Students appear to be keen to acquire the skills needed to succeed in a highly competitive South Korean society.
"Korean students are very eager. They have a lot of enthusiasm. I think there's a lot of pressure to learn English," said Tara Hornung, a 28-year-old Canadian teacher.
In South Korea, students begin learning English in third grade, aged nine, and continue all the way to college. It is common for students to spend extra hours on English at private institutes after school.
Many choose to go abroad, usually with their mothers, while fathers stay behind in Korea to finance their costly overseas tuition.
A total of 192,200 South Koreans were studying abroad last year, according to the Ministry of Education, 60 percent in English-speaking countries.
The real figure could be considerably higher, experts say, because some go abroad without an education visa.
Foreign study costs Koreans billions of dollars, according to the government.
Local media put the figure at around US$10 billion per year, but the Bank of Korea estimates the figure conservatively at US$3.37 billion last year, up from US$1.07 billion in 2001.
"It would be much bigger if the undeclared small amounts of remittances were included," said Lee Sun-deok, an official handling current account data at the bank.
Parents view it as money well spent. English proficiency has become increasingly important for Korean job seekers. Interviews conducted in English are common at big-name companies like Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and LG Philips.
But a visit to the English-only village comes cheaper. A four-week English village program costs 1.4 million won, while a three-week language course in the US or Canada costs at least 5.1 million won, according to YBM Sisa Overseas Education Service, which plans overseas education trips.
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