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06-03-2008 19:27

Korean English Fever Betrayed by Test Scores

By Kang Shin-whoStaff Reporter

Koreans spend a lot of energy and money on studying English but their efforts seemfutile as they always remain at the bottom of tests measuring English capabilitycompared with other countries.

The Korean private English education market is estimated at as much as 15 trillionwon ($15 billion). On top of students, office workers are bent on studying thelanguage.

About seven in 10 office workers are showing signs of ``English addition syndrome''where they feel uneasy if they are not studying it, according to YBM Sisa.The leading language institute surveyed 1,837 office workers and more than 40

percent of respondents said they spend over 100,000 won ($100) per month onEnglish education. More than half of those surveyed answered that they are currentlystudying the language.

Asked whether they feel the need for English studying, nearly 97 percent said, ``yes.''

Mired at Rock Bottom

Despite this frenzy, Koreans are showing no marked improvement in internationalscores on English tests.

The British Council announced Tuesday that Korea ranked 19th on the generaltraining module of the IELTS among 20 countries Korean applicants averaged 5.21out of a full score of 9.

IELTS is short for International English Language Testing System. Run by the BritishCouncil, University of Cambridge and Australian IDP Education, IELTS has two typesof tests: a general training module for emigrant hopefuls and an academic module forstudents applying to overseas schools. It is on a par with TOEFL in terms of thenumber of test applicants.

Korean applicants especially showed weakness in writing and speaking tests, theBritish Council said. South Africa, which has adopted English as a business language,ranked top with an average score of 7.46. Singapore came next with 7.01, followed byMalaysia with 6.9, and Brazil with 6.43. China ranked 13th with 5.77 and Japan wasplaced 16th with 5.52.

In the case of the academic module, Korea scored 5.71 ranking 15th. Germany

topped the test module with 7.16 followed by Malaysia with 6.65, the Philippines with6.58 and Russia, 6.48.

IELTS test organizers said Korea has to adopt a new system for English education.

``Although Korea spends more money on English education and Koreans are trying tostudy English at an earlier age the test scores have remained the same,'' the BritishCouncil said.

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