English-Only Kindergarten Smells Success

`Learn English with Foreign Friends.`

Enthusiastic parents are flocking to a kindergarten located in Gangnam for a special English course in which little children can learn and play with not only native-speaker teachers but also foreign classmates. With too many applicants waiting on line, the kindergarten began to hand out a waiting list.

Educational experts, however, point out that such a plan could backfire if it only focuses on creating a foreign school-like environment, ending up with imbuing children with sense of inferiority about our language and culture.

▽Feeling Like Being in `Foreign School`

`J` kindergarten located in Banpo-dong, Seoul announced on Nov. 27 a plan to open an English-only course beginning this spring semester, where children learn in the foreign school-like environment.

Students will not only meet foreign teachers and textbooks, but also learn with foreign friends, it said. The course will be offered to small children aged 3 to third-graders at primary school. It will cost about 5 million won for a six months-long course.

The kindergarten explained that it already made an arrangement with a French School in Korea for some 40 French children to attend its English classes. For those foreign students who will learn English as a second foreign language, it will offer some 70% discounts.

About 20 children from Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia already began to enroll in September. The kindergarten, hiring only foreign teachers, further offers circle activities such as `theater play` and `musical band` copying the models in western countries.

˝With foreign classmates, children will not only more easily learn English but also better understand foreign cultures,˝ said Jung, a 37-year-old mother.

▽Foreign Language Learning Boom

So-called English kindergartens hiring native speakers began to spring up in the late 1990s, and now even import American textbooks paying 50,000 to 60,000 won a copy.

Against this backdrop, the emergence of `foreign school-like` kindergarten looks certain to fuel competition for English-only institutes centering on Hannam-dong, Dongbuicheon-dong and Bundang where foreign schools are mostly located.

In comparison, Geio, a leading private institute in Japan, offers both Japanese language course and English course placing a more focus on the former. ˝We have had an exchange program with British schools, but our priority is to let foreign students understand things about Japan,˝ said an official at the institute.

▽Drawbacks

The number of kindergartens has declined from 1,251 in 1998 down to 1,033 this year, but that of English kindergartens increased to 112, accounting for 10% of the total.

With the latter type classified as private language institute, the authorities have yet to review their programs and give instructions.

˝It will help children develop global sense,˝ said Lee Won-young, professor of child education at Joongang University. ˝Yet, they might get the wrong idea about our own language and culture, that ours are inferior to westerners’.

In-Jik Cho cij1999@donga.com