center of the city, so people can go there whenever they want.
In summation, for the effective English village, we should think about how easy and often to get there and how authentic materials are in there.
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ReplyDeleteThis writing mentions two aspects. One is affirmative sides: for an instance they (Enlish villages} were built in the attempt to reduce the outward flow. Tens of thousands of young Koreans go abroad every year as they try to learn to speak English. according to Kim's writing it costs about &1.5 billion abroad a year.(Hong, 2002). The other is negative sides: for an example to the writer's experience at the village, they are not authentic as the creators claim. But it seems the writer's tone is very critical like she says. I think the passage shows her criticism of it well " learning a foreign language is a complicated process that takes more than a few hours or days of exposure to the language. It occurs to me that in Dr. Romsedt's class acquiring BICS(Basic Interpersonal mmunication skills) takes one or two years and CALP(Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) five to seven years(Cummings 1980).
ReplyDeleteThere is one thing not to mention specifically. It was about first subtitle "English in Korea: A "Must" for everyone?" I think the question mark(?) seems to implicate omething but the author avoided it by saying general phenomenon in Korean society. Not to talk any more about that is reasonable under this topic "English village ---"
I am trying to finish my reflective essay by mentioning that they who are in charge of them, who especially interested in teaching English, must make out together to accomplish English village's founded goals. Furthermore it would be much better for them to be run for multi-purposes not only to learn English.
It is an assignment.
"Two sides of English Village"
ReplyDeleteKorea government made a English village every other places. The needs and importance of English was the reason for that. This attemps to provide residents of Korea with an opportunity for an English language immersion experience without the need to travel abroad.
But this revolutinal village has two sides.
First of all, English village is made from real English spoken countury and it looks alike with those counturies. So when people visit there, you can actually have experience of real countury. They could enjoy a lot of situations and cultural things within certain area. You can visit many counturies and places in a village !(It's hard to have much experiences when you are actually abroad-lack of information, financial wise,time limit..etc)So, they don't have to pay lots of money to visit or study abroad. They can just learn and experience in English village.
But thers's still disadvantages. Once,the villages have met with some resistance. Concerned voices of wasting money and promotes "English imperialism".I think I agree with those resistances and concerned voices. It is natural to follow globalization but I'm not sure it's as effective as it costs.For instance, they put advertisement that "same atmosphere as England" so, you can see Harry Potter but there are American style signs and American staffs exist.So if the English village wants to provide real authentic circumstance to visitors, they should make "real" to show real atmosphere as close as possible. And there should be more native staffs so people can use English and feel English spoken countury atmosphere in order to have real authentic experiences.It is also connect with financial issues.
As my perspective, I am really interested in English village and I want to visit, too.
So I could enjoy a lot of interesting situations and visiting places. But I want to see real effectiveness of English village.
So we should consider about how much we get from how much costs.
A craze for English is wide-spread in Korea at the moment. Many Korean parents believe that their young children have to speak English fluently to be a global citizen. That's why English villages are built in Korea. But we should consider a certain condition when we establish English villages.
ReplyDeleteAccording to this article which is written by Mi-Young Kim, "English village provide an opportunity for English immersion experience without traveling abroad". However, the author is doubtful about the effectiveness of English villages. Because English proficiency will not be improving as quickly, even if participants spend all day long in an English village. Although "It is designed to realize the same atmosphere as a town In England", the author finds that the sign and the use of American currency in P English village is not authentic as a town In England. Besides the author thinks that the staffs including NESs should be qualified. If English villages represent only typical images of an English speaking country, it will "remain no more than another theme park".
Therefore we have to use English villages for practicing English effectively . We can learn different cultural awareness and stimulate participants' motive by exposing to English in English villages. But It is so far from the main city. If English villages offer a vehicle, many more participants will visit there frequently. Furthermore, the government should support to develop the various programs which is related to the national curriculum constantly and employ qualified NESs. These efforts will be able to meet the need of participants.
