Maintenance Bilingual Education in South Korea

The pivotal role played in global market and mass internet communication creates English learning an indispensable issue, especially in the educational organization of many non-English speaking countries. For the English dominance in the world, Jung and Norton pointed out, “English is an optional subject at the elementary level in over 50 countries, 25 of which have made it a mandatory school subject” (Jung & Norton, 2002, p. 254). As the globalization and internationalism keep rising, linguistic challenges have surfaced in various levels in the world. Yoo described those challenges in different layers in the article, elaborating, “at a national level, in some Western multilingual countries, such as United States and Canada, linguistic justice has become a focal point of debate among English-only and bilingualism, and in the multilingual third counties, such as India and many former colonies from Africa, struggle to create linguistic identities, and at a global level, the unprecedented and phenomenal spread of English has become a controversial issue among many political and academic leaders: some concerned its spread as a major threat to their ethnic language, and others consider it facilitation of international communications” (Yoo, 2005, p. 1). Therefore, bilingual education is no longer a situation found in only a few countries but has become a world problem, and it has become a focus of interest for linguists, psychologists, socialists, anthropologists and neuroscientists.

According to Yoo (2005), South Korea has recently encountered remnant proposals for English as an ‘Official Language’ (EOL) as a language standard in order to meet much demanded globalization and mass communication, and in response, another opposing power, nationalism, has powerfully emerged to refute these proposals. In response to the public outcry of nationalism, Byung Jung, president of the Korean Newspaper Association ( KNA), commented, “Throughout history, Korea has been a country with a lack of information, and diplomacy, and this has much to do with the pain that foreign-language-insensitive countries are likely to suffer…we need to learn from Singaporean bilingualism” (Yoo, 2005, p. 8). Yoo asserted that not only his remarks upset South Koreans, but there was also another element that intensified the arguments. In March 2004, Yoo continued, the Seoul metropolitan government announced the “Daily use of English in Seoul” project. Therefore, arguments and counter-arguments have flooded the media on each move (Yoo, 2005, p.8). In order to address these heated debates surrounding the issues of bilingualism in South Korea, this paper will attempt to focus mainly on three essential factors of bilingual education: need for bilingual education, positive effect of bilingual education, and benefit of bilingual education on brain development.

Definition of Maintenance Bilingual Education

Bilingual education entails teaching and learning to be proficient in the articulation of two languages simultaneously. For the types of different bilingual education, Spring (2009) mentioned in his book that there are several specific types of a bilingual education, including maintenance bilingual, transitional bilingual, and two-way bilingual. Concerning with the maintenance bilingual education, Kim (2005), an ardent proponent for it, claimed that the early reviews of bilingual education effectiveness were published in the late 1970s, and the researchers concluded that bilingual education in the U.S. effectively promoted bilingualism with language minority children and was preferable to monolingual English program, and with bilingualism, language minority students achieved high skills in both the majority and minority language. Kim favored a maintenance bilingual program to others because it is designed to safeguard and increase a student’s native language while the student acquires a second language.

For this matter, Spring, an activist for American bilingual education, also agreed with Kim by strongly supporting on maintenance bilingual education because it is designed to maintain the ability to read and write in the student’s native language while learning English. One of the prominent characteristics for a maintenance bilingual education, Spring added, is “students are better able to learn English if they know how to read and write in their native language” (Spring, 2009, p. 138).

In concurrence with Spring in all these elements, Kim recommended the maintenance bilingual education for three reasons: first, minority students may benefit from the model because it focuses on sociocultural aspects of language learning; second, students may develop their cognitive-academic language proficiency; third, students receive significant language support in their native language, thus, they may ease into second language learning without too much pressure (Kim, 2005). With this program, Kim continued, “students with a strong background in their home language are likely to develop high levels of proficiency in English and while home language instruction helps English acquisition, the maintenance model emphasizes fluency in both languages in school including the biliteracy and academic excellence, and maintenance programs have been shown to be additive, which allows students to fully engage and participate in the instruction than merely exposed to it” (Kim, 2005, p. 161). Kim summed it up, therefore, maintenance bilingual education targets to improve the child’s native language, escalating the child’s sense of cultural identity in order to confirm the rights of an ethnic minority group in a nation.

