Oh, Korea

As somebody who relies on my supposed knowledge of the English language to earn a paycheck every month I should support stuff like this, but I really, truly don’t:

“Imposing curfew on students who receive low scores on their English proficiency test is an infringement upon human rights, said the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRC) in a written statement released Tuesday.

The decision came after undergraduate students submitted petitions last October and again last March to protest a university’s dormitory rule that states, ‘Those who fail to receive a TOEIC score higher than 550 within two months are forbidden from leaving or staying out of the dormitory.’”

Imagine if the American SAT didn’t just determine what college you got into, but also what companies and government agencies would be willing to even grant you an interview after graduation.  That’s how significant the TOEIC has become in South Korea, and frankly, its significance is poisonous.  There’s very little passion or love of learning for English when you know from a very early age that you will be judged on niche grammatical knowledge rather than a practical ability to communicate.

So good for these students protesting, and good for the Korean court recognizing that the university’s policy was bullshit.

For reference, the highest possible TOEIC score is 990.

Also, I’m guessing this was at Korea Maritime University in Busan.

This entry was posted in Education, English, ESL, Korea, South Korea, Teaching. Bookmark the permalink.

1 Response to Oh, Korea

  1. Patty says:

    Notice, in the classics, So&#2ni8c17;s blur was circular, and the “Super Peel Out” was oval and stretched.Now in the modern game, he always run in a blurry oval and stretched form. So… To make “Super Peel Out” they would have to reverse it and make his legs run in a circular blur during the moves execution. Which would not look right by any mean’s i’m sure.

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