"English Village” in South Korea: The Possible Things What They Really Promote
ReplyDeleteby Unice Jung
Mi-Young Kim, PhD student in TESL at the UBC wrote an interesting journal ‘English Villages in South Korea: What Do They Really Promote?’ (MY KIM, NNEST newsletter 2006) that she found new and unique educational system contains grand objective of the establishment; making real-a-like western town and by letting Korean students to have residential experience so they can eliminate ‘the needs for intensive language learning abroad’. (MY KIM, NNEST newsletter 2006)
Unfortunately, after having personal observation and collecting some reliable information from local related organizations, MY Kim found the answer of her journal: ‘we don’t really know’, ‘Maybe something else’.
As she observed the English Village at least prior than 2006, which means, she wrote this journal with her real experience, 3~4years ago, concluding with negative vision, this journal surprised me because, the bad effects are revealing like she worried. There is no reliable outcome yet from the system so we can assess, most village was not truly ‘Authentic’ and people still preferred to have overseas learning language experiences.
None the worse, academic professional studied the system is not working as we hoped, many of taxpayers are not happy about this as there goes huge amount of fund endlessly and the quality of the system should change the term from ‘Language Education’ to ‘English Entertaining’ as per lining up lesser qualification NEST.
However, while every negatives reveals and indicating the system is not working well, we still can see some other local government administration works hard to found this facility in to their city in every year. Why do they want to have that? The answer can be found somewhere other side like the city council or congressman’s office. The answer is, Money: Administrative exhibition: Political show and Electoral Commitment.
Every electoral season for voting local government head, the candidates competitively prepare fascinating or eye catching plan to make city bigger and richer. As a result, every city want to be an international, rich, cultural and the most social benefited. Most of them could not have time to think how to make it works really well as they were busy to copy some big city’s pre-released plan and don’t be bothered at the ending part as they will move to bigger city or apply for higher position to conquer. So, for the fancy plans to make capital city look good, can be small fishing town next year electoral commitments. After the politician acquired budget to spend with unrealistic, not proven promises, they become more careful to use budget wisely rather than using for people. During the tour of duty, the politicians are busy to spend the budget only people can see rather than take.
For those reasons, Gyeong Gi Province English Village; the masterpiece of ex-governor who is now a candidate of presidential election; losing enormous money and facing alternate the nature of business from ‘English Village’ to ‘Theme resort’. And still many numbers of small local cities to plan this ridiculous English Village project.
Being an ESL teacher, not only blaming low
intelligent, obsessed to go higher position politicians, it is important that professionally trained English teachers are united and showing serious public concerns to authorities with reasonably understandable out data, proof and explanation. Also, need to work hard to supply people’s satisfaction. Being active on social participation and continues professional develop would be the answer on solving this crisis.
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ReplyDeleteKorea is full of English nowadays. In this situation, I think the author brought really critical issue which is worth talking about. It is true that English village hasn't worked well its desired role since it was built first in 2004. The reason of its critique doesn't have to do with its original purpose, but it may lie in the way it was brought to practice. In other words, the approach they chose was unsuitable to reach the goal, while its purpose was profound. I would like talk about the reason of English villages failure in terms of providing authentic settings which was also focused on in this article.
ReplyDeleteAs I have mentioned above, the problem lies in the way of realization of ideal purpose. In general, every big project has really clear, reasonable, and helpful purposes. I think the directors of those projects are also enthsed to make it successful. I guess it makes sense in building English villages, too. What they overlooked was the process, that is, the way to realize their plan. They don't seem to pay much attention to find the best and right way to achieve their goals.
Regarding the aim of English village, it seems to be out of its business. Although the ultimate goal of English village is to get people to learn Englisgh and maybe cultural aspects in authentic settings, they don't take its educational aspects into consideration. If they did, it couldn't be possible to hire backpackers only for their appearance. It seems that they made English village for making money or fascinating people by providing amusement. There is no educational donsideration and philosophy in decorative exterior.
I could say English villages were not realized to meet user's needs. However, I think it can be revised to improve by more appropriate way. Renovation can be possible when people who are assigned key role in English village have educational point of view and adapt English village with valuable philosophy considering its original goal.
As this article mentioned, people place a high premium on English proficiency in Korea.
