MUSIC

These South Korean school children are about to be taught a remarkable lesson.They’re being bussed to a village on the outskirts of Seoul where their native tongue is banned.

NATSOT ARRIVAL

“You have to remember one thing this week – it’s English, English, English!”

At the English Village you don’t just learn the language – you live it. The village sees itself as a passport to international citizenship. First stop is immigration.

The object here, one teacher tells me, is to make the children feel welcome… then scare the hell out of them.

“What do you want to do in English Village? [pause] You’re not sure.”

“Are you going to cause trouble while you’re here? [pause]

No answer. Well let’s have you stay and we’ll see. Welcome to English Village.

In this age of globalisation, international boundaries are being blurred. Partly because of that, partly the cause of that, English is becoming the global language.Here in education-obsessed South Korea, the pressure to learn it is overwhelming, and the things some parents are doing to their children, simply extraordinary.

”The English village is a cross between a theme park and a boot camp. They visit a mock bank, withdrawing the local currency, which is used to pay for textbooks, food and entertainment. But what’s given can be taken away… anyone who utters a word of Korean is fined.

“Thank you. No Korean. Next time it will be $2. Oh look, I’m going to have a nice dinner tonight!

They spend between a week and a month here, living in. The classes never really finish… every minute is spent learning, practicing, perfecting the new language.

STUDENT VOX:“Regardless of what I want to become in the future, my parents always say that I have to know English in order to be successful in any field. They say English is essential.”

For Koreans who find English a mouthful, there are more drastic options than the English Village.Jin Sung Min is an oral surgeon.

DOCTOR “There is a thing called the ‘frenulum’ under the tongue, and when that is attached to the tip of the tongue, that makes the tongue short and hinders movement of the tongue and causes bad pronunciation.”

supposedly simple operation makes the tongue longer, more flexible – better able to handle tricky ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds.

“We cut this band and release the tongue and then the tongue can move freely.” “And that’s called tongue tied?” “Yeah, that’s right. So we call it tongue-tied. We release this one like this – we cut this band, release the tongue and stitch this one.

”Doctor Jin insists he only operates on children who have a real medical condition. But other doctors have no such scruples – promoting the surgery as a short cut to better English pronunciation.

“La, la, la.” “La, la, la.”

The practice is widespread enough to have prompted Korea’s Human Rights watchdog to make a movie warning of the dangers.

‘Tongue Tied’ begins with a mother and father embarrassed by their son’s pronunciation.

“If you’re good, I’ll make you a cool boy, OK?” “Do you want to be cool or uncool? So you’ll cooperate, right?”

What follows is horrific… and according to Doctor Sung, fairly accurate. The film uses footage from a real operation.

Tongue surgery is so sensitive no-one associated with the movie – not even the Human Rights Commission – will discuss it with the foreign media.

“It’s pure and simple ignorance. A lot of Korea kids and Japanese kids born and growing up in the United States have no problem with English pronunciation – it has nothing to do with the tongue.”

NATSOT TVLearning English is a national obsession – the focus ferocious, the competition cutthroat.The pressure begins before birth – parents play English nursery rhymes to children in the womb.

One year olds have private tutors… four and five year olds are sent to English-only kindergartens that cost one thousand dollars a month.

“By the time my children are adults, I think English will no longer be a language used by a limited number of people in specialist professions, but will be used by everyone.”

This school is one of the good ones, but for the most part, South Korea’s vast English industry is unregulated and seemingly unstoppable.

There’s high-density housing, there’s high-intensity education.It’s four o’clock, school’s out… but the children are not heading home.The vans are taking them to Hagwons… private cram schools.

English has been a compulsory subject in primary schools for a decade, but the competition is so fierce, few parents are satisfied.There are tens of thousands of Hagwons, teaching maths, science, and English.According to some estimates, 90% of all school students get private tutoring, either at a Hagwon or at home.

“I’m not sure why I like learning English, but it’s fun. It’s good to speak English.”

By senior school, though, the fun has worn off.Many students go to a Hagwon before school, another after it, and another after that… getting home around midnight.

“Education has become a social disease.”

“Education is not a normal situation. It’s become a private education industry, education is marketing, and that is not good.”Doctor Lee knows what he’s talking about. He’s in charge of the university entrance exam… and he has real concerns about the system he’s administering.

“My term is Korean education abuse and education ignorance.”T

“When a Korean child is born it cries, ‘I have to go to Seoul National University’. That is the one tendency. In other words, parents put too much pressure on their children to go a first-priority university. They’re preparing from kindergarten up to high school.”

Twelve years of schooling is assessed by a single eight-hour test. Entire lives rest on the result – in Korea, your university has a huge impact on career, status, even marriage prospects.

It’s the day the pressure cooker education system reaches boiling point. The nation’s temples and shrines are packed with praying parents.

“It’s not unfair to say that the entire social structure of our children’s generation revolves around the name of your university.”

From five in the morning, younger students gather outside the school gates, offering encouragement.

It’s not just the students’ lives that revolve around this day – the entire nation holds its breath.Aeroplanes are grounded to minimise noise. Many employees start work late… trying to ensure exam-takers don’t get caught in traffic.

For those who are running late, emergency vehicles are on standby.The weight of a nation’s expectations is a heavy burden. Every year, several students commit suicide after the exam.

“I can understand people feeling futile walking out of an exam when your life is determined in an instant. If you don’t get the result you expect, you could feel the world was crashing down on you because of society’s expectations.”

Every year, thousands of children try to escape the pressure cooker by heading overseas. It’s the great Korean brain drain, an annual exodus so huge it’s known as the ‘wild goose’ phenomenon.

“I want to make a lot of Canadian friends, learn English and learn about Canadian civilization.”

“I’m happy about it but also a bit worried.”

Most of the children go to countries such as Canada, Australia and America, where they can learn English.The mothers go too, leaving the fathers at home to pay the bills.

“I’ll be a bit lonesome, and will need to adjust. But since this is necessary for the sake of our family, for the sake of our kids, I think I’ll be able to endure it.”

The number of Koreans studying abroad has increased tenfold in just six years.The financial burden is huge – each year the country spends more than two billion dollars on overseas education. The emotional price is harder to calculate – this wild goose father has been separated from his family for seven years.

“A few days ago I got a birthday card and my family wrote on it for me and my second kid wrote, you know, ‘I love you’ – it’s the first time they wrote, I love you, I’m waiting for you, really.”

Is all the money and pressure making a difference?I visited the set of one of Korea’s most popular TV shows to see if the country’s English ability is improving.

There are more than one hundred programmes like this on Korean television.Apparently things are getting better… but proficiency is still poor. Surveys suggest Korea’s English ability is among the worst in Asia.

“We gotta have these English education skills because Japan has technology, China has population and diverse resources. Compared to them, we have little of anything. But one thing we can have is communication skill, right?”

In a generation, South Korea has transformed itself from backwater to world-beater – per capita GDP has increased two hundred fold in just half a century.The investment in education has paid rich dividends… but at what price? The hermit kingdom is so eager to reach out and embrace the world it’s losing its sense of balance.