Test Day

We had our monthly test today, not to be confused with the level test which is every other month. In fact, this one should be called the bimonthly test.

Anyway, while they were doing the test it gave me time to think about my elementary schooling (we call it 'primary school' in the land of plenty). As I recall, we had two tests. One in Year 3 and one in Year 6. I also took another test in Year 3 for the special Orange Class (the original OC). This was for entry into a selective school in 5th Grade I think. One thing I remember is a question asking the colour of milk with 4 choices. Strange.

I also had time to read the paper. The new president's plan is to have classes taught in English in all schools by 2010. Not just English language classes, but other classes like maths, science, history, etc. Obviously, teachers surveyed about these plans are against this as much as I am. To me, it makes little sense to teach regular elementary classes in English. Of course, it is best to teach English classes in English just as it is better for students studying Greek to be taught in Greek.

On the other hand, I taught English at an elementary school but I had each class for one hour a week. They would study another 4 hours per week with the own teacher. Now, I think the main issue here is that many elementary school teachers simply do not have the skills to teach English and only have one contact hour per week with a native speaker (in a class of 35+ students) is just not good enough.

To quote an old adage, where there's a demand there will undoubtedly be a supply. Hence the boom of the English hagwon in Korea. But since there is a massive demand created by the inadequate language teaching system in place surely one must expect tuition fees to be quite hefty. If these plans are implemented then either fees will rise or many more hagwons will open up to keep fees lower. My only hope is for the Ministry of Education (and agriculture or whatever they will be merged with under Lee MB's streamlined government) to set some guidelines for running a hagwon or even to designate certain hagwons that meet these guidelines as 'official' English institutes. These measures protect both students and teachers.

Another remedy to this problem is to simply employ more native speaker teachers at elementary schools. This way, with more contact hours per week, some of the demand on the hagwon industry can be alleviated which in turn will encourage competition among hagwons and, in theory, lower tuition fees.

Only time will tell I guess. I intend to be here to see these changes implemented.