ReplyDeleteAs one of the ways, Korean government launched English in the school to give a chance of acquiring English more naturally.
However, in 'Bean sprout classroom' situation, it's very difficult to control and manage the class. There were more problems which caused of education policy in Korea.
The author mentioned about "English Village" that didn't work well and had other side effects. When it opened in Gyeonggi province, it was very popular for parents and English learners and very crowded. At that time, many students who want to learn 'live'English uaually go to English speaking countries even though it is not ideal situation.
It produced time and money consuming. To provede learners with opportunities to be exposed 'live'English, English village is established in Korea. It looked like well organized system first. But real, useful and valued English can be learned only by participating in "authentic English village".
Learning a foreign language is a complicated process.
And a person who can speak English would be an English teacher in Korea even a backpacker.
His/Her experiences for teaching or majors don't matter to get a job as an English teacher.
According to growing importance of English proficiency, it occurs many problems.
Government should try to solve the problems of English education and recognize that English instruction is a part of the school curriculum. And also we have to think about how well to operate "English Village" as one chance of learning English in Korea.
Thinking of English Villages
ReplyDeleteThe environment of English education in Korea has two strategies in policy of Korean goverment. The one is making a physical facility for English education. The other is providing native speakers for English class in public schools. Even though these strategies are activated in publics schools, the parents still spend a lot of money for their children to go abroad for learning English.
"English Villages" is a alternativeness of going abroad and a way to prevent wasting money and too much effort. But "English Villages" have negative sides in English education.
The first, as the author mentioned that, actually "English Villages" don't have enough authentic materials and "English Villages" are quitr different from real situations. Because the native speakers who are hired in these facilities don't well about what they have to do or they are not qualified for language teaching. The environment of these looks like just imitation of physical facilities
The second, the management of this villages is not professional. The foreign people are likely to be hired because they look like American, Canadian or British even if they don't speak English fluently and clearly.
The third, I agree with auther's opinion that "NNES teachers were excluded from teaching English in these villages regardless of training and qualifications." . For communicative language learning based on culture, the students should learn English comparing with Korean and Foreign cultures. So Korean NNE teachers control well about this part in learning situations.
The last, I am worried about this trend that it could be stopped only as a trend. "English Villages" are very popular to parents now. Since present government announced 'English Immersion Education', the enthusiasm of Enslish education is approaching the peak. I hope that this enthusiasm will be maintained consistently and positively, for not satisfaction for taste of parents but satisfaction for learning desire of students.
There are many English villages in South Korea. Especially in July, here in Busan also build English village. I am now a volunteer in this village, so I could not only experience but also feel lots of things in there. There are lots of good programs like story-telling, watching English videos, etc. But I think There are also some insufficiencies.
ReplyDeleteLike Mi-Young Kim,the auther,said, I don't think this big policy works well to students who really want to improve their English ability. Everyone might know that just few days' experiences can not improve actual English ability. Students won't remember what they learned in that place unless they go there everyday. So it's impossible to anticipate the effects of 'going abroad'.
And I really astonished when I read this sentence-"Some of the staff members were nonKorean NNESs who may have been given a job at the village mostly on the basis of their looks (fair hair and skin, light-colored eys) rather than on the basis of their English language proficiency or their linguistic background" Then what is this village for? Speaking from experience, I usually think this is only wasting money. Only good buildings and facilities are existed. Not only the views but also serious verifications have to be continued. I think the goverment tend to think that building villages and let them work is the finish of improving English.
And even though provincially funded subsidy is available for students, this is not actually opened for everyone. Money is not only problem for them(distance problem, in case of orphan, no experience in English, etc.) and even get the money from goverment is not that easy. They have to pass many processes in order to go English village free.
To tell the truth, When I am in Busan Global village, I never heard someone speaks in English except one situation that NESs are in front of them. It is obvious that all people have to speak only in English but students only speak Korean even though they are in boundaries. Going with parents who are not good at English can cause this problem, I think. And last thing what I'd like to say is this. Maybe students already know the sentences like "Show me your passport" and "What is your name?". But students only speak these kind of sentences only in English village. It seems like they go English viallge to see foreigners. English villages need 'novelty' and shouldn't just run like amusement park for everyone.
