But critics have charged that the emphasis on education in South Korea has gone too far, with many parents pushing their children to attend extra hours of night school that last until 9 or 10 p.m. every weeknight. To escape the pressure, some South Korean families have begun moving abroad -- to Canada, the United States and Europe in search of less competitive educational systems.
That competition is evident in South Korea's quest for English language proficiency. Yet the English Village concept was developed this year in part as an antidote to the highly structured, school-based English programs. The Kyonggi governor, Hak Kyu Sohn, who perfected his English while earning a doctorate from Oxford, championed the concept as a way to bring English alive outside the classroom -- particularly for students who cannot afford to study abroad.
In the English Village in Ansan, students use English in order to receive dollar-like coupons to use for goods and services at the "village bank."
(Anthony Faiola -- The Washington Post)
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"Our schools have been stressing memorization and grammar, so we have students who still emerge from years of English schooling as university graduates who still cannot say 'hello' " Hak said. "We need to be more creative, change the educational environment and give these kids a chance to experience English -- and hopefully in the future, Chinese and Japanese -- in an environment where they can actually interact and talk."
Inside English Village, about 200 students arrive each week from local middle schools, checking their Korean language at the door. They receive pretend passports, pass through an imitation immigration procedure and head to a bank to receive local currency, which looks like fake dollar bills.
But in South Korea, where anti-American sentiments have been on the rise in recent years, English Village goes out of its way to avoid connections with U.S. symbols, stressing English as a "global language" separated from the politics of one nation. For that reason, the school tried hard to recruit native English speakers from diverse places such as Canada and Wales, as well as teachers proficient in English from as far away as Poland.
Creative language use is encouraged. When buying books for their classes, for instance, students with enough language capability can even bargain for a discount. "Five dollars?" asked Hee Sung Park, 15, when buying a drama book. "Oh, that's too expensive! Can I have a discount?"
"Good word use," said Simone Daley, a Canadian-Jamaican drama teacher. She smiled. "Okay, you can have it for $4."
Special correspondent Joohee Cho contributed to this report.
