Yonsei KLI Experience Part II: Avoidence

Later when I came back in 2008 for a study-abroad in Korea, I attended Yonsei KLI.  I noticed that the program had new books with pretty pictures, but the course instruction style was pretty much unchanged.  In all these years, little has evolved in developing the class instruction.

This time, as most of the students were native English speakers, the instructors had to hold up placards in English, such as "Listen and Repeat",  in order to couch the students into doing the proper thing and  follow along in the class.  These same teachers from years ago that I met before still haven't learned any English.  I wondered about the relative competence of an instructor who is incapable of learning a foreign language. Should those that cannot learn a foreign language be teaching a foreign language?

The placement for beginning levels had numerous problems.  They had to shuffle students around  more than four times, and still some students were so extremely angry as they were in a course that was too easy or too hard.  In the class, students would have to read small simple phrases.  Everyone in the class would have to say the phrase, so while one student is speaking the phrase, others waited idly.  Students that were confused as to what to do were skipped and dismissed eventually.  The overall quality of the course was just rather lacking.  I cannot believe anyone would pay for this.  A friend of mine told me that this style was suited for instructing small children, but not for grown adults.

For my study abroad, I was able to opt out of taking Yonsei KLI courses and focus more on courses more related to my major.  I felt a loss of opportunity, to study abroad in Korea and not embrace language instruction of reasonable quality and competence.