In these days, English become very popular language in all over the world. The ablilty of using Enhlish is needed not only to get a high score in school but also to get a good job. So English and English education is considered very important issue for us. To supply effective English education, South Korea goverment start to construct "English Village". They construct the village theat looks like a part of America, employ native speaker, and encourage them to speak only English in there. The goverment has big expectation to Enhlish Village to develop students' English by giving authentic environment, but ther are some resistance and problem that we have to solve, too.
ReplyDeleteEnglish village is epoch and ideal method to learn English and experience authentic environment in EFL like Korea. we expect that Enhlish Village gives us various advantages to learn Enhlish. We hope that it can give us authentic environment. In Enhlsh willage, people can experience various authentic activities or environment. it is considered very helpful to people who are not affordable to go abroad for study, because they experience many authentic things in cheap price compared with going abroad.
But English Villages have many problems that should be solved, too. First, in Enhlish Village, many staff members are not qualified enough. Most staff members ger their job based on their looks rather than based on proficiency or their linguistic background. So many of them use wrong grammar and non-Cnlish accent. This is not authentic thing that our goverment intends to. Second, Ther are too many visiters compared with the NES staff member. In this situation, visitors can't have enough oppourunities to communicate with NES people, so they just enjoy sigtseeing the NES people in English Village.
English Villages can be usdful method to learn and contact with Enhlish in EFL environment like Korea, only if we try to study effects of it and try to improve them. We should remember construction of English Village is not the end of effort for good English Education. We make an effort to maximumize the good point of English Village and solve the variou problems that are appeared. We should study and find the usdful way for English education steadily. By these effort, we can make usd of the Enhlish village as a good environment for English.
Fake English Villages - Hailey
ReplyDeleteThe author wonders if the English village in Gyeong-gi province, Korea is really as ‘authentic’ as has been promoted. Officials responsible for the village announced that it would provide Korean students with no experience of English speaking countries with opportunities to learn and use practical and real English as if they were in an English speaking country. Unfortunately, the authentic English village was revealed to be just a tax sucking monster with counterfeit NES teachers solely for looking like stereotypical Caucasians. Even though representatives promoted the camp as being just like a typical English village, the language spoken there was much closer to American English. Also, the situations designated by the creator of the syllabus (who remains a mystery) were limited in their scope and failed to create an authentic atmosphere.
There has been a trend in Korea of establishing English villages based upon this model and of creating English-only apartment complexes. It all sounded quite fascinating when I first heard about it from a TV news show. I decided that I should visit it, hoping that the place could help me with my lack of confidence in English and add to my limited textbook based English expressions. As one of the worst patients of this Korean social malady, I visited there, only to realize that there is nothing worse than paying money to essentially take pictures against the backdrop of British buildings.
Do we really need these ‘fake’ villages to learn English? Personally, my opinion is no. For the same money, parents can send their children to the Philippines to study English with real English speaking Filipinos. In addition, they can merely choose to send their children to classes with native English speakers. There is an argument that many of these NETs are only backpackers with no teaching experience and that they are hired solely because of there ability to fill an ideal. I would rather learn with a qualified Filipino English teacher than an under-educated white “Native Speaker,” here for a quick buck. The stigma attached to supposed Non Native English teachers seems foolish and perhaps unnecessarily expensive to me. I feel that better use of qualified Non Native English Teachers would be of a great benefit, especially in the financial times we live in.
p.s. please somebody tell me how to fix my name here :-(
"English Village is Still on the Pilot Stage?
ReplyDeleteI partly agree with Mi-Young Kim's point of view about English Village in Korea. Even her article was written 3 years ago though, her evaluation of English immersion program by her investigation and practical experience is still valid for the present. Since established by local government in the initial it has taking issues with the effectiveness of program and now it is facing many problems caused by its financial difficulties and little consideration in the education sector. Nevertheless the central and other local governments are following 'English Village' to raise the industry competitiveness carrying out a vote catching policy.
