4. EVERYDAY ENGLISH IN KOREA

Korea is a very monolingual culture, but it is also very strong in the world economy and has learned the value of educating it’s citizens on the use of foreign languages. English has become the de facto foreign language of instruction and the man culture-carrier. In the everyday of this town, English can be seen mostly on store signs, street signs, and on automobiles. People do not really speak it at all. In Seoul, a visitor like myself will often meet store owners, people on the street, wherever, who can speak English. It’s not so here, yet English is accepted and used for it’s own purposes.

Many Korean products, if not all, have some English on them. In the stationary stores, notebooks and other paper products by the “Morning Glory” company have a lot of English, poetry, and love stories, written on them. Sometimes it’s not good English, but it’s well designed. English is a kind of art form on many articles of clothing for example.

All these things can sometimes be used as teaching material in a classroom.

I have used store names, corporation names, and car names to play hangman games, to designate team names, or group names. Text books in year two have lessons about the use of English in Korea. English is widely used.

Though I am interested in learning Korean and I study it most every day to some extend, I think I am an English speaker so I try to speak in English as much as I can. This is a really novelty for many citizens in the town and many enjoy trying to say a few words, to test their knowledge from when they were in middle school.