Michael: And even now, though, people judge your intelligence based on how well you speak English. Jennifer: Or by what your TOEIC score was, not even speaking sometimes. Michael: Yeah, even now I'm sure some people, Koreans, are judging you based on your ‘What mistakes she made,' or her pronounce…‘She pronounced this'… Yunji: Based on my major, too. Michael: Based on your major, right. But we're sitting here having a conversation, unplanned, in English! Jennifer: Right. Michael: Right? So, but I think that fear prevents students, especially teachers, from speaking English freely in front of students. ‘What if I make a mistake?' Jennifer: I don't know, I make mistakes in English all the time. Yunji: I wonder, don't you have fear when you spoke, when you speak Korean? Michael: I do, did, always. But I have a fear of making mistakes, of course, like public speaking. But, but you know the first step for me learning Korean, my first language partner when I came to Korea forced me to speak Korean for a half-an-hour. So, and we were supposed to do a half-an-hour of Korean, half-an-hour of English. We would do a half-an-hour of English and then I would ask her grammar questions in English about Korea. And then one day she said, “You know what? You have to speak Korean only.” Yunji: For an hour. Michael: “For your half hour, your 30 minutes, you speak Korean only.” I did not know past tense, I didn't know many words. So I knew, ‘오늘 식사합니다', ‘오늘, 어제 집에 갑니다.' You know, really basic, you know learning the past tense. ‘어제 집에 갔습니다, 갔어요' You know, and it, probably, it was much, much worse than that. Yunji: Actually… Michael: ‘오늘 먹어요' But I, I just spoke. You know, it was very helpful. Yunji: Actually, when I was in high school in the classroom, when I made a mistake, the teacher scolded me. The fear comes from the scolding, you know. Probably when I make the mistake, probably he will scold me. Michael: Or hit you! Yunji: I was hitted. Michael: Oh no, the memory! Yunji: Many times, oh no I don't wanna recall that. So that's why, you know, many students will feel fearful about it, the making mistakes of language. Michael: And they learn that from the teachers! Yunji: What about in America? Jennifer: When I learned, I started with Japanese. Yunji: In America? Jennifer: In America, I learned Japanese from high school in America, actually. Please don't ask me to… Michael: そうですか ~ Jennifer: いや~ Yunji: もしもし？ Michael: もしもし？ Jennifer: もしもし？ Michael: アメリカン…Okay. Yunji: That's all. Jennifer: 私はアメリカ人です。 Michael: お、はい! Jennifer: はい~ Yunji: はい、そうですか~ Jennifer: そうです。 You know, please don't quiz me on my Japanese. Michael: プレーステーション。Sorry. Jennifer: プレーステーション。 Michael: プレーステーション。 Jennifer: Okay, this is getting edited out. No, I started learning Japanese from about high school, in America. And everybody made mistakes in class and it wasn't a big deal. The teacher expected us to make mistakes because, you know, duh? None of us had studied Japanese before! And you can't expect to be perfect or even close to perfect in a language when you're learning it. Even when you're wrong, or even when you're right, you're still wrong sometimes. You don't know quite… Michael: You're accidentally right! Jennifer: You're accidentally right and when I learned Korean, I didn't generally learn it at first in a formal setting; I lived with a host family. And my host family was enormously supportive of my efforts to learn Korean and when I made a mistake, you know, they would point the mistake out to me! My host father one day sat me down and said, “Listen, Jennifer. You're driving us crazy! ‘편지' and ‘판지' are different things. And you mix them up every time.” But… Michael: ‘이 바보야!' Jennifer: But, here's the thing. After that, I'm like, “Oh!” and I remembered that and I stopped mixing them up. But I learned from my mistake. The mistake was actually a really important part of the learning process for me. And even now, if I get something accidentally right, there is nothing to show that I will not make the same, or make a totally different mistake in the future. I will find a way to mess up the exact same phrase that I got right before. Michael: I speak Korean all the time and I know it's wrong as I say it. Jennifer: But the thing is, if somebody says, you know, “You make this mistake,” I go, “Oh!” and in the future I make that mistake a lot less. Michael: Yeah, yeah. Jennifer: But, um… no. Michael: And the problem is in the Korean class, you're so afraid to make a mistake you don't speak! Jennifer: My students were terrified of making mistakes until one