The general aim of this immersion program is to create a genuine need for students to communicate through the target(English) language. However, in the actual society it regards that English is leading to dividing communities by not only how much making efforts but also how much spending money. Actually the governments are providing them a lot with support for its establishment and operation, so some parties concerned in the education are reproaching for it regarding as a waste of money and a waste of energy.
Through her observation she found out that there are many facilities modeled on "typical British village" so the visitors might find similar atmosphere. Even she left her view under the no conclusive evidence not investigated yet, I can see it is far more from authenticity of English experience and learning language with qualified NES staffs. Hence this village is hardly to enable language learners who need actual and practical experiences from that to promote their oral English skill and to familiarize themselves with that environment through whether a few weeks immersion program or not.
Whilst her indicating regrettable of these villages, other English villages are being built in several provinces by local governments and private organizations specializing in language training formed consortiums. Beyond an inconsistent policy, I think these kind of villages have the positive influence on students and these are able to foster enabling environment to practice speaking oral skill. This immersion programs have started in just a few years and still are struggling for set-up. It is needed to improve systematical curriculum.
The Expectation of Visiting English Villages
ReplyDeleteI've never been to so-called "English Villages". I've always wanted to go there because the idea was so fascinating that I can learn and practice English all day long without going abroad to a foreign country. But the reality seems different.
I think the article of English Village in South Korea is telling about the true face of English villages and questioning about the quality, authenticity, and effectiveness that the facilities are pursuing.
For example, she mentioned her observation on the newest and best equipped English village in Korea. The appearance was good. You can imagine that you're in a town of England. But what about the learning experience of English?
She pointed out that it was not authentic at all. Lots of expectation on visiting English village include authentic interaction with NES or NNES people. And they should be verified teachers in order to help me develop my language. However, Many people who was living in the village and meeting the customers(also students) were not ready for English education. Therefore, we should question about the outcomes from visiting such an "English Village". It's more like going on a picnic to a theme park.
As a matter of fact, the warning of the author is taking effect in these days. The number of English villages has decreased. No surprise on that.
After all, everybody's interest is how we can improve our English to be a good user. I think we should look at the essence of this matter in a different point of view. What we have to do is making our English classroom's environment more immersed and authentic. It's all English teachers' duty.
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ReplyDeleteReflective Writing - "English Villages"
ReplyDeleteAs Miyoung Kim mentioned in the conclusion of her article, "I fear English villages will remain no more than just another theme park with a lot of money, time, and effort wasted". I also have the same feeling as her.
BGV (Busan Global Villages) has just opened on July 1st 2009. It was a hot issue for everyone, especially parents who have children and considered sending them to BGV. Even though they already knew about the poor reputation of English villages throughout Korea, they still have some hope that BGV will be different to other English villages.
Generally speaking, English village fees are cheaper than going abroad to learn English, but they are still 2-10 times more expensive compared to other English institutes. Moreover, they sometimes employ low qualified NST, or have difficulties employing well qualified NSTs. In addition, they appear to be less cost-effective than established institutes or going abroad.
However, English villages are intended to promote English learning and to build students' English cultural awareness which match with the Korean government's mandatory English program to "motivate student's interest in English and to develop basic communicative competence" (Minister of Education). Furthermore, the benefits include providing English immersion programs for many more students - especially to low income families. In addition, an English spoken environment with semi-authentic props can give a strong positive impression, English language learning outcome and provide cultural awareness to students.
In conclusion, if the Korean Education Department monitor the English village programs with financial support to cut tuition fees and regulate the quality of education, then it will beneficial to many more students and to the English villages themselves. Moreover, English villages need to research and develop various projects to survive and attract more clients with positive results.
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ReplyDelete- English Villages : For What And For Whom Do They Are? -
ReplyDeleteRecently, a kind of "Village" like an apartment complex, named "Global Village" was built near the center of Busan, one of the most expensive estates, and began offering educational services to people. Many students and people in English education field, including me, seem to welcome appearance of this village, since we have showed congruence with the lack of "Authentic" ESL environment to ameliorate Korean's communicative competence. However, different from these somewhat general expectation, this article written by Mi-Young Kim, a doctoral student in the Department of Language and Literacy at the University of British Columbia, shows another viewpoint that can be easily overlooked in focusing on rosy progression. Thus, following the development of her article, discussing the issue more specifically focusing on the three categories can contribute to establishing more balanced perspective : culture, latent education, and economic gap.