Linguistic Background and Current Language Situation in South Korea

For the history of linguistic surroundings in Korea, Poonoosamy explained, “The Korean language is at least 5000 years old and is spoken by about 67 million people in both South Korea and North Korean and was first used by people of the ancient kingdom of Chosen, but records of the written alphabet can be traced back to 1443” (Poonoosamy, 2009, n. p.). Emphasizing on the strong nationalism that closely connects historical background to linguistic standards of Korean, Yoo explained, “In Korea, ethnocultural nationalism was kindled and maintained through resistance against Chinese influence and Japanese imperialism during nation building, and language has played a crucial role in this endeavor” (Yoo, 2005, p. 5). For the present language situation in South Korea, Yoo described, “Is a monolingual society that enjoys a very high degree of congruity of speech community, however, the influence of English in South Korea has become salient because of strong dependency on the U. S. for international politics and economy” (Yoo, 2005, p. 6).
For the current status of English in Korea, Yoo asserted, “Korea is an ‘Expanding Circle’ country along with Chine and Japan, in which English is learned as a foreign language and had no official role, and it does not belong to the group of counties that give special statues to English” (Yoo, 2005, p. 6). However, Jung and Norton had different perspectives on the current linguistic situation in Korea by reputing Yoo’s claims, “Although English has been taught as an extracurricular subject in elementary schools since 1982, the government initiative marked the first mandatory implementation in the public elementary school of a regular English class with a national English curriculum and textbook” (Jung & Norton, 2002, p. 247). Jung and Norton asserted in their article that the government has been trying to devise the curriculum that reflects practicality and reality, explaining, “The purpose for the national curricular is for students to learn English from grade 3 to 6 for two periods, a total of 90 minutes per week, and the intention for it is to motivate a student’s interest in English and to develop basic communicative competence” (Jung & Norton, 2002, p. 247).

In regarding to South Korean’s bilingual education, Poonoosamy showed enthusiastic outcomes of it, however, Poonoosamy speculated that challenge is enormous, saying, “For South Korea’s main purpose is to preserve its linguistic and cultural heritage while implementing effective bilingual education in order to adjust to the trends of globalization and internationalism, and bilingual education as a challenge full of paradoxes and contradictions, yet one that South Korea must face to survive and thrive economically” (Poonoosamy, 2009, n.p.).

Need for Bilingual Education in South Korea

In one hand, Poonoosamy (2009) was confident, claiming that South Korea can achieve the challenge of the globalization through wise educational and language policies under the current linguistic geo-political conditions, but on the other hand, Poonoosamy was apprehensive since powerful competing forces are on the rise in the name of nationalism. In response to Poonoosamy’s apprehension, Yoo explained that Bok, a passionate and unyielding pioneer for bilingualism, consistently and sternly has argued, “Globalization as ‘homogenization’ and ‘standardization’ is real and even if it is US-initiated, accommodation to this phenomenon is a minimum survival skill and others proponents equate globalization with ‘cosmopolitanism’ and reject nationalism as inherently ‘closed’” (Yoo, 2005, p. 9). Responding to these claims, nationalist opponents of bilingual education criticized the widespread discourses, “of ‘neo-liberal globalization’ and highlight the positive effects of nationalism in Korea” (Yoo, 2005, p. 9). Therefore, opinions are polarized to the extreme opposites, a globalization against nationalism.

In order to demonstrate these extremely polarized opinions, Yoo cited The Chosun Ilbo, a prominent newspaper, to show the current popular issues of globalization and bilingual education that are poignantly reflected in media, and the following reputed issues are published in The Chosun Ilbo: (Yoo, 2005, p. 17).

• “Want growth? Speak English!”
• “English raises your salary”
• “Faltering English often spoils business transitions”
• “The low English proficiency of Korean elites leads to huge loss in national interests”

There are also counter-discourses to bilingualism, and Yoo listed them by providing opposite side of standpoints published in the various academia and media (Yoo, 2005, p. 21).

• “Take off a white mask, blind reverence for the West”
• “English imperialism in the Internet era”
• “Making Seoul a republic of English?”
• “Communication skills determine English proficiency”

Yoo claimed that these articles generated confrontational responses from every corner of South Korea and left one to ponder, “Just how the pressures of global communications within the process of globalization are so powerful as to threaten an already established national language even in a monolingual society” (Yoo, 2005, p. 1). Concerning about these issues, Yoo further elaborated about the article appeared in a daily newspaper in April 2002, explaining, “The government announced the ‘South Korea as the Business Center of Northeast Asia’ project with ‘Special economic zones’, where English will be used as an official language, and in March 2004, the Seoul metropolitan government announced the ‘Daily use of English in Seoul’ Project” (Yoo, 2005, p. 8).

