Last Wednesday night an hour before our class in DECALL, I have overhead a familiar issue between students' parents and among teachers or owners of English language institutes. It first started from a phone call wherein a parent calling in to complain about a native english teacher being too detailed in checking the writing work of his child eventually hurting the feelings of both parties - the child/student and the parent; although this time the complaint comes from a korean father not a mother. As the conversation went on for about 10 or 15 minutes, the teacher tried her best to stay calm and swallow all the fuzz of the parent, finally as the call comes to its end the teacher gently says goodbye as the parent ends the conversation and then both hang the phone up and the teacher drops her phone on the table irritatedly as she says "못 살아" which means "I can't live anymore" or "I want to die" or "I just can't take this anymore" in English. I wasn't really surprised on her reactions or the way she behaves after receiving that kind of call. It happens everytime in Korea that it became a way of living for teachers. I guess, even parents knew about that. And then, another teacher who was just right in front of the person who received the call also made a comment on that one too and discussed about that as they made an effort to release their stress and then left for dinner.
Actually, this kind of situation or should I call dilemma (?) is more popularly known as "치마바람" or "The Wind of the Skirt" in it's literal translation in English. This actually means that mothers in Korea have this strong kind of power or influence most especially when it comes to their children's education and so on. Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages on this but I am not going to go in detail.
Another observation that I had on that day was about the technology in Korea related to English study or education. English teachers in Korea have really this kind of high proficiency or knowledge when it comes to teaching English using multimedia and others and students are just being spoon feeded continously. The chances and tools, etc. of learning the English language nowadays has been widely spread in Korea and I wonder what more can they ask for.
Another thing that I'd like to mention in here is the thing which our professor in Methodology in Language Teaching said in the class about learning grammar and said "When studying the English grammar, not everything can be explained and not everything has it's explanation so you just need to learn how to get the "feel" to understand the English grammar".
Finally, another day has ended and after all the eardropping and curious observations I wonder, what if these things happen in my own country, will I be happy, satisfied or proud in our English education system? If these don't happen, then will I not regret and become contented as it is? What is the problem in our English education really? And why is it that nobody even really cares to stick their nose in like Korean parents? Why is it that English Filipino teachers don't try any harder for the betterment of our English studies or education? And for me like the rest of the others, should I be happy that our English teachers thought us the skill of just getting the "feel" of English grammar?

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