Understanding the Importance of English Education in South Korea and Exploring the Reasons Why South Korean Students Come to a University in the Midwest

What kinds of challenges do Korean students struggle with in terms of 
studying and learning English in Korea and the United States?  Through analyzing 
the Summary of Findings, the researcher discovered the following difficulties in terms of 
studying and learning English in Korea and the United States.  Typically, English 
education in Korea concentrates on putting a great number of hours into English reading, 
listening, grammar, and vocabulary abilities through the entire public and private 
educational system.  Twenty-six out of 30 Korean students strongly believed that South 
Korean English teachers emphasized that it was necessary for South Korean students to 
improve the above English skills if they wanted to enter the top ranking Korean 
universities and to find good jobs.  Due to the importance of the above English skills in 
Korea, South Korean English teachers keep pushing South Korean students to use 
numerous English materials and workbooks which are mainly specialized in the above 
areas of English studies.   
As described above, half of the 30 Korean students spent more than 20 hours per 
week learning and studying English in Korea when they were high school students, and a 
couple of these students put even more than 30 hours per week into extensively studying 
English.  Furthermore, all 30 Korean students experienced attending private English 
institutes at least once, and they mentioned that private English teachers were Koreans 

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and primarily taught English reading, listening, grammar, and vocabulary skills similar to 
public schools.  Interestingly, they stated that the main roles of these English teachers in 
private institutes supported them to obtain the best score on the English tests of the public 
schools and the English part of the annual university entrance exam instead of a more 
practical use of the language.   
The above situations show that South Korean students have spent numerous hours 
for several years on English through the public and private educational system, and some 
of them even decide to come to the United States to improve their English abilities.  In 
the Summary of Findings, the majority of the 30 Korean students thought that the English 
educational environment in Korea was not joyful or meaningful, so they strongly 
believed that there was no purpose for learning and studying English without achieving 
the best scores on every English test.  Due to this reason, the 30 Korean students poorly 
ranked English education in Korea.  Therefore, the researcher indicates that learning and 
studying English for South Korean students is not effectively or efficiently constructed, 
and the level of South Korean students’ satisfaction of learning and studying English in 
Korea is relatively low.  Because of the improper English environment in Korea, it 
definitely makes it difficult for South Korean students to be interested in learning and 
studying English consistently and to improve English speaking and writing skills.   
Surprisingly, the researcher discovered that most South Korean students learn and 
study English for more than 10 years through the public and private educational system in 
Korea, but when they arrive in the United States, most of them struggle to use their 
English abilities; particularly, they are seriously lacking English speaking and writing 

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skills.  Because of this reason, many of the 30 Korean students experienced the 
difficulties of speaking English with native-English speakers and foreigners and writing 
an essay or academic paper for their American college assignments.  Furthermore, many 
interviewees commented that it was very challenging for them to listen to native-English 
speakers’ conversations because of different accents and pronunciations and to fully 
understand specific jargon and terminology related to students’ majors and American 
slang.   
In addition, the majority of the 30 Korean students mentioned that it was very 
difficult for them to build a strong relationship with a domestic student or a local 
community member.  That is why many Korean interviewees stated that they typically 
hung out with Korean friends even though they came to the United States to improve 
their English abilities.  Moreover, some of the 30 Korean students strongly agreed that it 
was a big problem for them to find a way not to speak Korean with other international 
students frequently and to connect with more domestic American students and local 
community members because they really wanted to speak English with Americans.  The 
researcher discovered that South Korean students struggle to find an American to practice 
their English with daily and worry about consistently hanging out with Korean friends 
while they live in the United States.       
Through the above findings, the researcher was able to determine the difficulties 
of learning and studying English in Korea and America.  Before finalizing the answer of 
this question, the researcher strongly suggests that South Korea evenly focus on the four 
parts of English education and recruit more qualified native-English teachers from 

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English speaking countries to provide South Korean students with a good quality of 
English education if South Koreans wish to be successful learning and studying English 
or if they decide to go to English speaking countries.  If not, it will continuously be 
challenging for South Korean students to significantly improve English speaking and 
writing skills even though South Korean students go to English speaking countries to 
improve their English proficiency.