Introduction
Unlike other countries, a very unique phenomenon occurs in Korea today. As most parents in Korea are paying more attention to their children’s education and putting more emphasis on their education, they are eager to educate their children outside of public education. Especially, studying English is becoming the most significant issue in Korean education. To satisfy their zeal for children’s English education, the number of English private education opportunities, such as institute, home-study materials, and tutoring, are increasing.
Method
In order to find out the effects and significance of private English education in Korea, 10 questions were designed. The basic information of participants were first asked of the participants. Next, other 8 questions about their own experiences and opinions on private English education were asked. Students who are taking ELT & English Essay took part in this survey and answered the designed questions. It was hypothesized that most Koreans who have had private English education before would think that private English education would not be necessary for their future children.
Previous Education Experience
Most of the students first started learning English in elementary school; one third began to learn English before elementary school. Half of the students started learning English in public school, and the other half of them had home-study materials to start learning English. For previous education experience, all the participants have had private English education in many different kinds of institutes, and two thirds of them have experienced home-study materials.
The Effects of Private English Education
As to positive effects of private English education, more than half of the students think that it provides high quality of education and helps to get better grades in public school. Other benefits of private education can be improving English skills and offering more chances to learn practical English.
In regards to negative effects of private English education, two thirds of the respondents find it too expensive; half of them believe that it would make students depend too much on private education so that they might take on a passive attitude. Other disadvantages can be that students easily feel fatigued when they have both public and private education simultaneously.
The Effectiveness of each skill of English
Among reading, listening, speaking, writing, and grammar parts, the grammar was the one that all the participants believed that private education helps students. In addition, most participants agreed that private education helps students improve their reading skills as well. Half of them thought that it provides high quality of education that helps students improve writing skills. Most of them disagreed that private education would be helpful to improve listening and speaking skills. The result of this survey shows that a number of private English education systems lack attempts to teach practical language, such as speaking and listening.
Satisfaction with Private Education
As expected, all the respondents have previously had more than one kind of private English education. Contrary to the hypothesis, however, more than half of them were satisfied with private education that they had, and they would let their children have these kinds of private English education in the future. There was only one reason why they thought so. That was because all the other children will be given these private education.
Conclusion
In short, the survey revealed the significance of private English education in Korea. All the participants have had private English education when they were child. Even though they had difficulties having both public and private education, most of them were satisfied with it. Moreover, more than half of participants are willing to have their children get private education in the future. More research on the effective way of teaching English both in public and private educational institutes will be needed.
