Nearly seven out of 10 middle and high school students in South Korea are dissatisfied with English lessons at school because they are too focused on grammar, a study showed Wednesday.
English classes in Korean middle and high schools focus excessively on grammar, study claims. (Yonhap News)
Based on a survey of 990 students attending middle and high schools in Seoul, the study showed 67.5 percent of them were discontented with the way English is taught at school.
As for the most important areas of English language study, speaking was cited by about 44.1 percent, followed by grammar (18.5 percent), vocabulary (12.8 percent), listening (11.3 percent), reading (10.8 percent) and writing (2.4 percent).
A majority of the 44.1 percent answered that speaking ability is essential for communicating well with foreigners and to better understand the culture of English-speaking countries.
But the study revealed a serious mismatch between what students want to learn and what is taught at school.
More than 58 percent said grammar is treated as the most important domain of English lessons while only 9.5 percent chose speaking.
As a reason, 64 percent of those who answered that schools put the greatest importance on grammar said that's probably because students' grammatical ability is widely accepted as a key component of the college entrance exam.
Roughly 69 percent of the respondents said it is hard to build English language ability only with English class at school, while 84.4 percent said private English education is helpful in improving school scores.
The study by Jeong Yu-gyeong, a teacher at Dongduk Girls' Middle School in southern Seoul, was published in the latest edition of a journal by Chung-Ang University's The Research Institute of Korean Education. (Yonhap)