day, I misspelled something on the board. And my… Michael: Ah, you misspelled something. Jennifer: I misspelled something in English. Michael: You aren't a native speaker! Yunji: I think foreigners do, more than Koreans. Koreans are very good at spelling. Jennifer: So my students, there's this gasp – and finally one student in the back was brave enough to be like, “선생님, 아… Your English, ehhh, not right.” And I just went, “Oh, pshaw, I'm so stupid, ha ha ha.” And suddenly everybody in class just relaxed because, ‘Look. Jennifer's a native English speaker and she screwed up!' Michael: Yeah, and I've corrected Korean people's mistakes. Doesn't mean I can speak Korean better than them. Obviously, right? But, you know, I just, I've studied certain words and, you know, it's fresh for me. Yunji: You're better than I do. Michael: No. Yunji: Well, you know what, in my class, whenever I screwed up or made a mistake, they loved it. “Wow! Teacher made a mistake! Wow!” Wow, they love that. Michael: So I think, you know, I think Koreans are more afraid to make mistakes in front of Koreans, and even in front of native speakers. Yunji: Sure. When I was in high school, actually, I learned grammar all the time, grammar. It's correct or not, correct or not. We didn't speak English. They didn't make me speak. We don't have chance to speak, actually. We have to read a lot, read a lot, and we have to prepare for the test. So we didn't have time to speak. But nowadays… Michael: Speaking is emphasized. Yunji: Very, very important. Right, right. So, my class, my class, I always let them speak. Michael: Yeah. Yunji: In Korean, I said in Korean “어디로 갈까” how do you say it in English? In English, they spoke, they speak very good. Michael: And the level is, these days is much higher than, you know, when I came to Korea, at first. Yeah. Jennifer: In a way I think it's really nice, though, to finally see an emphasis on English as communication, rather than English as answers to a test. Michael: And… Jennifer: When school's over the tests are over too and the real test begins! If you see a foreigner, can you talk with them? Michael: Well, back to 이명박 and the new policy. I think the system is broken and the way I see it, the people go to school, people have classes. But for the public schools at the bottom, not the foreign language high schools, not the universities, not, not the people who go into 학원s in 대치동, but for the people at the bottom, the system is already broken. And somewhere, there needs to be some radical, sudden change because gradual change, slow change, doesn't really work. How many reforms have there been in the Korean language system? There's a 수능시험, there's no 수능시험, there's this policy, that policy, the ranking system in high school, no ranking system in high school, I hear. And nothing changes. Yunji: Right, it doesn't affect to the speaking of English. Michael: Yeah, and I think shaking things up and just saying “Okay, it's gonna cause trouble, but we have to just bite the bullet.” Jennifer: I'll be interested to see if this policy actually sticks. (Do it!) There's gonna be a lot of pressure for it to go away. And even I'm not convinced 100% that it'll be effective. I don't think you need to teach kindergartners English, all in English. But, you know, when these kids get to high school, they should be fluent enough to do a class in English. When I take Korean classes, our classes from the very first level, from day one when you know no Korean, it's all in Korean. Michael: Yeah, and I also think teaching subjects in English can be good, but I don't think it should be a requirement, like teaching science or teaching math in English. Yunji: Even in Korean, we don't understand the science. Exactly what, you know, teachers are talking about. So, I don't think it's so good. Jennifer: No, that's… Michael: I'm of mixed feelings because on one hand, I like shaking things up but on the other hand, I think Korea is getting a little too insane about English, because it's important, but it's not that important. Jennifer: It kind of needs to be a decision whether what Korea really needs is a few people who speak English at a very high level of fluency or whether they want everybody to be able to speak some. Because that's kind of the choice, it's really unlikely that in the next, you know, 5, 10, 15, even 20 years, everybody is going to be running around speaking fluent English. The question is: Does Korea need that? Michael: I think some, one radical change: just requiring English to be taught in English. Yunji: Like