Kong Byung-ho’s Case for Passing English On to Your Children

English is seldom the language of daily life for most people in Korea, yet it carries a great deal of weight in education. English marks can matter for university admissions and employment, and ability in the language can continue to matter for promotion.

For an economy that depends heavily on exports, the ability to communicate abroad has practical value.

Add the emphasis Korean families place on education and it is easy to see why parents think hard about how their children learn English.

A Book for Parents Thinking about English

Kong Byung-ho’s Let's Make English Our Legacy for Our Children, published in 2006, puts a common parental concern right in its title. Kong draws on his experience teaching his own children and describes the choices he found effective. The account remains worth reading as one family’s experience.

The main questions are how to teach English and when to start. The first part develops Kong’s educational philosophy through comparisons with other countries, including Singapore, Finland and the Netherlands.

The second part asks what children should actually do. Kong criticises the limits of relying on school instruction alone and makes a case for putting conversation at the centre of lessons. That was a forward-looking emphasis in Korea in 2006.

He goes a step further by proposing immersion. That is a much more familiar option now, but it was a more unusual argument in the educational environment in which he wrote.

The book is organised as follows. Some headings express the author’s claims and reflect the time in which the book was written.

Contents

• “Part 1. Know What You’re Investing in When You Pay for English Education
  • Chapter 1. At What Age Should Children Start and How Should They Learn?
    • Language ability is determined before age ten
    • Early English instruction does not impede first-language learning
    • Different areas of the brain are active at different ages of acquisition 
    • What is a good age to begin?
    • Give children sustained exposure at a decisive age
    • How many years of study are needed? 
  • Chapter 2. How Do Children Abroad Learn English?
    • Singapore’s second-language policy 
    • Finland’s use of English as a means of getting by 
    • The Netherlands and the availability of English 
    • France at the bottom of Europe’s English rankings 
  • Chapter 3. Getting More from the Same Education Budget
    • A private academy cannot do everything for you 
    • A native-speaking teacher alone is no guarantee 
    • It’s hard to learn much English on a short study trip 
    • Grades three to five are a good time to study abroad 
    • Reading and writing matter for success abroad 
  • Chapter 4. How Children Who Speak English Well Studied
    • English education for children under ten 
    • English education from age eleven 
    • Study methods from children who speak English well 
    • Study advice from students abroad 
    • Suggestions for students studying in Korea
    • Suggestions for students overseas 
• Part 2. The Right English Education Can Shape a Child’s Future
  • Chapter 5. English as a Language That Moves the World
    • English as a global language 
    • Changing attitudes in France 
    • English as a language of knowledge production 
    • English and diplomatic influence 
    • English as a means of getting by 
    • The freedom to choose a life
  • Chapter 6. Schools Can Only Do So Much
    • High spending and weak results in private English education 
    • Does a good English education cost ₩100 million? 
    • More English instruction in primary school
    • Putting conversation at the centre of lessons
    • The need for immersion 
    • The need for teachers who can teach English well 
• Epilogue. Leave English to My Children

When Is a Good Time to Study Abroad?

Kong suggests studying abroad if the desired English-language environment is difficult to create at home. Opinions about the best age differ. He argues that the years before ten are decisive for language learning.

He puts the best window at around grades three to five. If the point is to use English intensively, his advice is to choose an environment where a student has few chances to fall back on Korean.

Let English Become Part of Play and Daily Life

English can be taught like maths or science, but a language is also something to use. Regular exposure and the chance to speak without much pressure are central to his approach.

Kong would have children use English in play and ordinary life, even in small ways, so that they spend time in it without always feeling that they are studying.

Give Learning a Routine

Kong also argues that a clear structure helps an English programme work.

His preferred environment is one where students take responsibility for their learning. He advises parents to look at how an academy is run, even down to whether it keeps good track of attendance.

How Much Time Does a Language Take?

How long might it take to communicate in another language? Kong uses about two years as a broad estimate.

For the language needed in academic work, he puts the figure at five to seven years. These are the author’s estimates. He points to the distance between Korean and English grammar as one reason the work takes time.

A Common Mistake among Korean Learners

Kong describes students who overestimate what they are ready to read and choose classes or materials well above their level.

He warns that this can lead to discouragement. One idea he invokes is Stephen Krashen’s “i+1”: material should be comprehensible while bringing the learner a little beyond what they already know.

What Kong Saw in Finland

The book describes Finnish pupils studying languages through their school years, starting one relatively early and adding another later. Kong highlights the emphasis placed on speaking in the system he describes.

He links that approach to the multilingual ability he observed in Finland.

At university I met exchange students from Finland who spoke English well. Many could also use other languages. That personal experience made this part of the book easy to picture.

The book is a record of a parent’s methods, his experience and his reading of other education systems. It has been in print since 2006, and some details belong to that time. The parts about making English part of a child’s ordinary life are still worth thinking about.

It also makes an interesting companion to Kim Su-bong’s account of teaching English for study at leading American universities.

Book Information

Let's Make English Our Legacy for Our Children

Author

Kong Byung-ho

Publication date

10 December 2006

ISBN13

9788950927752

View the book on YES24

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