초록 열기/닫기 버튼
This case study simply attempts to look into and state the reality that some young Korean children face in the current Korean educational system by assessing them with standardized assessment tools. The subjects are 2 second graders (age 8), 4 first graders (age 7), and 9 third-year kindergarteners (age 6) who have never experienced overseas study but have had 2 to 3 years of kindergarten English education from the same English educational institution (the one so called ‘English kindergarten’). The first and second graders are the ones who continue to come back to their old kindergarten for the after-school English classes. The researcher used two standardized assessment tools, Bilingual Verbal Ability Tests (BVAT) and Language Assessment System (LAS/Pre-LAS), to see: (1) How close the subjects’ levels of English language proficiency are to the native English speakers’ of the same age? (2) What would be the differences between the bilingual verbal ability and the English language proficiency of the subjects? and (3) What would be the subjects’ levels of proficiency in four separate language skills? The results firmly suggest an early introduction of English bilingual education to the preschool children in Korea and call for a change in the current educational policy.
