Recently, there has been a sharp increase of english camp programs in South Korea. English camps are now considered an efficient way of overcoming the weak points of learning English as a foreign language in Korea. The aim of this paper is to analyze ...
Recently, there has been a sharp increase of english camp programs in South Korea. English camps are now considered an efficient way of overcoming the weak points of learning English as a foreign language in Korea. The aim of this paper is to analyze the 5 day English program for elementary school students, offered by the Chungcheongbuk-do Foreign Language Institute for Students, which the researcher calls Chungbuk Elementary English camp as follows:
1. To assess participants' satisfaction with the program, teachers, and facilities.
2. To measure improvement of participants' self confidence in speaking and writing English.
3. To consider participants' opinions on how the program can be improved.
The purpose of this survey is to improve the Chungbuk Elementary English Camp program. To assess the participants' satisfaction of the program, a questionnaire survey was conducted. For this study, 268 6th grades were asked to fill out the questionnaire immediately after completing the program. The collected data was analysed with SPSS 10.0.
The results are as follows:
Firstly, participants' satisfaction was high. The participants showed a high satisfaction with the fun oriented classes such as Movie, and Sports & Entertainment. The participants showed a low satisfaction with journal writing i.e. less preference with the writing activity.
Secondly, The participants wanted to have more opportunities to talk with native teachers.
Thirdly, the participants' self confidence in speaking and listening to English increased sharply after the program. Most participants admitted the 5 day program was effective in learning English.
Fourthly, though the participants' satisfaction of the program was very high, it is necessary to evaluate the quality of each class. Although participants showed high satisfaction for the fun oriented classes like Game Room or Sports & Entertainment, this did not mean that the quality of the class was high. High satisfaction results did not necessarily mean the teaching method was of a high quality.
Fifthly, some participants felt stressed with the English only policy. They had difficulty because they did not understand what the native teachers said and they could not express themselves in English. Chungbuk Elementary English Camp needs to implement procedures to reduce student anxiety. All teachers could assist them by giving positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement.
Based on the results, the following suggestions can be made.
Although the participants indicated they would study English more after the camp, a specific investigation after the program would identify more accurately whether the participants' do spend more time learning English.
Secondly, after the 5 day program, it would be useful to find out how many participants had studied at the Chungbuk Elementary English Camp instead of studying abroad. This would enable us to identify if Chungbuk Elementary English Camp experience was really helpful as a replacement to studying overseas.
Chungbuk Elementary English Camp should offer its participants more and better opportunities to enable them to improve their language skills. It needs to develop various methods to help students to learn English more naturally, therefore, the camp needs to create a methodological environment to help participants speak English more actively.