Site Visit/Program Description

1.Itinerary

First Contact: Aug 17.

First Visit: August 23.

Second Visit: August 26.

2. Report

Site: Royal Academy

Target Teaching Level : Grade 1-9

Location: Gwangju Kyeonggido, South Korea

Headmaster: Jeon Mekyeong, Korean

Headmaster's Background: Majored in English Education,

TESOL certificate in SMWU and over 15 years' teaching experience

Placement Test & Instruction

The placement is the result of the placement test developed in the Academy. As a diagnostic test, students have to take a placement test divided into 4 areas, listening, speaking, writing, and reading. According to the result, they will be assigned in a class. Headmaster Jeon said that she thinks the right class level for the student is the most important thing. She tries very hard to put students into a right level to get proper improvement according to the placement test. The school uses "Keeping-in-the-Same-Class" system until the student acquire the required English level. After students are deployed in a class, they learn English with many materials. They are graded by their performance and regular test results after three months that is, one term. Progression is tracked in every three month with tests based on what they studied for the last three month. In accordance with the result, some students have to be kept in the same class while others move up. This school has students take another test called comprehensive test which uses official test sheets used nationally. With this comprehensive test, teachers get more objective evaluation results about their students' current level.

Instruction

The school uses every course book, grammar book, phonics book, reading book published at home and overseas. They use the way of rotation of the same level books from publisher to publisher until a student becomes knowledgeable enough to move up. Instuction and textbooks are chosen on the basis of students' current level. This method is also used to help late-learners to get used to the new materials and words, grammar rules required for a certain level. Other students in a group move up and late-learners are told to be stay to do reviews for an extra term. Most classes are taught by traditional teaching methods, direct teaching methods. To make up the disadvantages of those methods, teachers give extra assignment like surveying the topic in advance and summarizing the content after class. Around four or five times field trips with the native teachers give students some opportunities to interact in social context. Every two to three month, the school holds a "Presentation Day". From the beginning class to the advanced class, all students get together and show what they can do with English from simple self-introductions to dramas.

My Opinion

This school is a high quality education center. Teaching is likely to be affected by the societal requests. Korea is highly academic test-oriented country. Especially English ability is a major yardstick to judge a person's ability to study or work. Most private English academies are for those purposes. Even though this school is teaching grammar translation with rite memory a lot, it also tries to give more opportunities to use English in a social context. If I might have a right to change some parts, though, I would introduce cognitive and metacognitive teaching methods. As Diaz-Rico (2008) noted, "given the limited time available for in-class instruction", educators can't teach everything in class so teachers should teach them to learn how to learn. (Diaz-Rico, 2008, p. 105) One more thing is that continuous "Keeping-in-the-Same-Class" could be replaced more appropriate intervention during the term. But that this school doesn't try to get quick results is very impressive and recommendable.