As Handong Global University called themselves as global for years, problems about English courses have become important issues to students who have diverse opinions including Korean and international. The followings are about what is the issues and opinions of students based on the forum of the curriculum committee.
The forum named ‘Do We Have Enough English Courses?’ was held by curriculum committee of the student major council on April 5, Hyoam annex 2nd floor. The purpose of this forum is for understanding various opinions of students about the English major courses. This abnormal non-summit forum was modeled on the famous Korean entertainment show. Participants, including professor Scott Lincoln, professor George Van Bruggen, Judith Van Bruggen, and Ha Min Sang, chief from the global department of the student council, had a free discussion about the topic. This was the first official forum where students communicated and discussed about their diverse opinions regarding this issue.

100%-English courses

The topics of the forum were the problem of professors using Korean partially in 100%-English classes and the quality of the English courses. There are cases where Korean professors speaking Korean in a 100%-English class, for developing some flexibility to help Korean students understand the class contents.
About this issue, the opinions that professor’s additional explanations in Korean are inevitable, are based on the consideration of limited curriculum courses and students’ understanding, which is the purpose of the classes. To the Korean students struggling for English, the problem is about understanding of class contents that is necessary to graduate. There is also a problem with professor’s English skills, that is hard to understand to many students. In the interview for the forum one student said, “I registered my course major and I couldn’t understand professor’s English, and he only read the ppt. So many students including me dropped the class, but this course was a mandatory course, so I had to hang on until next year when new professor come.” This is related to the problem of English courses’ quality.
On the other hand, the opinions that exercise 100% to English class is more important are based on the stance of international students and Handong’s pursuit of global university. To the international students, speaking in Korean in 100% English classes might be disturbing their flow if the professor doesn’t mention about what the situation is going on. One student said at the forum, “using Korean in English class not only would interrupt understanding of international students, but also generally against the Honor Code and promise that Handong made.”

Insufficiency of English lectures

English liberal courses ratio is almost 15%, as the number of English liberal lectures are 32 of 213 total. The number of international professors including 16 DLE professors is 22, out of the total faculty 150. It is obvious that English environment is insufficient in Handong these days.
The situations are common that international students struggle to register English lectures since the university does not provide them. For the mandatory subject for graduation, they have to replace subject. “When I choose the University, whether they provide English lectures was the most important consideration, however, there were not enough English lectures so that I should change the major which has much more options for English courses” one of the international student said at the forum.

What is the way to proceed?

It is required to develop a better learning environment considering the situations of various students and to progress toward the global at the same time.
First of all, the university needs to find ways to improve English lectures and satisfy students. Some say one of the reasons of low English lecture quality is changing curriculum system that is mandatory English lecture for professors, which was option for extra pay before 2006. At all events, it is necessary to improve on existing lectures’ quality and consider both Korean and international students. One of the students said in the interview for the forum, “A good example for English course was ‘Introduction of philosophy’, which everything in class is taking English. The professor opened QnA session for students who are struggling with English. More supporting programs will be helpful for students.”
Also, in the final analysis, effort toward global is essential. Handong needs to increase the number of English courses and international professors. Professor Scott Lincoln who is one of the panels said that Handong need more English lectures percentage as Handong pursues raising up global leader, and as that is helpful to Korean students in future. Prof. Lincoln opined his thought about this topic as a column in the preceding issue. Professor George Van Bruggen said, “recruiting more international students will be win-win situation for both Korean and international students. It will affect the quality of the professors, the curriculum of English classes, or allocation of money, and help the situation to be more equal and better to global university.”

Hye Eon Kim, Guest Reporter