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

Ranking the difficulty of English speaking, listening, writing, and reading.  
Fifteen out of 30 Korean students strongly agreed that English speaking is the most 
difficult part of English education.  One of the 15 students, Donald, mentioned: 
If someone wants to speak English well, she/he needs to understand American 
cultures, customs, and thoughts.  Moreover, to improve English speaking skills, 
she/he needs to have numerous opportunities to practice her/his English by using 
various English expressions.  However, Koreans did not have enough chances to 
properly learn American cultures and customs and understand American thoughts 
in Korea.  Therefore, it could be very difficult for Korean students to understand 
American cultures, customs, and thoughts and to find a topic to talk about when 
Americans and Koreans start communicating with each other.  Because of these 
reasons, I cannot speak English well in front of Americans.   
 
Another student, Patricia, said: 
I read some research articles regarding the Korean student’s characteristics.  The 
research said that if Korean students had any question, they would not ask anyone 
to solve that because they did not want to be frustrated by the wrong answer for 
that question.  However, in the research, American and foreign students typically 
asked any question to their teachers and professors if they were not able to answer 
that question.  Through this research, I realized that it could be difficult for 
Korean students to learn English speaking skills because they are typically afraid 
of collaborating their curiosities with their peers or teachers and are easily shy if 
they do not know the exact answer for any question.  As a result, Korean students 
always worry about speaking English in front of foreigners and even other Korean 
students. 
 

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In addition, the majority of the 15 Korean students mentioned that English education in 
Korea has not been focused on English speaking skills.  In other words, the public 
schools and the private institutes have not invested a great amount of funds in English 
speaking skills; they would rather create English reading and grammar courses.  That is 
why half of the 30 Korean students felt that it has been very difficult for them to improve 
their English speaking skills in Korea.   
 
Ten out of 30 Korean students stated that the next most difficult part for them to 
improve is English writing skills.  One of the 10 Korean students, Linda, said, 
“Accidently, the native English speaker looked over my English essay, and she said to me 
that my essay had many grammatical errors.  Moreover, some of the sentences did not 
make sense at all.  After I heard these comments, I realized that English writing is not 
easy.”  Another student, Daniel, discovered that it was very difficult for him to precisely 
choose a word, idiom, and phrase depending on each situation while he wrote an essay.  
Because of the lack of English vocabulary, he felt that he could not write a good essay.  
Furthermore, Betty mentioned that she generally started writing the essay in Korean first 
before she wrote the essay in English, so sometimes it was very difficult for her to write 
the English essay because of translating the words from Korean to English.   
 
Eleven out of 30 Korean students said that it was the third most difficult for them 
to learn English listening skills.  One of the 11 Korean students, Charles, mentioned: 
I did not feel that my English listening skills were not so bad when I was in Korea.  
However, when I came to UNK, I was not able to clearly listen to UNK professors 
and Americans.  Especially, when UNK professors and Americans spoke English 
so fast and used humor and jargon in the classes, I could not understand what they 
talked about.   
 

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Through Elizabeth’s and John’s interviews, they felt embarrassed like Charles did above 
when they could not fully understand while they communicated with Americans who 
spoke English rapidly.  In addition, two Korean students, Karen and Jennifer, found that 
people who come from different countries, such as Australia, England, New Zealand, and 
Canada, and different states, such as the Western and Eastern states, have different 
English accents, so this reason makes English listening skills difficult for Korean students 
to understand when they communicate with people from the above places.   
 
Twenty-one out of 30 Korean stated that it was the least difficult for them to learn 
English reading skills.  The majority of these students discovered that they have studied 
English reading skills for a long time compared to English speaking skills, English 
writing skills and English listening skills.  One of the 21 Korean students, Richard, 
mentioned that his English middle school and high school teachers intensively focused on 
English reading skills, so he felt that English reading is the easiest of the four parts of 
English.  Four students of the 21 Korean students, Christopher, Nancy, Mark, and Donald, 
stated that they extensively studied English reading in their schools and private institutes, 
so it was not difficult for them to read English workbooks and materials.