First of all, in terms of culture, as she mentioned in the article, "further imposing a sense of needing to use English for communication on residents of a non-English-speaking country"(Mi-Young Kim. 2006: 2) can instigate Korean students to have negative sense of their mother country. This can be embodied as "Cultural Imperialism", which implies "a hierarchy of cultures, some of which are stronger than others". There is still remaining "Cultural Imperialism" in many countries which had conquered by powerful empires during the second World War, in which descendants tend to put cultural superiority in conqueror's value to that of their own. That is the reason why conquerors tried to transplant their language into their colonies, eliminating their mother tongues. Experiencing similar situation at that time, even though the results are very different from some of these countries, Korean are unconsciously accustomed to being exposed to English in daily life, forming English "language ego"(Guiora et al. 1972b; see also Ehrman 1993), "the identity a person develops in reference to the language she or he speaks".(Brown, H D. 2000) For instance, almost all the pro-sports ball teams in Korea do not use Korean as their nickname, and some apartment complex residents have required the administrator to change the name of the apartment from Korean to English, since Korean name sounds rustic. These are the examples which show subordinacy linguistically, further culturally to English. Thus, in a condition where all the people do not have to be a bilingual, overemphasizing the necessity of English can function as catalyzer to stir up "Cultural Imperialism". In this point of view, Korean government is required to control the stream of building English Villages to some extent that it can harmonize with Korean culture.
In addition, hidden educational aspects derived from the lack of the authenticity in managing the "English Villages" is overlooked whether in a way of providing simulated immersion environments, or employing "authentic" instructors. Considering the purpose of establishing English villages, people can easily expect this expensive facility made by their tax will provide authentic English immersion environment, which was supposed to push them into "merciless" situational settings where they must use only English. However, if a person gets this kind of question in immigration setting "How old are you?" from an immigration officer wearing "authentic" costume - even that is not that "authentic" according to the author - and kind enough to consider visitors' level of linguistic proficiency, can she or he apply what you learned and felt here to real immigration situation, expecting U.S. immigration officers to be "merciful" like those of Korean English Village? It may be hard to respond positively. Thus, a series of simulated role-plays are not fully expected to help students obtain potential knowledge to deal with real situation. In the aspect of human resources related to employing "authentic" instructors, the same can be problematic. As she mentioned in the article, the fact that "some of the staff members were non-Korean NNESs(Non-Native English Speakers) who may have been given a job at the village mostly on the basis of their looks rather than on the basis of their English language proficiency or their linguistic background"(Mi-Young Kim. 2006: 3) is enough to increase our unreliability to their performance, since instructors can have considerable influences on learners not only in language learning as "official curriculum", but in so-called "latent curriculum", which refers to the "subtle or not-so subtle messages that are not part of the intended curriculum"(Nieto. 2001: 28). For instance, "Children are said to be rewarded not only for learning their subject curriculum but appearing to do so with enthusiasm, alertness and deference to and respect for authority. In this way education imparts not only formal knowledge but an understanding of how to act 'properly' in wider society."(Crystal Reference Encyclopedia, 2001: online). Of course, they are not a teacher who teaches and lectures in the schools. However, there must be some classroom settings, and their prudence to select expressions makes them look like a kind of teacher. In other words, their roles in this facility include some of the teachers' roles in school. Nevertheless, it is hard to expect them with flip-flops and just Caucasian looks to have such a sense of duty, and, thus, to have a positive influence on learners' "hidden education". Therefore, in order to filter out "inauthentic" factors both in environment and in human resources, Korean government needs to consider raising the threshold to make it possible for NESs to be a staff or a instructor in English Village. In addition, thorough and constant qualitative administration for authentic English environment is required.