Aiming at these chaos, there are prevailing opinions that the South Korean government has been a mere speculator to these dire issues. However, Poonoosamy had a different view about the South Korean government’s stance in aiming at fierce contentions between bilingualism and nationalism, arguing, “The government has sided with proponents of bilingualism by actively participating in implementation of the bilingual education, for it realized that English has now become the language of trade, international communication and the internet, and since then, South Korean government with affiliated national educational agencies has been endeavoring from the 1990s till today to put in place sustainable language policies that would match Korea’s ambition to have an authoritative voice in the global and interconnected world” (Poonoosamy, 2009, n.p.) In addressing globalization and bilingualism, Poonoosamy further explained, “The textbooks were changed and new language learning approaches were envisaged, but more importantly, the focus has changed; an integrated curriculum was implemented with the concerted efforts and participation of the ministries of education, technology, arts and foreign affairs” (Poonoosamy, 2009, n.p.).

Positive Effect of Bilingual Education

There are consensuses among bilingual proponents that bilingual children perform better than monolinguals linguistically, socially, and psychologically. In an article, The Myth of Static Maintenance in Bilingual Education, Otheguy and Otto explained, “bilingual program reveals at least certain age groups under certain circumstances, intensive development of one language does not compete with development of the other, which is rather pulled along and develops in parallel fashion, and with respect to reading, ability in particular, there is strong evidence of the positive transfer of skills from one language to another” (Otheguy & Otto, 1980, p. 351).

In response to Otheguy and Otto’s claim, Willig agreed with them by asserting, “a meta-analysis of selected studies on the efficacy of bilingual education was conducted and when the results were compared with a traditional review of the same literature, bilingual education programs consistently produced small to moderate differences favoring bilingual education for tests of reading, language skills, mathematics, and total achievement” (Willig, 1985, p. 272). Zelasko also agreed with Willig by further elaborating, “bilingual children performed better than monolinguals in series of cognitive tests when sex, age, and socioeconomic status were appropriately controlled, and a number of studies show the advantages of bilingualism in measures of conceptual development, creativity, metalingustic awareness, semantic development, and analytical skills” (Zelasko, 1991, n.p.). Casanova (1995) also reported that children with higher levels of bilingual proficiency perform at a higher level than their peers on measures of analogical reasoning and tests of spatial relations.

Throughout his life, Cummins vigorously rebutted with many opponents of bilingual education by arguing that frequent findings of bilingual children achieved inadequately on the verbal parts of competent tests as well as on academic tasks are not rational and also disagreed with several investigators’ claims that bilingualism itself was a cause of “mental confusion” and “language handicaps” (Cummins, 1979, p. 223). Cummins continued asserting with the notion that perhaps the most rational theoretical statement in this genre was "balance effect" hypothesis which proposed that a bilingual child paid for his L2 skills by a decrease in LI skills (Cummins, 1979 p. 223). By rejecting the inadequacy of both the "linguistic mismatch" hypothesis and the hypothesis that bilingualism itself is a source of academic and cognitive retardation, Cummins emphasized the fact that a great number of recent studies suggest that instead of being a cause of cognitive misunderstanding, bilingualism can optimistically influence both cognitive and linguistic development (Cummins, 1979, p. 223).

In a research article, Ryu, a Korean bilingual teacher and a doctoral student in education, examined three children’s social and emotional adjustments to a school in considering their academic development and their attitudes towards languages, English and Korean. Three Korean bilingual children were closely observed in the natural classroom setting for this study. The primary commonalities shared by these children are that they speak both Korean and English, and they are high achievers. Even though the children manifest different levels of English proficiency based on their experiences in America and the American school system, qualitative and quantitative findings showed that being bilingual has many positive effects, such as high cognitive development, high creativity scores, and a higher level of divergent thinking than monolingual children (Ryn, 2004, pp. 166-170).

Using the various researches, Cummins kept emphasizing on how bilingual has positive effects on children’s linguistic and educational development by claiming, “more than 150 research studies conducted during the past 35 years suggested that when children continue to develop their abilities in two or more language through their elementary or primary school years, they gain deeper understanding of language, especially when they develop literacy in both, and they are able to compare and contrast the ways in which their two language organized reality” (Cummins, 2003, pp. 61-62). He also claimed that the research also suggests that bilingual children may also acquire more plasticity in the thinking as an outcome of processing information through two different languages.

Benefits of Bilingual Education on Brain Development

There is another side of benefits in learning another language. According to von Goethe, structural brain imaging shows, “being bilingual produces changes in the anatomy of the brain: people who speak two languages have more grey matter in the language region of the brain and the earlier they learned the language, the larger the grey area” (von Goethe, 2009, p. 651). Bilingual children, Goethe continued, “possess a 1-year advantage over monolinguals for tasks that demand the inhibition of attention to irrelevant information, and bilingual children are constantly sorting out extra perceptual information, and for every object and action, they have numerous words from which to choose” (von Goethe, 2009, p. 654).

