The following is the second in a series of articles highlighting alternative ideas on the Lee Myung-bak administration's plan to strengthen English education.

By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter

English educators have stressed the need for professional qualifications in the ``art'' of English teaching if teachers are to help students learn the language in an effective way.

They said the presidential transition team's plan to hire skill-based teachers disregards the rule that there is an art to teaching.

A fluent language skill is not enough for educators as English teaching is much more than supplying information, they said.

Edith Allen, an instructor in the English for International Students Program at Duke University, told The Korea Times that teaching English requires not only fluency, but also a broad range of interdisciplinary knowledge and training in linguistics, education and speech pathology.

Therefore, it is naive to say, `` if they speak English, they can teach it,'' she said.

Allen pointed out that there certainly is an art to teaching that helps students learn the foreign language in an effective way.

``Teachers need to master the skill of decreasing their own talk time and increasing the amount of student talk time,'' she said. ``It is a teaching art form to facilitate the discoveries the students make, rather than simply supplying information.''

Allen made the point that Korea's plan to hire an additional 23,000 teachers from outside schools needs to address another core pillar of English teaching _ the art and science of teaching.

The recruitment plan was designed to resolve a shortage of English teachers.

According to the plan, Koreans having masters or higher degrees from English-speaking countries are eligible for an official oral expression test called the Test of English in English (TEE), which is a prerequisite for outside experts to get teaching jobs in public schools.

Critics are questioning if the skill-based teacher recruitment plan is on the right track.

Oluoch Joshua Ochieng, an English instructor at Chunchon Technical and Mechanical High School in Gangwon Province, told The Korea Times, ``Teaching is a business for professionals.'' He has taught English in high schools in Kenya for 22 years.

``English speaking and teaching are two very different areas,'' he said.

He added that training programs for teachers should analyze problem areas ``to form the focus of training, and the materials for training should be designed for teachers.''

A British educator David Francis suggested an alternative way regarding the heated debate over teachers' qualification issue.

He has taught literature, humanities and language in five countries, including Singapore and Indonesia, for the past 14 years.

Francis, a former team leader of the English immersion program at Young Hoon Elementary School in Seoul, said study skills and classroom management are key areas that make language acquisition real.

``Language is connected to thought, and students think better when they are doing something purposeful, responding to others or interacting with a teacher in a meaningful way,'' he said.

Francis stressed that students need to be taught in English so that they can learn to think in the language they are learning.

``They need to access a global curriculum. The publishing market is awash with history, art, math and social science textbooks written at every level of language difficulty that students can use for their lessons,'' he said.

Effective Teaching

Allen at Duke said international students who come to the U.S. to study often arrive with strong grammar and reading ability but lower listening comprehension and an inability to speak the language well.

``Koreans have predictable difficulties in a non-Western organizational format in writing or problems with the pronunciation of certain sounds such as p vs. f,'' she said.

``More serious though is the Korean student's struggle to adapt themselves to the academic culture in the U.S. The students are not accustomed to the relative informality of an interactive classroom,'' she said.

Allen added Korean students are looking for teachers to provide the answers and do not know how to engage in participatory learning that is process-oriented and values critical thinking.

Francis suggested alternative assessment ways to cut to the root cause of the problem in information supplying-oriented classrooms in Korea.

He said language-learning needs to be assessed in ``a real way, not just by exams which have multiple choice questions.''

``Written work needs to be assessed for a number of different purposes and for all six traits of writing. Reading needs to be assessed by writing that responds to literature, and through discussion and presentations that demonstrate reading attainment in all key reading areas,'' he said.

Francis said speaking and listening are overstated at the expense of other key skills and these two areas need to be assessed in a rigorous and varied setting.

``Most importantly, learning and the demonstration of real knowledge acquisition can be demonstrated as students begin to write and talk about academic topics and social issues that affect them and connect them to the world they live in,'' he said.

hkang@koreatimes.co.kr