Suggestions for a Successful Lifelong English Education Currently in Korea

Abstract

Lifelong English Education is the term we use for learners of any ages, usually adults, from the community, who want to improve their English skills with some personal function in mind. They can be geronti, university students, from the business sector, education, government or any other institutions of society. They come with a wide range of English proficiency levels ranging from Low Beginner to Advanced and for two to four hours per week, they spend time together learning English. The purpose of this paper is to present a recipe for a successful Lifelong English Program for any University in Korea based upon 5 year teaching experience at KNU Sangju Campus as husband and wife in a combo English-Korean class setting. From experiencing initially the serious problem of absenteeism, the content development succeeded to maintain the attendance of the students over the years and furthermore, even enlarged the classes to open up a second class per week due to the upsurge in demand from the society. The essence of the solution is in the content design which husband (Native English Speaker) and wife (Korean) made to care for widely different interests, different levels, different backgrounds, different functions in society and different goals of each student. Samples will be presented from a booklet or textbook that the two teachers developed over the years to illustrate the approach. The Future of Lifelong Education in Korea can be successful using this model as template by other teachers from other colleges or universities.