ReplyDeleteLast but not least, in terms of economy, English Villages can give rise to another problem in relation to economic gap; The existing gap was between the students whose parent(s) can afford to pay expenses for studying abroad and the students whose parent(s) cannot. On the other hand, the new gap might exist between the students whose parent(s) can afford to pay expense for participating in activities in English Village and the students whose parent(s) cannot. Some of the backgrounds of building English Villages contains Korean government's attempt to reduce finance and brain drain to English countries and to provide people with easy access to English immersion environment without much money. However, despite assuming that those aforementioned problems can be solved completely with additional enormous financial support, if the registration fees increases rapidly derived from it, it can bear similar problems of students' alienation before English Village, making them feel frustrated as a child who can not have a "Nintendo" does. Students may think that their poor English is attributed to their parent(s)' economical condition, and, thus, that they will never be able to improve their English proficiency, regarding language learning as such a process just happening in the target country. Moreover, one of the most important thing we should not overlook in dealing with its economic problems is that these kind of English Villages are managed by private companies, not Korean Government. All the official government subordinates have to include "go.kr" in their internet domain, but this part of domain are not found in the addresses of English Villages. Yet English library in Busan Global Village, another English Village, are using "go.kr", which means only one building in that English Village is being managed by the government. Fundamentally, companies' identity can not get free from the pursuit of interests. If so, except for the size, what is differences between English Villages and many other private institutions, called "Hakwon"? After all, promoting construction of English Village will work as opposition to the government's effort to reduce the market of private institutions, "leading to an "English divide" in which "the rich get richer, [and] the poor get poorer" in Korean society"(Mi-Young Kim. 2006: 1) Thus, established based on people's agreement and sincerity of tax payers as the national project, English Villages should cover various and wide welfare services, lest our future heroins and heros be frustrated by estrangement.
ReplyDeleteTaking everything into account, I think there were some problems in relation to English Village in terms of culture, latent education, and economic gap. Of course, as the author mentioned, although the result of long-term programs of this facility can not be assessed right now, I cannot help wondering about its efficiency in contrast to the amount of invested money. Korean Government wasted too much money if the goal of English Villages was set just to raise learners' motivation to study English by furnishing them with "authentic amusement park", where "attraction and rides had been replaced with role-plays and simulated authentic activities that involve speaking in English".(Mi-Young Kim. 2006: 3) Notwithstanding, I do not intend to say that we have to destroy English Villages. However, there must be a lot of problems including aforementioned ones that were not engaged in research and not thoroughly investigated. In order to find more prosperous way, all the parties concerned are required to reconsider the original purpose of English Villages, and should supply enough opportunities for further discussion to the public. Otherwise, innocent taxpayers may have to pay more tax again to help Korean government to destroy it with its own hands.
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ReplyDeleteIn Korea, teaching and learning English is getting to be one of the important social issues. Particularly English proficiency is necessary for everyone who want to get good jobs and enter prestigious schools. These days the South Korean government encourages students to participate in a mandatory English program in schools or private institutions. So many students can be easily deceived by catchy phrases such as " you can take with foreigners fluently within two weeks." Moreover, students can be concerned about a gap between those who can afford English learning expenses and who can't. That is why English villages which can be exposed to the English speaking environment have recently developed in Korea. In this essay, I will discuss merits and demerits of English Villages.
ReplyDeleteEnglish villages give learners opportunities to be exposed to authentic living experiences with NESs within an EFL context. Learners who live in English Villages speak only English and can interact with NESs while shopping or watching movies together, so they cannot be afraid of talking each other and feel natural when being together. Moreover, The cost of English villages are relatively reasonable compared to traveling or studying abroad to learn English. So I believe it not only reduce the expenses for learning English, but also make learners easily adapt to the English speaking environment.
However, numerous English Villages in Korea also have many negative aspects. First, those villages are not have enough contents or resources to help learners to acquire English effectively. For example, NNEs teachers in English villages are not qualified and they just focus on earing money and traveling, not for teaching English. Their appearance look like the same with foreign instructor , but their English ability are not the same. Moreover, most English Villages are not have any authentic because the environment and atmosphere are not the same with English foreign countries. The writer said 'P village' are one of the good example of that point.
