The Taipei Times has published two articles recently on the Paju English Village, one of 10 in South Korea ("English village in Korea," April 18, page 14; "English only in South Korea's teaching towns," April 5, page 9). These "towns" are, we are told, real communities in which only English can be spoken, a place where students of English can go to practice their English and feel like they "have left Korea behind."
The Korean government enthusiastically supports English villages because they feel such sites will reduce the number of Koreans who go abroad (or who send their children abroad) to improve their English, which is a drain on the Korean economy. Such villages are also a better bargain for parents, who pay about NT$50,000 (US$1,500) for a four-week course for their children.
According to the Taipei Times articles, the Korean government paid US$90 million just to set up the Paju village, which employs 70 staff and 100 full time teachers. That probably means a payroll of at least US$5 million per year.
But the two articles leave out some important points. First, the villages are not real. The buildings are simulations of banks, post offices, airline offices and the like, and the interactions are simulations: The "residents" of the English village in Korea are actually English teachers trained to play different roles, such as policemen (an ad for English teachers for the Seoul English village mentions that the teachers will also be trained to act as doctors).
Second, to my knowledge, there have been no formal evaluations of the English villages. We have no idea if they are really helping children acquire English skills.
Third, contrary to the claims that they save money, English villages are very expensive. The Paju school has a maximum capacity of 550 students. If the other nine schools have a similar capacity, that means the schools can deal with about 6,000 children per month. A total of 12 million children are in school in Korea, with at least six million in grades in which English is taught. Thus, English villages can, at best, impact on 1 percent of the children who are in English classes.
In other words, Korea is paying an enormous amount of money to provide an untested English experience to just 1 percent of its school-age children, an experience limited to children whose parents can come up with the tuition money.
Other countries should think twice before investing in English villages.
Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern, California, Los Angeles
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reach the point of confidence that they can start and win a war to destroy the democratic culture on Taiwan, any future decision to do so may likely be directly affected by the CCP’s ability to promote wars on the Korean Peninsula, in Europe, or, as most recently, on the Indian subcontinent. It stands to reason that the Trump Administration’s success early on May 10 to convince India and Pakistan to deescalate their four-day conventional military conflict, assessed to be close to a nuclear weapons exchange, also served to
The recent aerial clash between Pakistan and India offers a glimpse of how China is narrowing the gap in military airpower with the US. It is a warning not just for Washington, but for Taipei, too. Claims from both sides remain contested, but a broader picture is emerging among experts who track China’s air force and fighter jet development: Beijing’s defense systems are growing increasingly credible. Pakistan said its deployment of Chinese-manufactured J-10C fighters downed multiple Indian aircraft, although New Delhi denies this. There are caveats: Even if Islamabad’s claims are accurate, Beijing’s equipment does not offer a direct comparison
After India’s punitive precision strikes targeting what New Delhi called nine terrorist sites inside Pakistan, reactions poured in from governments around the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a statement on May 10, opposing terrorism and expressing concern about the growing tensions between India and Pakistan. The statement noticeably expressed support for the Indian government’s right to maintain its national security and act against terrorists. The ministry said that it “works closely with democratic partners worldwide in staunch opposition to international terrorism” and expressed “firm support for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
RSS