'Cluod you raed this?'

By Jason Lim

No, I am not suffering from a severe case of dyslexia. I am just trying to make the following point: aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in what order the ltteers in a word are, the only iprmoantnt thing is that the first and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The point I am trying to make with this amusing but enlightening example is about English education in Korea; more specifically, the two things that I have always found lacking in English as a Foreign Language learning system in Korea.

The first is that Koreans are not consistently and persistently exposed to the very simple and easy expression patterns that make up the majority of communication in any language.

In other words, Koreans can dissect and understand complex sentences in English, but they can’t easily create sentences of their own because they don’t have instinctive access to those building–block expressions and patterns. Therefore, Korean students often come up with convoluted sentences that are not generally comprehensible because they don’t readily fit into the pattern of expressions that Americans or other English speakers are familiar with.

If you have studied languages at all, you realize that we don’t have to fully listen to other people’s sentences in order to catch on to what they are saying. This is because we automatically sift out recognizable ebb and flow from their speech, just as we automatically fill in the blanks of the spelling once we see the first and last letter of a word.

We don’t have to consciously focus on every single letter of the alphabet to make out the word on paper, just as we don’t have to consciously focus on every single word of a familiar expression to fully understand.

Therefore, Korean students really need to be taught the basic building–block expressions and patterns and contribute to the most common ebb and flow of American speech. These will allow Korean students of English to instinctively fill in the blanks when they hear such basic expressions coming.

And more importantly, use these same building block expressions to formulate sentences of their own that will be familiar (and therefore much more understandable) to English speakers. After all, this is how American children learn English in the first place.

The second problem is that Korean students have trouble adapting to the logic of English as a thought process. Since languages are cultural products, they reflect a culture’s norms, habits, and way of thinking. English is no exception. However globalized, English represents the certain way of thinking about problems that is unique to America and some Western nations who share similar cultural traditions. In a sense, English is a pattern of thinking, not just a mean to expressions.

I experience this problem first hand. When I tackle an issue with English–speaking friends using English as the principal medium of communication, the primary pattern of analysis and problem solving is different from when I use Korean as my main medium of communication. Sometimes, the difference is subtle; other times, the difference is significant. This is especially true in writing essays and thesis.

But we teach English writing as merely a skill, not a thought process. So we teach Korean students to lead with good topic sentences, use nice transitions to bridge between two paragraphs, and summarize well with the conclusion. These are all important techniques, to be sure, but nothing that will help Korean students trace the logical steps that English demands when trying to write ideas in it.

Without learning to reproduce the logical patterns inherent to English, Korean students will have trouble getting the most out of their classes even if they get into good American colleges and graduate schools. Therefore, teaching English skills without exposing students to the different thinking pattern required by English is ineffectual and even counter–productive in the long run.

According to widely–quoted figures, Koreans spend around 10 Trillion Won annually on English education. Also, Koreans represent the third largest number of foreign students in the U.S., behind only India and China. Despite all this investment, Koreans can’t quite seem to attain the level of English proficiency needed to compete on an equal footing in the global marketplace.

The usual prescription is to continually come up with more complex and esoteric ways of teaching English. However, these are mostly gimmicks that will earn someone lots of money. But the only thing that works in any language acquisition process is to keep it simple and understand that language is culture, not just a skill. It’s not just about learning it, but more about living it.

Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C. ― based expert on innovation, engagement and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook/jasonlim2000 and @jasonlim2012.