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Most examinations leading toward university admissions and job qualifications
require three major courses:
Korean language, mathematics, and English. The Korean
language and mathematics are important for students to master in order to locate job
opportunities and gain admission to prestigious universities, but English has been highly
valued compared to the above two courses. According to Hwang (2001),
[
S]
oo-nung (Korean ACT) consists of five major subjects and a selected category:
Korean language (120), First Foreign Language : ‘English’ (80), mathematics (80),
and social science and natural science (120) and second foreign language (40)
(numbers in parentheses are distributed scores). (p. 612)
The proportion that represents English (80) is about 18% of the total score (440).
Moreover, prestigious colleges require their own entrance exams which are comprised of
mathematics, Korean language, and English. Some of the tests and
contests are based on
only the English section, so students who win those contests or score outstandingly on
those tests are awarded special admission chances. As a result, it is very important for all
students to master English abilities.
As previously stated, most senior high school students have to take entrance
exams such as the SAT or ACT. Every student really wants to be accepted into the top
South
Korean universities, such as Seoul National University, Korea University, Yonsei
University, and so forth. In South Korea, people call these three schools SKY
Universities. It is not easy for students to enter SKY universities, just as it is difficult for
American students to enter Harvard or Stanford University. However,
if students prove
their English proficiency level as an expert, they will have a much greater chance to be
admitted into SKY universities because SKY universities want to select the students with
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special talents. This is why many parents spend a great deal of money for their children’s
English education when their children start going to kindergarten or even earlier than that.
Recently, in the South Korean job market it has been difficult for senior college
graduates to find a good job with large companies, such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and
so forth, because there are too many highly educated candidates in South Korea.
According to Hadid (2010), “During the late 1990s, the Korean government decided that
all Koreans should get a college degree. The government reached its goal in 2000, when
89 percent of Koreans graduated from high school and attended college” (p. 1). Because
of the
government policy, there are many highly educated candidates in South Korea.
That is why companies decided to put stricter requirements on hiring job candidates:
They should graduate from the top ranking universities. Moreover, most prestigious
South Korean companies continuously require candidates to submit their English
proficiency test score, such as Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), Test of
English for International Communication (TOEIC), International English Language Test
System (IELTS), or Oral Practical Interview Computer (OPIc). For instance, many South
Korean companies require all candidates to show at least a score of 800 or above on the
TOEIC. Some of the companies eliminate the majority of candidates
who scored below
900 on the TOEIC during the first portion of the selection process (Educational Testing
Services, 2011). Interestingly, even though most companies rarely use English while
they work, job applicants have to achieve high scores in the above standardized English
tests to be qualified to apply for a job. Therefore, senior college students must spend
many hours studying English to obtain a high score on the above tests. Because of the
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above reasons, college students are always looking for the best English institutions to
improve their test scores and to help them speak like natives. However, it is not easy for
them to quickly improve their English skills over a short
period time, so many junior,
senior, and even freshmen or sophomore college students decide to go to English-
speaking countries to study abroad for one or two semesters. Even if senior college
students find a job with the previously stated companies, they cannot stop studying
English because they should keep the high score of the above-mentioned tests and prove
their speaking level of English to receive promotions in their companies. If they cannot
prove their English proficiency, they cannot be promoted to the next position and will
finally quit their job.
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