--> I have been
teaching children ages 6-11 at a private English academy for 6 months now. In
South Korea, from a very young age students start attending private after-school
academies. There are English academies, math academies, art academies, and many
other kinds of academies. Many of my students go to multiple academies, in
addition to sports (taekwondo, swimming, jump rope, etc.) and music (It seems
like everyone in Korea can play piano). My students are only in elementary
school, but they have very little time to play. When they’re at home, they often
study. I barely studied at home in high school, let alone elementary school!
After elementary school, it only gets more intense. My Korean friend told me it is typical for high school students to go to their public high school for normal school hours, then go to private academies late into the evening, and then go home and keep studying until 1 in the morning. They are constantly studying. There is incredible pressure to pass the university entrance exam, and there is a marked increase in suicides during entrance exam season. If students don’t get a high enough score for the university they want to go to, they might come to the public library every day and study constantly for 12 hours, like one young man I know is doing, preparing for next year’s entrance exam.
This is the current academic culture in Korea. It pains me to see students put such pressure on themselves. My little 8 year old students sometimes cry when they get one spelling word wrong on the spelling quiz I give them. The Korean staff at my academy communicate with our students’ parents, and sometimes they adapt what they say in light of what the parents will think, because if you tell the parents the student needs to study more at home, they might take it to an extreme measure.
Since I’ve only been here for 6 months, I’m still trying to figure out what this means to me as a teacher, and how I can adapt my teaching to both prepare my students for the necessary success but also encourage them and help them “play” and have fun a little during our daily class together. We do a lot of games at my academy and we practice reading through a colorful storybook. I don’t know how useful it is to teach grammar explicitly to such young children, but it’s a part of our curriculum, so I try to make those activities as fun and as applicable to the students’ lives as possible. Despite the pressures on them, the children are very creative and enjoy expressing themselves in English. I hope that the academic culture of Korea will become more moderate in the years to come, but until then I will do my best to work within the system, equipping my students with the tools necessary to succeed, while also caring for them.
Please check out this music video below with English subtitles. It's about rebelling against the pressure.
After elementary school, it only gets more intense. My Korean friend told me it is typical for high school students to go to their public high school for normal school hours, then go to private academies late into the evening, and then go home and keep studying until 1 in the morning. They are constantly studying. There is incredible pressure to pass the university entrance exam, and there is a marked increase in suicides during entrance exam season. If students don’t get a high enough score for the university they want to go to, they might come to the public library every day and study constantly for 12 hours, like one young man I know is doing, preparing for next year’s entrance exam.
This is the current academic culture in Korea. It pains me to see students put such pressure on themselves. My little 8 year old students sometimes cry when they get one spelling word wrong on the spelling quiz I give them. The Korean staff at my academy communicate with our students’ parents, and sometimes they adapt what they say in light of what the parents will think, because if you tell the parents the student needs to study more at home, they might take it to an extreme measure.
Since I’ve only been here for 6 months, I’m still trying to figure out what this means to me as a teacher, and how I can adapt my teaching to both prepare my students for the necessary success but also encourage them and help them “play” and have fun a little during our daily class together. We do a lot of games at my academy and we practice reading through a colorful storybook. I don’t know how useful it is to teach grammar explicitly to such young children, but it’s a part of our curriculum, so I try to make those activities as fun and as applicable to the students’ lives as possible. Despite the pressures on them, the children are very creative and enjoy expressing themselves in English. I hope that the academic culture of Korea will become more moderate in the years to come, but until then I will do my best to work within the system, equipping my students with the tools necessary to succeed, while also caring for them.
Please check out this music video below with English subtitles. It's about rebelling against the pressure.
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