Understanding the Importance of English Education in South Korea and Exploring the Reasons Why South Korean Students Come to a University in the Midwest

Ineffectiveness of English-Medium Courses in Korean Colleges 
Byun et al. (2011) described that Korean higher educational institutions have 
increased the English-medium courses taught by many Korean professors because South 
Korean students need to have English competency before they graduate from their 
colleges and universities. The researchers also mentioned that the government policy has 
been required to increase more English-medium courses at Korean colleges and 
universities and has forced them to have English proficiency for college and university 
students’ graduate requirements. This kind of policy has negatively influenced many 
Korean college students and Korean faculty members because of their lack of English 
proficiency and English-medium pedagogy experiences (Byun et al., 2011).
Interestingly, Byun et al. (2011) discovered that the Korean government and the 
members of the English-medium courses development committee assumed that the 
majority of Korean students would be qualified to take English-medium courses because 

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they have learn and studied English for over 10 years through the primary and the 
secondary educational system in Korea. Furthermore, the Korean government and many 
Korean higher educational administrators thought that many Korean faculty members 
earned their doctoral degrees from the United States, so they would not have a problem to 
teach English-medium courses. However, in the conclusion of Byun et al.’s (2011) 
research study, they stated that many Korean students needed to improve their English 
competency, have special supports to fully understand English-medium courses, and 
actively participate in a discussion group. Furthermore, the researchers recommended 
that Korean faculty members were required to continuously train their teaching styles and 
skills, especially for English-medium courses (Byun et al., 2011).
In Byun et al.’s (2011) research study, they utilized the in-depth case study and 
the semi-structured interview method to collect relevant data. The researchers selected 
one of the prestigious universities in South Korea, Korea University (KU), and the reason 
for choosing this university was that the school has significantly developed a variety of 
English-medium courses and has required KU students to register for a certain number of 
English-medium courses for their graduation requirement. Moreover, the researchers 
wanted to collect KU student opinion surveys on English-medium instruction’s 
effectiveness through this research study (Byun et al., 2011). Moreover, Byun et al. 
(2011) used two focus group discussions, which were participated in by KU students and 
professors, to analyze the effectiveness of English-medium instruction and to further 
improvements for English-medium courses at KU. The researchers chose 20 KU 
undergraduate students who took KU English-medium courses, 5 KU professors who 

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taught KU English-medium courses, and 2 KU foreign professors who assisted to 
develop and teach KU English-medium courses (Byun et al., 2011).
Through analyzing the collected data by conducting the online surveys and 
interviews, Byun et al. (2011) found that some KU students needed to improve their 
English proficiency to fully understand and comprehend their English-medium courses.
The researchers stated that some of the KU students felt that they really struggled to take 
English-medium courses because of an excess amount of reading in English textbooks, 
their lack of English skills, their lack of knowledge of the subjects, the special jargon and 
terms, and so forth (Byun et al., 2011). Furthermore, some KU students expressed that 
they did not like to take English-medium courses because of unqualified KU Korean 
faculty members.
Interestingly, many KU English-medium courses were designed to accommodate 
more than 200 KU students at once, and KU faculty members who taught these kinds of 
courses took care of this size of class entirely by themselves. In other words, the quality 
and the satisfaction of KU English-medium courses would not be effective and efficient 
because of the high student to faculty ratio. Moreover, the researchers found that KU 
students who registered for English-medium courses needed to have writing center 
services or tutoring services for revising their assignments, but KU only provided these 
kinds of services for a short period of time; due to financial problems, these kinds of 
services were not able to be offered to the KU students anymore (Byun et al., 2011).
Regarding these kinds of problems and complaints, Byun et al. (2011) mentioned 
that some KU Korean faculty members were not able to teach English-medium courses 

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entirely in English. Moreover, the KU student interview transcripts described that some 
of the KU students had difficulties in English-medium courses as follows:
It’s impossible to hold a discussion in English. There are some students who can 
speak English fluently, but most are not fluent, so only the fluent students speak 
or no one tries to take part in the discussion.
Non-native professors explained things briefly and simply. It’s hard to 
understand them when there aren’t enough explanations. When asked to clarify, 
they merely repeated themselves. 
The class does not move smoothly, and things stall from time to time. And it 
gets boring when there’s a break in the flow. (Byun et al., 2011, pp. 440-441) 
As described above, Byun et al. (2011) pointed out that KU English-medium courses 
were not effective and efficient for some of the KU students and KU professors because 
of their lack of English proficiency. Particularly, the researchers found that KU Korean 
professors’ lacked English teaching and conversational skills, some KU students’ lacked 
English proficiency, and KU students had difficulty understanding certain jargon and 
terms related to their majors. In other words, when KU Korean faculty members teach 
their courses in English, it could be really difficult for KU students to understand the 
context of the courses due to their lack of English abilities and the professors’ poor 
English skills. It would be better for them to take and teach KU courses by using their 
first language, Korean, but more college courses in Korea will be taught in English 
because of the importance of English education. In the beginning of Byun et al.’s (2011) 
research study, many Korean higher institutions have established English-medium 
courses, so many other Korean higher institutions will have similar problems like KU.
Byun et al.’s (2011) research study proves that many Korean colleges and 
universities have significantly established English-medium courses for their students, and 
Korean higher educational administrators have looked for qualified Korean faculty 

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members who are capable of teaching courses entirely in English. In spite of this kind of 
effort mandated by the Korean government and Korean higher educational administrators, 
there still have been many problems in the Korean higher educational system regarding 
English-medium courses. Because of these kinds of reasons, many Korean students 
could make a decision to come to American colleges and universities, and they would 
like to take college courses taught by native-English speakers. Therefore, the researcher 
of this study will focus on finding Korean students’ perspectives and challenges of 
English-medium courses in Korea by utilizing in-depth interviews with UNK Korean 
students. Furthermore, the researcher of this study will ask UNK Korean students about 
how satisfied they are with native-English speakers’ courses compared to Korean faculty 
members’ courses. The results and findings of this study will be analyzed in 
Chapter Four.

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