interpreter or some…? Michael: Well, I mean, even at the middle, high school levels, I don't think that's bad, I think that's a good idea. Jennifer: I think English level, or English classes, you know, at that level, it should be in English. Michael: But requiring university classes to be all taught in English? I think… Jennifer: They don't have professors to do that. Michael: And, yeah, I think that's ridiculous. Jennifer: And if a professor has already invested countless years getting their Ph.D.. in, you know Nuclear Physics, expecting them to spend another couple years learning English just to teach it, that's ridiculous. Yunji: It can be a waste a time. Michael: It'd be a waste of time. Jennifer: Such a waste of time. Michael: And every, no matter what your ability is as an economics professor, your teaching, your ability to teach is limited by your English ability, when you should be teaching economics. Maybe you're an economics genius but, you know, I if you can't speak English well enough to, you know, have class in English, I don't think that should matter. I think it's limiting Korea's resources rather than effectively using them. Jennifer: Any last thoughts? Yunji: We, Koreans, are worrying about the economic problems, you know, you know some people who are rich, some people who's very rich, they will go abroad because they will get, they want to get good score of English, right. Michael: They're already going abroad. Jennifer: Yeah. Michael: Oh yeah. Yunji: I'm sure. I think they will go abroad more and more to get good score of English because the English exam is changing, like they are increasing speaking, reading, listening, and writing, right? Michael: Yeah. Yunji: Speaking parts are getting important. More, more, and more important. Michael: Yeah. Yunji: So the people who is not so rich, who's poor and who doesn't have a chance to learn English, I mean, speaking English, they will get, you know, poor grades. And they cannot have a good chance to go to good universities. That's the real, that's the big problem, I think. Michael: I, thing is, I already think it's already like that and this is the, kind of, one good chance to maybe, you know, fix things for the people at the bottom because, you know, especially I worked in 3 외고s, you know, I've done all kinds of elite, like, 과외… Yunji: Actually, I did, too. Michael: You know, I've worked, you know, I've been down in 대치동, 도곡동, 타워팰리스, all those places and this new policy doesn't affect those people. Yunji: Because they're already good? Michael: No, well yeah because they're not getting their English in public schools. They're getting their English from super 학원 in 대치동, they're getting, you know, English camp in Australia, they're getting, you know, English summer program, you know, in some other place, so… Yunji: Yeah, that's why we don't worry about them cause they are already good at English and they are already, you know, to, they can afford to do that, right? Michael: Yeah. Yunji: To go abroad or to learn English. Michael: See… Yunji: The problem is the bottom. Jennifer: Well that means this policy, if it actually goes into effect and it actually works, means that students at the bottom, for the first time are actually going to have opportunities to actually use the English they're learning. Michael: Or get teachers who can change the tone of the classroom. Jennifer: Right. Michael: Because I think the broken system benefits the rich already. Because my students, the majority of my students at the top 외고s they go, you know, their addresses speak for themselves. You know, they have buses that take them, most of them go down to 강남 and to very rich neighborhoods, and a very few, a very small small percentage are those students who could, you know, study hard, memorize the dictionary, they never went to 학원, but they still got into 대원외고. That story is very rare. Mostly it's I went to the best 학원s, I went to the best private schools that were very expensive, I have 5 private tutors, that's why I went to 대원외고. Of course I work hard but it's not just 능력 it's also… Jennifer: That was Mike making the symbol for money. So while we're waiting for Mike to get down off his soap box, it'll take awhile, his soap box is pretty tall. It's about time to wrap things up here at 폭탄영어. We thank you for joining us, we hope you visit our site on the web www.bombenglish.com (We da bomb!) Michael: You spelled it right! Jennifer: I, I'm a native speaker. Michael: You speak good English! Jennifer: So thanks again for joining us at 폭탄영어.
Transcription by Eun-Gyuhl Bae
