[Opinion] Where Did the Noisy 'English Fever' Go?

When I was a professor in Japan in the 2000s, I was often asked questions about English education in Korea. Korea included English listening questions in the 1994 College Scholastic Ability Test and began teaching English in elementary schools. Japan, where reforms in English education were lagging, showed great interest in Korea's changes. Japan added English listening questions to the common university entrance exam in 2006 and introduced English education in elementary schools in 2011. Compared to this, it is no exaggeration to say that Korea has remained almost stagnant since the 1990s. The once-booming English craze has certainly subsided, and interest itself seems to have waned.

From the First Sino-Japanese War through the Japanese colonial period, the foreign languages most learned by Koreans were Japanese and English. After liberation, English took the place left by Japanese. If it was not English, all other languages were relegated to the status of a second foreign language, and as English's influence grew toward the end of the 20th century, other foreign languages became just one of many options. After the advent of the internet, English gained even faster and stronger power. It was a natural progression that Korea, which relatively early embraced the digital revolution, developed a higher interest in English. After the reforms in English education in the 1990s, a solid consensus on the importance of English was formed throughout society, driven by both international trends and individual achievement interests. English proficiency was essential for social success. The English craze was a natural outcome.

What about now? Interest in learning English has significantly decreased as the difficulty of university admission, which supported the English craze, has declined. The reason lies in demographic changes, and the fact that as many as 70% of Koreans aged 25 to 34 today are university graduates says a lot. This is the highest rate among the 38 OECD countries. As a result, the relative need to study with intense focus as before has diminished. Even in society, English is not what it used to be. The development of IT and artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years has been remarkable. Text translation is almost effortless, and when people whose native language is not English meet, it is increasingly possible to communicate in their own languages, making the era when English had to be used unconditionally gradually a thing of the past.

So, does this mean there is no longer a need to study English? The necessity of English is growing in a different sense. While AI conveniently handles simple communication, as technology advances, the need to judge whether AI provides proper answers to our requests is increasing. Paradoxically, we are entering an era where we need to read more English texts. To get the desired results, accurate questions must be input, and to judge whether AI has properly executed my question posed in Korean and whether the answer is accurate, a different kind of learning is required than before.

Rather than declaring that the era of studying English is over due to AI development, it is necessary to consider updating educational methods to fit the times. In other words, instead of complacently thinking that English or foreign language learning is no longer necessary, we should realize that it is time to embark on comprehensive reforms suited to the new environment where we must live with IT and AI. Is it too late? Korea has already responded swiftly to the digital revolution in the 1990s, so it will find the right way this time as well. The Korean proverb that "the time you think you are late is the fastest time" remains valid in this situation.

Robert Fauzer, Former Professor at Seoul National University