Yonsei KLI Experience Part III: A Second Look

I went back to Yonsei KLI and talked to some of the instructors.  Some of them are really nice people.  I then realized probably why this program has problems or struggles.  The program is very popular, and so they have numerous teachers and students, so the challenge, for the program, is class and student management, rather than focusing on the quality of the instruction and development of the program.  They can be the worst program in Korea, but nevertheless they get tons of students.  Maybe this is due to the popularity of the Yonsei name itself, being one of the top three universities in Korea.

Probably another challenge, is that many of the instructors are very limited in English.  The emphasis of the program is immersion, so there's no importance on knowing English, even though majority of their students speak this language.  If there are questions or confusions, and the students cannot ask in Korean, they need to seek help unfortunately outside the program.  If there are any criticisms to the program, the instructors are unable to understand, because of communication problems. The instructors cannot adapt or tailor the program to maximize the quality, because there's lack of feedback, and also with so many students, they focus on the status quo, just staying afloat managing the classes and sheer number of students.

Thus maybe Yonsei KLI is a victim of their success?

In general though, as a consumer, I want to choose the higher quality program, so this will be either with Sogang or a small school that uses either Yonsei's or Sogang's text books, and I'll look toward TOPIK in order measure my success or failure with the language.  I think Sogang's program is really aggressive and geared to your ability to seriously speak the language.  Yonsei's text books are perhaps really solid for grammar usage, and so their program also reflects this.

Personally, I prefer speaking and conversing even if I am light on grammar, because this generates enthusiasm and excitement for the language, which gives me energy to learn more and become more diligent in my studies, and of course to learn the grammar.  Thus a speaking oriented course (Sogang) will be a better choice for me than a grammar oriented course (Yonsei).