Collectivism and Confucianism

Collectivist considers following their group is important than self fulfillment and places high value on relationship (Kumaravdivelu, 2008). The school context is influenced by Korea’s strong collectivism which also becomes one of the barriers of Korean students to learning to speak in English.  English is a foreign language in Korea and almost all Korean do not talk to each other in English. Therefore, speaking English out- side of EFL classroom is impossible for Korean language learners to practice. If there are more than one Korean student in ESL classroom, it is hard for the language teacher to stop them talking to each other in their language. Therefore, Korean collectivistic culture affects the process of language learning and teaching.

            Interactive practices are important in language classrooms to teach students to communicate in the target language. However, students in Confucianism society just listen to teachers in class without expressing their opinions and are not comfortable with disagreeing and criticizing someone’s work.

            Confucianism was the foundation to establish institution in traditional Chinese society (Berling, 1982). Therefore, Chinese classroom set is teacher centered learning environment where student listen to what the teacher says, and memorize it. Therefore, it is hard for teachers to apply student centered approach in Chinese classroom. However, language teachers need to use student centered approach to teach speaking. Therefore, teachers can introduce the language learners the importance of speaking in order to learn to speak in the target language.    

Refervences:

Berling, J. (1982). Confucianism. Asian Religions. 2 (1), 5-7. 

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2008). Cultural globalization and language education. a study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and paradoxes. USA: YALE University.