Mean band score by countries or regions of origin (General Training)
The IELTS site has more stats people might be interested in. They also ranked scores according to twenty common first-languages of the test takers, and speakers of Korean averaged the lowest scores for "General Training" while speakers of Afrikaans averaged the highest. For the "Academic" category, speakers of Korean tied for 14th out of 20.
The Korea Times breaks down the numbers today too, coming to the conclusion that Korea's "English Fever" is betrayed by low test scores. Not only here, I guess, but also in their notoriously low TOEFL scores. In February we learned that although South Korea is the nation with the most number of TOEFL iBT examinees, their scores are among the worst, ranking 107th in the world. A couple of weeks later we learned that North and South Koreans fare about the same on the test. We also know that Korean English teachers themselves don't do too well either.
I'll leave it up to others to evaluate all the numbers we found today and in the past. The short answer is that Korean test takers need some work. Considering all the time, effort, and money spent teaching toward tests in lieu of teaching toward communicative competence, to have such low scores is kind of ridiculous. But, at least in the case of the TOEFL debacle, an excuse with some weight is that having so many students take the exam obviously brings the average score down. North Korea, on the other hand, allows only its top students to sit for the test. You also have to consider that test takers from other countries may have more exposure to English and may grow up with it as more of a living language and less of a subject.
I'm not willing to completely write off South Korea's poor showing, though, and I think it needs to come to terms with its attitude toward foreign language study. Everybody in the country studies the language, and in spite of what people will tell you, or complain to you, I believe there are countless examples each day for Koreans to learn and develop their language skills. Turn on the TV and there are half-a-dozen authentic English programs on now, with several more geared toward learning the language. Go to a search engine and you've got millions if not billions of web English webpages, not including the millions written in Korean for the benefit of English instruction. Adults and children have years and years of study in schools, and lately have had regular exposure to native speakers. Failing all else, at least people could practice and talk with each other. The true issue lies, I believe, in that too many Koreans choose not to use these resources, choose not to improve themselves, choose not to help each other and help themselves. I think most residents here would admit there are at least some cultural barriers in place heretofore preventing a healthy attitude toward our language, toward its speakers, toward how that language is presented in the classroom, and toward how that language is presented in the classroom by its speakers. I think writers in the field of EFL in Korea ought to spend some time exploring that area, rather than playing the role of the apologist and buying into the excuses I've mentioned above. But, it looks like there are some changes ahead, and because I don't have the time to get into that or into the headier issues, I'll leave it there until next time.
7 comments:
I'm surprised by the level of Afrikaans speakers.
When I was in school you could not finish a year if you failed either English or Afrikaans. In a multilingual society that was ruled my England until not that long ago it is natural to have English as the communication language. We speak Afrikaans at home, but our entertainment and business lives are mostly in English.
It does help that English and Afrikaans, like Dutch, are in the same language family. If you were to just translate things word for word, then you would normally be understood perfectly, even if it did sound a bit strange.
The rest of the South African score will be dragged down by Black people but, let's face it, their languages structures are a diffident ball game altogether and it is not that easy to learn English when you live in a place where no one really speaks the language and there is no electricity for TV.
I will be peeking at this post the rest of today now. I love stats like these that has social reasons behind it.
Thanks for your visit and your comment Everybody loves rankings. VH1 understands that, as does every magazine. The 19th out of 20 makes Korea look really bad, and perhaps the English here is really bad (I think it is), but you can't really compare SK to South Africa, Western Europe, Singapore, or Hong Kong.
Well, maybe you can . . . of course places like Spain and Denmark are surrounded by other languages and have more ready access to English as a lingua franca (probably, but I've never been to Europe). And supposedly the English in Hong Kong and Singapore is much better, owing to them being former British colonies. But I still think the real story is in why Koreans tend to be less eager to LEARN the language in spite of spending so much money to STUDY it. As much as I hate this excuse, I think we have to acknowledge that the idea of having communicative competence in English is a relatively new idea here. But there's still something to the idea that places like China, Korea, and Japan might not be fully eager to embrace a foreign language like English, especially since English represents not only status but unfriendly imperialism. I can't tell you how many times I've heard and read about Koreans disliking English education because they feel it threatens Korean culture. But that's a thread I'll save for a post coming out in a day or two.
I don't want to compare SA and Korea directly because that is just an accedent waiting to happen :P
What I am saying is that our education system and our level of exposure forces us to study the language to near native levels. I can assure you that I hated studying English at school, like most of my fellow students, but we can still all have complicated discussions in it. If we wanted to watch the latest Hollywood film, then we had to do it in English with no subtitles
Our grandparents often refused to speak English for what the English did to our forefathers, but the country always understood that blaming England for our inability to communicate with the rest world would be silly.
I give extra classes to the parent of my students and I often tell them that that I feel the problem is that students don't want to learn and they have no reason to. They can live the rest of their lives without being able to say "Hello", so why study. "Forced" exposure in places like popular media in this country is almost zero.
Apathy toward the English language, despite the billions of dollars invested and the many resources that have resulted, can be summed up in a quote or two.
"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." - Unknown source
"You can bring a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink. You can put a man through school, but you can't make him think." - Ben Harper
Kudos for your conclusion, Brian.
is it also possible that these stats are skewed by the number of kids taking the test? i mean.... because of the emphasis on english education at a rhetorical level, EVERY HS grad is expected to take these exams in korea, right? meaning EVERYONE, including the kids who were totally lame, including every middle class and relatively lower class kid whos be too poor to take the test at a similar economic level in another country.... all those kids are making a much bigger bell curve for the koreans than for some of those other places where only the elite few take the exam.
I think there are a lot of factors at play here, but yeah the fact that just about every kid takes the test is a big reason why the average is so low. As I suggested on "drifting focus's" blog---only half serious because there's no way in hell this idea would go anywhere---they should just make the mandatory second language Japanese since it's so much easier for Koreans to learn and since they're more likely to deal with Japanese tourists and businesspeople than with English-speaking ones. Have English as an optional foreign language in high school or even in middle school. The kids who want to study abroad or who want to get into top schools will take it, but everyone else will still get a decent foundation in Japanese, rather than completely sucking at both.
Yeah, I know given the history of the two countries that will never happen, but pretty soon I think we're going to find Koreans questioning how useful English really is to them, and start looking for more creative answers. I mean, besides just wanting Korean to take over the world.
The funny thing about the Saffas, is that I don't think I've met a single Saffa come to Korea who has bothered to learn the language.
You'd think people as bilingual as them would try taking up Korean, but I've never met a Saffa who could speak Korean. Same for Quebecois. So much for bilingualism!
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