In conclusion, English Villages are have both aspects of learning English stated above. English Villages have recently developed and the amount of English learners visiting here are also significantly increasing now. So we should think seriously about where is the best place to acquire English effectively and what learners and English educators are not fully satisfied with English Villages in Korea.
"Toward English proficiency within the context of public education in schools"
ReplyDeleteThere have been so many controversies regarding English Villages in Korea. Some support the concept of English villages in that they provide authentic context to use English and promote interest and motivation in English learning. But others are against the idea because they are not actually providing authentic environment as they claim and not efficient in terms of time and money.
The author of this article Mi-Young Kim has the same position as the latter. She oppose the English villages for several reasons. First, despite their claim, English villages are not authentic. Also, there's a possibility of implying linguistic imperialism. In addition, "they exclude Korean NNESTs from teaching", "promoting visual representation of stereotypical images of NESs".
I'm on the side of opposing English villages and totally agree with her opinion that "English villages exclude Korean NNESTs from teaching". English only environment should be established not only in English villages but also in classrooms and in school context. More reliance on English villages in search of authentic environment in which students can use English naturally, will "exclude Korean NNESTs from teaching" and make student more dependent on sources of outside of the classroom to learn English, promoting the belief that school education and Korean NNESTs are not enough.
Also, as Mi-Young Kim said, English learning is "complicated" process and so, just one exposure to English only environment in English villages, even if we consider them authentic and NESs teaching there are qualified, is not enough to improve students' English proficiency. Students need more long-term and sustained exposure to English and need to use English in every classroom. How can it be justified that investing such a large amount of money competitively in "theme park" having role plays and simulated authentic activities, imagining such a short stay in ESL context can solve the problems of EFL context?
Rather than such a huge investment in building and maintaining English villages which have yet to prove their effectiveness, the efforts to build authentic and efficient environment in English learning in each school are more urgent and necessary, such as hiring many new Korean NNESTs who are proficient, qualified and enthusiastic, reducing classroom size, as well as retraining older teachers and building more classrooms for English only. Then, students and parents can put faith and rely on public education, without spending tremendous amount of money on private Education including going abroad to learn English.
Even though starting from a good "attempt to provide residents of this country with an opportunity for an English language immersion experience without the need to travel abroad", the English villages are not desirable and wasting a lot of time and money, in respect of whole English education and acquiring language proficiency.
So, instead of more English villages, we have to focus on how to manage the existing English villages more effectively and how to encourage students to use English in classroom, providing authentic situation as much as possible.
English is considered as very critical factor for the success in a person’s life, so there are many students and parents who want to learn English and educate English their kids by special programs.
ReplyDeleteAccordingly, rich parents give their children the opportunities to go abroad for learning English when the kids are very young, and then their English speaking skills become very similar to the Native speakers’.
Unfortunately, the poor can’t do that. What is worse, they go bankruptcy because of their children’s foreign education fee or the family should live separately.
When the kid live alone in the foreign country, he or she can easily go away from the right path. So, the kid’s mother goes with him or her to the nation. The father leaves alone in Korea, it is called “wild goose dad”. They became the social issues, because some of them suicide by melancholia.
Besides, the outflow of the U.S. dollars only for English education is severe problem. For solving these problems, ‘English Village’ is very good alternative.
It can not only generate more jobs but also provide more chance to study English for the students from the various living standards.
With fascination of learning language, Korean government came up with establishing English village. It was quite successful to appeal to students and parents and still there are movements to build more English villages. This might be one of good trials to take an action towards CLT circumstances. However, I wonder whether they are the facilities to experience authentic and real English. Except for the villages, there are a lot of private institutes that students can learn language in CLT circumstances yet.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I concerned, it is not possible that the English villages encourage the public education system. The Korean government strongly intended to reduce the range of private education market with some policies. The English village is one of the policies. Nevertheless, those kind of the policies used to be temporary expedients. Who can take charge of this policy If the supporting for the English villages someday? Unfortunately, I have to say that nobody can guarantee it.
In conclusion, to have the English villages developed consistently, it is clear that we need sufficient and active support by government and continuous concerning by users of the villages. I hope the villages would be constructive tools for English education in Korea.