By Choi Tae-hwan

``I thank all of you for taking an active part in all kinds of activities, including the pop song contest, English golden bell contest, English spelling bee, and English essay writing contest! We were all so thrilled to see this kind of English festival being enjoyed through the Model School Program for English Education on the basis of creativity and management, and supported by the Ministry of Education and Science Technology in 2012. Let's give a big hand to the students who practiced their roles really hard for a month to perform in the play! Are you ready? Go!"

I was so happy to hear the resonance of songs sung by students in preparation for the pop song contest where in hot and humid classrooms they memorized the lyrics and practiced their singing and dancing with homeroom teachers while profusely sweating.

Around 16 students gathered with their instructor during a one-week period after their exams were over in an overheated gymnasium with only two air-conditioners so that they could rehearse for a performance of ``The Wizard of Oz." In preparing they had no choice but to borrow costumes and microphones, learn the script and check and improve their pronunciation with the help of a native English teacher and a Korean English teacher.

The program ``Model School for English Education Based on Creativity and Management" is aimed at developing and generalizing the model school for English education so students can be exposed to a variety of activities and improve their English writing and speaking by performing pop songs and plays, essay writing, quizzes, and spelling bees.

What is more, students are educated to develop their creativity through various activities and to improve their character by cooperating among themselves for good harmony between all class members during activities with their homeroom teachers.

This could play a key role in helping to solve the problem of school violence and bullying. This is a serious social problem in the stark classroom environment caused by the education policy of the Lee Myung-bak government which centers on competition rather than cooperation and humanity at schools.

Three classes each year (a total of nine classes) were screened to continue onto the final pop song contest on the second day of the English festival. What a fantastic performance by all who were in such excellent harmony in their singing and dancing on the stage. I had no words to express how pleased I was to see all the students really enjoy themselves, rather than just monotonously repeating the lyrics and following along with their classmates and homeroom teacher.

This is sure to go a long way in helping to alleviate the prevalence of bullying that many schools have been experiencing. The students undertook singing and dance rehearsals and the final performance on the basis of harmony by ``putting themselves in their friends' shoes," which can have a positive impact on curbing school violence, as opposed to the implementation of other stopgap measures and superficial educational policies such as doubling the number of homeroom teachers and strong punishment-centered steps.

What makes students feel happy? Getting higher scores on exams than their friends? No way! What causes some students to bully others? What a terrible classroom it is for students to be driven into exam hell and reluctantly go to all kinds of private tutoring institutes, even on weekends. This deprives them of a friendship-based school life and humanity-based classroom activities.

All Koreans, now is the time when we have to reflect upon and renew our consciousness regarding what makes us feel happy ― not competition and comparison but cooperation and individuality ― so that our children will be encouraged to develop their creativity, character, and humanity through a variety of school activities, such as an English festival which centers on cooperation and harmony among class members.

The writer is an English teacher at Jeonnam Middle School in Gwangju. His email address is cth0707@hanmail.net.