Using Bialystok and Martin’s research, von Goethe (2009) showed how bilingual children have better inhibitory control for disregarding perceptual information, which improves their ability to have concentration on more proper information and restrain from other information, an ability of great value in other educational tasks as well because students who master two languages have more linguistic space to search in memory. Also using Kormi-Nouri, Moniri, and Nilsson’s research, which compared 60 bilingual children and 60 monolingual children in three age groups on episodic memory and semantic memory tasks, von Goethe stated that they found positive effects of bilingualism on both forms of memory at all age levels, and therefore, these findings suggested that bilingual children are better at incorporating and systematizing the information of two languages spontaneously, which theory leads to learning another language produces positive effects on in terms of cognitive abilities (von Goethe, 2009, p. 655).

Not only a learning another language is beneficial to cognitive and neurological development on children, Summers (2000) argued that in order to maximize its gains, it is crucial to acquire it earlier in age, for a research indicates that the aptitude to learn another language diminishes with age, which theory was made by Lenneberg who researched the biological foundations of language. By citing Lenneberg’s research, Summers claimed, “If the right time is missed, learning may not occur, or it will be defective, and language acquisition would be biologically restricted to early childhood up to puberty, and the brain’s ability to acquire language would close down at puberty with brain lateralization, called critical period” (Summers, 2000, p. 651). In regarding to critical period, Summers continued, studies from national surveys, as well as census data with immigrants, suggest a strong negative correlation between the age of their arrival and their ability to judge grammaticality, and moreover, brain research explained why children can develop two or three languages with native proficiency whereas it is more difficult for adults. Thus, Summers concluded, the response to the question “What is the best age to learn another language?” is “as early as possible” because at such early age, the language aptitude is the highest, for studies suggest that the child’s brain, as compared to that of the older child or the adult, has more synapses and greater plasticity and is better suited to learning world languages (Summers, 2000, p. 653). Therefore, concerning with all these factors, there are logical explanations for implementing bilingual education very early age in order to make the most of benefits of it.

Conclusion

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, proficiency in only one language is not sufficient for economic, social, political and educational success. Globalization and international communication necessitate the capability of articulating in more than one language. South Koreans can argue about benefits and disadvantages of bilingual education with no end, and nevertheless, these arguments have resulted in the polarization on nation’s opinions of bilingual education to the extreme between nationalists who oppose bilingual education and liberals who welcome it. Some may suggest that it is still premature to draw any substantial conclusion on overall effective on bilingual education. However, one significant factor that South Koreans are overlooking is that the country is only about the size of Massachusetts without sufficient natural resources, and as a result, they have heavily depended on global trades and international market. Therefore, in my opinion, it is no longer the issue whether they approve the bilingual education or not, but it is sensible that they should rather focus on what kind of English education model they adopt for elementary levels. I concur with Zelasko about concerning the education model in English, “it is an educational approach that not only allows students to master academic content material, but also becoming proficient in two languages is increasingly valuable and necessary skills in the early twenty-first century” (Zelasko, 1991, n.p.).

For the bilingual issue, Yoo mentioned in the article that Bok once asked an astonishing and repulsive question to the Korean public: “If you have new born baby, and if he or she can choose between English and Korean as a mother tongue, which would you recommend? Bok assumes that every Korean will answer English if they are true to their hearts without being misguided by romantic nationalism, and since that question, the public opinion poll has been favors to bilingualism” (Yoo, 2005, p. 11).

Trimnell eloquently summed up the core meaning of bilingualism by beautifully articulating, “Bilingualism promotes understanding of the intercultural sensitivity, which builds up trust and understanding, and it can bridge the gap between peoples, and promote peace and international trade. Bilingualism also enhances economic partnerships, diplomacy, and international contacts require strong comprehension of the cultural values and belief systems of the partners abroad. Therefore, bilingualism is imperative, for global citizenship is characterized by proficiency in other languages” (Trimnell, 2005, p. 84).

In my opinion, linguistic imperialism has ceased long ago, and countries must open up their doors to others, for a country can no long exist by itself since the world has become intimately intertwined into every aspects of human life. Bilingual education has much to offer for children, for it not only has positive effects on their brain development but also on their behavior and attitude, transcending its spectrum on social, psychological, academic, and neurological facets. Concerning globalization and economic outlets, I think, those can too be best achieved by promoting and implementing bilingualism through the educational system within the country, and by adopting bilingual education, South Korean will undoubtedly reap many benefits from it.

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